Articles on progressive websites about Donald Trump testing positive for the coronavirus are filled with comments of brutal mockery and schadenfreude: “Karma!” “I really don’t care, do you?” “It is what it is.” “I hope he has a really bad case of it and ends up on a ventilator.” Some people are even openly wishing for his death.
There are three reasons not to talk this way, and certainly not to hope for the president to die from the virus:
1. It makes Democrats look like assholes. Don’t help Republicans gain a sympathy vote because our side hates the president so much that we can’t restrain ourselves from expressions of glee when he gets sick with a terrible plague.
2. It is spiritually dangerous to take pleasure in the suffering of others. All the great religions teach compassion and ask us to refrain from the enjoyment of wrath. If Trump gets sick with Covid-19, it might be God’s will or the karma he deserves for downplaying the pandemic, but we should try not to feel happy about this. Trump might have to learn a lesson the Universe wants to teach him the hard way, because he was too stupid or arrogant to learn it the easy way by listening to scientists. That is a sad thing, not something to celebrate. I pity Trump; he is a deeply broken man, and I think that one way or another, he is going to reap a karmic whirlwind of his own making that is almost unimaginable in its intensity. Hell may be real and necessary, but I take no pleasure in seeing souls descend into it.
3. It would be better for America if Trump is soundly defeated at the ballot box in an election untainted by a last-minute sickness, death, or resignation. What needs to happen, for the healing of our society, is for Trump to lose big in the election, without any excuses such as that he couldn’t campaign because of lying in a hospital bed with Covid for the last month before the election. Even worse would be if Trump dies or resigns due to illness, and never has to face defeat by the voters at all. America needs to have the opportunity to vote him out, convincingly and without complications, and prove that we as a people have decided that Trump’s kind of politics is not what we want for our country.
So, for all of these reasons, I will say that I hope that Donald Trump’s coronavirus symptoms are mild and that he can return to the campaign trail as soon as possible — perhaps somewhat chastened, wearing a mask, and being a little bit less of an asshole, but losing the election anyway. May it be so.
