Superspreader event a casket of deplorables
It was the worst of times, and even worse than that. It was a night to remember: a triumph of hope over experience, and of ideology over facts. It was the White House Election Night superspreader event, where Donald Trump learned he had lost the presidency and the core of the Republican party handed each other COVID-19 along with potato chips and wine.
So far, almost 40 people who were there have contracted the virus. We can learn from this.
To centre yourself, consider the worst party you ever attended. Since you’re still here, it obviously didn’t kill you. Yes, there were drunk uncles, the head table collapsed and what the groom said froze the room, but you’re home safe now and sighing “never again” as you climb into bed.
The same cannot be said of the night of Nov. 3, which was so risky it can’t even be deplored in retrospect. It was deplorable at the time in the crowded East Room, and everyone on the guest list — cut to 250 from 400 — must have known that at some level.
I only add “at some level” because the definition of capitalism is self-interest, so these hardline Trumpets defied capitalism which seems … not their thing. Maybe they thought those who fell ill after the first superspreader Rose Garden event on Sept. 26 — including Trump himself — were still upright, so they showed up for a touch of coronavirus, a taste.
Every time I consider going out shopping, I ask “Will I die for this free-range chicken/floor paint/Roots Canada beaver stuffie?” What a dreary person I am. But you know, alive and well.
“Do I want to die to impress my boss?” Trumpets asked themselves. See, I would have lied and said the baby has myxomatosis. Yes, drooping ears and skin nodules.
The latest guests to fall ill are notorious campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski, Republican lobbyist Jeff Miller, chief of staff Mark Meadows, housing secretary Ben Carson, Trump adviser David Bossie, political affairs director Brian Jack and more.
I recall Lewandowski in particular because in March 2016, he was filmed forcefully grabbing a Breitbart reporter, Michelle Fields, although he had denied touching her, called her “delusional” and said they had never met.
In those days, I was shocked to see a campaign thug assault a woman; we weren’t to know that civilized behaviour would crumble. We had never heard of Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, the city where Lewandowski claims, based on nothing, that he was infected.
“I feel great,” Lewandowski told CNBC. Trumpets always say that, using what theorist Eric Hoffer called “factproof screens between the faithful and the realities of the world.” They’re symptomless, in “good spirits.” Until they’re not, as COVID-19 can flip on a switch.
Trumpets try to keep their diagnosis a secret, don’t track and trace, and think of the virus as flu-like — the death of ex-presidential-candidate-hopeful Herman Cain notwithstanding. These men think illness is weakness, ergo 241,000 dead Americans were weak, mere suckers and losers like soldiers in Arlington National Cemetery.
You can see Trump speaking to a slab of people that night, most of them men, packed into rows and almost no one masked.
The cognitive dissonance of being ill with a virus killing millions around the planet and being a hard-right, individualist, bootstrapping American who deplores public health insurance must jar the brain.
It’s rough when life slaps you with facts. You don’t need health care until you fall ill. You condemn the poor until you lose your own home and job. “But there’s things that’ll knock you down you don’t even see coming, and send you crawling like a baby back home,” sang Springsteen. Coronavirus is that thing.
The odd thing is that Trump’s staff are ideologues, yet Trump isn’t. He’s just a sociopath. He didn’t deliberately infect 30,000 Americans at his packed rallies; he was simply indifferent.
That’s my difficulty with Trumpets. There’s something about gasping for breath, exhaustion, fever and terror that concentrates the mind wonderfully. It turns political beliefs into crumbs. It makes a human grateful for mercy and help.
I’m not saying stricken Republicans won’t ever feel this, but they’ll resist it unto the very end.
It’s rough when life slaps you with facts. You don’t need health care until you fall ill. You condemn the poor until you lose your own home and job