On May 17th in “The Science of why people like round numbers means that 100,000 Covid-19 deaths in US should resonate” I wrote:
It is inevitable that with the Covid-19 death count which is about to hit 90,000 that before too long it will hit 100,000. This will be a milestone (noting that a mile at 5280 feet is not a round number, thought it originated from the Roman mille passus, or “thousand paces,” which measured 5,000 Roman feet) because there is a human proclivity to like, or in this case to hate, round numbers.
I went on to write:
When the headlines read 90,000 die of Covid-19 probably in the next day or two I wonder how Trump will try to spin this. Will blaming it on Barack Obama work, or attempting to deflect to some inane and insane Obamagate conspiracy allegation be effective? Who knows? It will no doubt work with some….
Trump, who likens himself to Lincoln and who had the audacity to be interviewed inside the Lincoln Memorial, has not called for a national day of mourning. Will it take 100,000 deaths for him to do this?
100,000 is the round number he has to begin to plan for because he’d already have played all the cards in his deck, or used all the tools in his toolbox (select your own metaphor) when even if Fox News ignore it the story will be breaking news everywhere else. It will prompt magazine covers and of more concern to Trump across the page newspaper headlines in local papers in areas where he is popular.
Trump, if he bothers to look at it, can’t feel sanguine about the May 16th numbers on the CDC website because, after all 90,000 is a number bit it isn't the big enchilada (Mexican metaphor used on purpose) of round numbers which is coming soon.
So what does Trump do on Memorial Day weekend when the death count is close enough to 100,000 that anyone with any sense knows the number will be headline news? He plops his morbidly obese frame into a black, presumably heavily armored and Covid-19 resistant, vehicle and heads to one of his golf clubs in a motorcade that apparently is his version of a patriotic Memorial Day parade.
Of course he is playing the blame and distraction games too, however on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, Trump decided to exercise his God-given right to prove what a malignant narcissist and manly man he is and provoke the media to write stories like “Trump tees up controversy as he plays golf in a pandemic — President visits own golf club in Virginia as US coronavirus death toll approaches 100,000” in the Guardian, “Trump Golfs While More Americans Die — While the U.S. pandemic death toll approaches 100,000, the president left the White House for one of his personal golf courses” from Rolling Stone, and from CNN (right) “Trump golfs at his Virginia club amid the coronavirus pandemic.”
I admit I like to think I am something of an expert on Trump’s dangerous psychopathology (see TRUMPOLOGY: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY AND ANALYSIS OF DONALD TRUMP) and hence should be reasonably adept at anticipating what he’s going to do when he’s under stress. However, I have to admit that while the golf outing doesn’t surprise me, I don’t know I would have predicted he’d do this.
He relishes provoking the hostility of the press. He gets a rush out of it. In person he particularly takes a perverse pleasure out of insulting female reporters.
When I think about it now I wish someone had challenged my clinical Trumpian psychopathology acumen and asked me what I thought Trump would do to stick it to his critics over Memorial Day weekend. I don't know if I would have said “he play golf” but I like to think I would.
After all, many of the people I’ve seen interviewed who are out and about in parks and on beaches not wearing masks or staying six feet apart are mouthing Trump’s rhetoric about their constitutional rights to… whatever… be idiots?
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What’s the term for when a golfer messes up a shot (or whatever it’s called)? Update: I looked it up. He shanked a shot, and may take a mulligan (do-over). Of course we all know Trump cheats at golf. Whatever it is, Trump hopefully just did it with this decision. The Biden campaign proved that it could be nimble and managed, thanks to Trump, to relegate the unfortunate joke about black people who vote for Trump into last week’s news. They already have an ad about Trump playing golf on Memorial Day weekend.
Update: This image took more skill to make than I have:
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