By MARSHA MERCER
As the COVID-19 death toll neared and surpassed
100,000, President Donald Trump used his Twitter pulpit to sow fear, distrust
and discord.
He even took after Fox News, calling some on-air
personalities “garbage.”
Fox is “doing nothing to help Republicans, and me, get
re-elected on November 3rd,” Trump complained in a tweet May 21.
Poor Donald. Then, a new Fox nationwide poll found former
Vice President Joe Biden, the putative Democratic presidential nominee, leading
Trump by 8 points, well above the 3-point margin of error and a healthy jump
from a month earlier when the Fox poll showed a tie.
Such numbers explain Trump’s desperate rush to reopen
the economy, even though he acknowledges it will cost lives. COVID-19, the
disease caused by the novel coronavirus, most severely affects the elderly, the
poor and people of color. The states hit hardest tend to vote Democratic.
After nearly four years in office, Trump still claims
to be an outsider and a victim – of “fake news,” of former president Barack
Obama, of Democrats, and of the social media he himself manipulates so
skillfully.
It didn’t have to be this way.
Trump believes he cannot win reelection without a
bustling economy and strong stock market, but he should not present a false
choice between public health and the economy.
He just as easily could wear a mask and urge his 80.3
million Twitter followers to do so and keep social distance, as medical experts
recommend.
He could lead national testing and contact tracing programs.
He could urge states to follow the guidelines his own administration issued for
a safe reopening of the economy, even if it takes more time.
Instead, motivated by self-interest, he ridicules
Biden for wearing a face mask and bullies governors who move cautiously to
reopen.
“They would rather see our country fail,” Trump says
of Democrats. And, if the reopening fails, we know he’ll blame the Democrats.
But the virus doesn’t know red from blue. The virus
doesn’t care if you have the luxury of working from home or must risk your life
in a store or restaurant.
More than 40 million people have filed for
unemployment benefits in the pandemic, and many small businesses may not
survive.
Now Trump wants a Fourth
of July celebration on the National Mall. He threatens to move the Republican
National Convention from Charlotte unless North Carolina’s Democratic governor quickly
promises to allow “full attendance at the Arena.”
To distract from harsh reality, Trump accuses Obama of
unsubstantiated, unspecific crimes and even treason and Biden of, well,
everything. Obama has indirectly criticized Trump’s leadership; Biden called
Trump a “fool.”
In recent days Trump isolated himself from his usual
allies by suggesting – without a shred of evidence – that a prominent critic, MSNBC
“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough, committed murder.
In 2001, when Scarborough was a Republican House
member in Washington, a young female aide in his Florida office died. Authorities
investigated the death of Lori Klausutis at the time and found she had an
undiagnosed heart condition and fell, hit her head and died. Her body was found
the next morning.
On Twitter, Trump has urged authorities to reopen the
“Cold Case.” Her widower begged Trump and Twitter to remove Trump’s tweets, but
they refused.
This time, Trump’s baseless attacks prompted a rare backlash
from conservative media, including the New York Post – “Trust us, you did not
look like the bigger man.” The Washington Examiner called the claims “vile.”
And my personal favorite, from The Wall Street
Journal: “ugly even for him.”
“It’s a smear,” a Journal editorialist wrote. “Mr. Trump is debasing is office, and he’s hurting
the country in doing so.”
A
few congressional Republicans also spoke up. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, chair
of the House Republican Conference, urged Trump to stop tweeting about
Scarborough.
Rep.
Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, tweeted that Trump’s Scarborough tweets
were a “completely unfounded conspiracy. Just stop. Stop spreading it. Stop
creating paranoia. It will destroy us.”
Twitter
fact-checkers tagged two other Trump tweets as “unsubstantial claims” after he
said, again without proof, that mail-in voting would be “substantially
fraudulent.”
Trump
is on the warpath against social media, which he and conservatives have long claimed
stifle conservative speech.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus is still here and likely to
stay around. Even if a vaccine is developed, it could take years to control the
virus worldwide, if ever.
Our lives must and will change. Trump’s misleading tweets
won’t stop that.
©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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