The pandemic has left Trump floundering – so why have his ratings gone up?
Just a few weeks ago, I was confident that Donald Trump’s days in the White House were numbered. The economy was tanking; coronavirus cases were soaring. And what was the president doing? Calling the coronavirus a “hoax” and mindlessly tweeting. On the same day, the Dow Jones plunged more than 2,000 points and Trump cheerfully retweeted a doctored photo of him playing a violin, remarking: “Who knows what this means, but it sounds good to me!” “Nero” immediately started trending.
Trump may be fiddling while the world burns, but, over the past week, he has sharply changed his tune. The guy who recently assured us that Covid-19 would “like a miracle … disappear” now insists that, actually, he knew it was “a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic”. Having realised he can’t just bluster coronavirus away, Trump has rewritten the past, adopted a newly sombre tone and reinvented himself as a “wartime” president. Last Monday, Trump finally admitted the gravity of the situation and announced a 15-day plan to “slow the spread” of the virus.
Trump’s new pandemic persona has been playing well. Last Tuesday, CNN’s chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, lavished praise on the president. “He is being the kind of leader that people need,” Bash told viewers, “in a tone that people need and want and yearn for in times of crisis and uncertainty.” The public seems to agree. A poll released on Friday by ABC News and Ipsos found that 55% of Americans approve of the way Trump is handling the Covid-19 crisis. That is a 12% increase from a poll taken on 11-12 March. A Morning Consult poll conducted from Tuesday to Friday last week similarly found that 53% of Americans approve of the way he has dealt with the pandemic.
Trump has managed to turn himself from Nero to hero in a week. This is incredible, when you consider the fact that he has not done anything substantial; he has just acknowledged that Covid-19 may be more serious than the
flu after all. But that is the beauty of setting an incredibly low bar for yourself; it is easy to fail upwards.
Alas, it seems as if a week of halfheartedly listening to global health experts has proved too much for Trump. On Sunday night, clearly frustrated that the stock market keeps diving, he tweeted: “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.” In a press conference on Monday, he announced that the US will be open for business soon, and seemed to reject the idea that restrictive public health measures would continue for months. What does that mean exactly? Who knows. The only thing that is clear at the moment is that Trump cares more about the health of the stock market than the health of Americans.
It is easy to dump on Trump, but it is not like the Democrats have inspired much confidence during this crisis either. Nancy Pelosi, the house speaker, recently shot down an idea to send cheques to every American because she wanted to means-test the payments; not exactly a way to win hearts and minds. Meanwhile, Joe Biden, the presumptive presidential nominee, was missing in action for most of last week; his absence caused #WhereIsJoe to trend on Twitter and sparked conspiracy theories that the 77-yearold is ill. A source told ABC that Biden desperately wanted to be in daily contact with Americans, but was facing a few logistical challenges to video briefings; the ceilings in his home were low, you see, making lighting a challenge.
If Biden can’t figure out a home studio, I don’t know how he is going to solve a global health crisis. Unless coronavirus kills us all first, it seems highly likely that we have another four years of Trump to look forward to.
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist