Trump’s revealing Twitter-mugging of Sweden

President Donald Trump commits a Twitter mugging several times a day. One of his recent victims was peculiar and revealing. Trump Twitter-mugged the country of Sweden.

Sweden has generally eschewed mandatory lockdowns as a COVID-19 strategy. Schools and businesses generally have remained open. The government issued strong social distancing guidelines, but not stay-at-home orders.

According to Trump, this has been a colossal failure. “Despite reports to the contrary, Sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown,” he tweeted. He then goes on to compare COVID-19 deaths in Sweden unfavorably with those in Norway, Finland and Denmark. The triumphant conclusion: “The United States made the correct decision!”

It’s premature to conclude whether Sweden’s approach was preferable to lockdowns. The course of this disease is far from complete.

The Swedish hospital system hasn’t been overrun with COVID-19 patients. Obviously, its economy hasn’t been hit as hard as the lockdown countries, although social distancing has put it in a slump. If there is a second wave, it is unlikely to be as big in Sweden as in the lockdown countries. And its economy should be better positioned to recover if the disease peters out or effective therapeutics and vaccines are developed.

Half of Sweden’s coronavirus deaths have come from nursing homes, where the country did impose a lockdown. Whether this is a failure of nursing home related precautions or an inevitable byproduct of the strategy of eschewing a general lockdown is uncertain.

But here is the peculiar part of Trump’s Twitter-mugging of Sweden. On a per-capita basis, the United States also has COVID-19 death rates far above those of Norway, Finland and Denmark. On that measure, the United States is far closer to Sweden than to those other countries. If that is the measurement by which the Swedish approach is to be deemed a failure, then so is the approach taken by the United States.

Deaths in the United States are also disproportionately coming from nursing homes. Our COVID-19 fatality profile closely resembles that of Sweden. But the economic devastation from attempts to contain the disease is much worse here than in Sweden, so far.

So, why did Trump feel the need to go on Twitter and dump on Sweden? Some conservative commentators have cited the Swedish approach favorably as an alternative to the shutdown and lockdown strategies most states here have adopted, to some degree or another. And Trump apparently took that as a personal criticism. Because, of course, everything is all about him, all the time.

But here is the part that is both peculiar and revealing: Trump never actually advocated a shutdown and lockdown strategy for the United States. What has been issued by the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention has been guidance: Practice social distancing. Avoid crowds. Wash your hands until they are chapped and raw. Don’t wear a mask. Oops, do wear one.

The decisions to initiate shutdowns and lockdowns were made mostly by governors and to a lesser extent county and municipal officials. The closest Trump has ever come to embracing or endorsing these decisions is in the Twitter-mugging of Sweden.

In other contexts, he has been all over the map regarding what the states have done. When protests against the lockdowns began to erupt, he tweeted support, saying to “LIBERATE” three states with Democratic governors: Minnesota,

Michigan and Virginia.

Then, when the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, moved aggressively to open his state back up, Trump criticized him for moving ahead of CDC guidelines for doing so. Of course, Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia hadn’t hit the CDC criteria when Trump tweeted out his call for them to be liberated.

So, why criticize Kemp for doing in Georgia what Trump had advocated be done in Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia? A cynic might think it has something to do with Kemp not appointing Trump’s preferred candidate to a vacant U.S. Senate seat.

Trump doesn’t really support the CDC guidelines, which would leave the country locked up until opening up has no rebound effect. Which won’t be until there are breakthroughs on therapeutics and vaccines.

Trump wants the economy opened up sooner than that. And states, even blue ones, are doing it.

But this isn’t the result of presidential leadership. In significant respects, Trump has been a bystander as the country felt its way along in the management of this disease.

Except on Twitter. On Twitter, Trump always lurks.