I know: Right now, the priority is to limit the damage, mitigate the suffering coming down on all of us. But at some point, there should be a reckoning, and it would help to bear in mind that the Trump Administration’s response to COVID-19 has not necessarily been a bumbling study in incompetence. The thing about people like Trump is, they skate the fine line between incompetence and malice like Olympic gold medalists. Republicans already use this to excuse Trump’s criminality (the, “He’s too stupid to know what he’s doing is illegal” defense). So, sure, the Trump Administration is incompetent. But they’re also malicious, and their motivations are invariably and purely selfish.
COVID-19 will undoubtedly suppress the Democratic vote far more than it suppresses Trump’s base. Democrats and independents are far more likely to take the threat seriously, and decide they might sit the next election out. The worse it gets, the more people might think of their and their families’ immediate safety, and decide not to risk it by going out to vote. When panic sets in, rationality tends to go out the window.
Unless you’re Trump’s base, where rationality was never really in the picture. No, they could watch their own family die, and still live in denial of the virus as a threat. Because Trump said it was no big deal. The flu is worse, and we have the flu every year. Blah blah blah. Then they’ll rush to the voting booth to stop teh librulz from politicizing the virus to attack Trump or whatever.
Trump knows this. So do the rest of the Republicans officials. And that, IMHO, is why they’re doing so very little, so very badly. There is no bottom, folks. The thought of a seven-figure death toll does not make them blink. However, the thought of a Democratic Administration who will halt their agenda, and who might bring justice to the crooks, is intolerable. COVID-19, therefore, is a net-plus for them. All they have to do is what they’ve done all along: half-ass the governance and full-speed on the plundering, while Trump continues to pull from his droopy orange ass whatever fantasy best suits his mood.
Now, I can’t really say all this with 100% certainty. I have no tangible, direct evidence they are deliberately making the pandemic worse for political and personal gain. And I understand how a lot of people see Trump and his ilk as dangerous buffoons - emphasis on the buffoons. If we can laugh at their incompetence, they’re less scary. But they’re not buffoons. They’re evil. I have no trouble accepting the idea they’re willing to weaponize a virus to keep the gravy train going. Because there is no bottom.
So, if there is no bottom, and a nationwide worldwide catastrophe will help them retain power, then I can’t assume this is all the unintended result of incompetence. Maybe I’m wrong. Either way, I am proceeding on the premise that this is not incompetence. It’s deliberate. In the coming months, I hope I’m proven wrong. But I doubt I will be.