Last night I watched Mike Pence condescend to Kamala Harris, lying, scoffing, and shaking his head. His mansplaining tone was familiar to most women: “Why are you so hysterical? Look at how calm and rational I am!” The person adopting this veneer doesn’t have to actually be rational, of course. This condescension usually hides seething rage and contempt.
It’s the same thing Donald Trump is doing with the coronavirus: pretending to be calm, gaslighting us all about our panic, about how the virus is controlling our lives. That might seem a strange assertion given his manic tweet storm about abortion clinics, space force, and Democrat conspiracies. But as any woman who’s ever dealt with an angry man can tell you, fake calmness, manic ranting, and hostility often appear in short order.
Trump is the prototypical abuser, gaslighting us all about the virus that has killed 210,000. He thinks his quality care is available to all Americans—or, at least, wants us to believe he thinks that. If Trump were anyone else in the world, his COVID treatment would be much different.
There’s the obvious: that at a time when Americans had to say goodbye to dying loved ones via video as those loved ones gasped for air alone, Trump was allowed as many visitors as he desired, a joy ride that threatened the lives of Secret Service agents, and attentive 24/7 care from a dedicated team rather than rushed, haphazard treatment from overworked providers.
Trump’s treatment advantage—indeed, the advantage of anyone who is rich and powerful—extends well beyond the immediate crisis of the coronavirus, though. A 2020 study found that wealthy men enjoy 31 more years of disability-free life. Better medical care plays a huge role in a country where medicine exists for profit and people can buy their way into better treatment.
This profit incentive has left our healthcare system crumbling. Medical errors are the third-leading cause of death in the United States. Forty-one percent of Americans have medical debt. Doctors give patients an average of 11 seconds to explain their symptoms and concerns before cutting them off. Trump and his ilk will never worry about these issues. Their care is free, and they are the center of their providers’ worlds.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are left fending for ourselves as our president discounts the deaths of 210,000 human beings, lobbies to make medical care less accessible, and promotes an anti-choice agenda that would force women to die giving birth to their rapist’s babies.
If Trump were Black, he would walk into the hospital with a 50 percent chance of encountering a medical resident who endorses racist myths, such as that Black people feel less pain. He would get less pain medication. He would wait longer for care. He would be more likely to be misdiagnosed, to experience delays in diagnosis, or to get the wrong treatment.
If Trump were a woman, his doctors would be significantly more likely to dismiss him as hysterical and ignore his pain altogether. He might find that his life-threatening symptoms were dismissed as signs of mental illness.
If Trump were any of us, he would face significant economic costs because of COVID. Sixty percent of employer-backed insurance plans have not waived COVID treatment costs. This could mean thousands of dollars in debt for insured people. The uninsured would average $75,000 in medical costs of hospitalized. And of course, many Americans might choose not to seek treatment at all, or to delay until the last minute because of financial concerns.
Trump as an average person would face pressure to return to work as quickly as possible. Twenty-four percent of workers have no paid sick leave, which means they lose money for each day of costly COVID treatment. Sixty-eight percent of workers have a limited number of sick days—an average of just 8, which is fewer than most need to recover from COVID. Their pay may be docked if they take more, or they could face discipline and termination.
Almost all states in the United States use at-will employment, which means employers can fire a person for any non-discriminatory reason at all, including illness, extended absences, or just not liking them. As the economy tightens, more companies may be eager to cut costs by cutting payroll and firing workers.
It’s unclear whether Donald Trump has actually recovered from COVID, or if he’s just manic on steroids. But assuming he has, he’ll do what he always does: assume that his experience is representative, and ignore the real needs, lives, and deaths of people who lack the resources he benefits from. His recovery demonstrates that the wealthy and powerful occupy a different world and a different healthcare system from the rest of us. Rather than showing that we should not worry about the virus, it is a compelling argument for sweeping change.