When I watched Trump’s first comments downplaying, if not dismissing, the coronavirus, I couldn’t help but remember then president George Bush peering down from Air Force 1 on the hurricane devastated city of New Orleans. That optic sent Bush’s popularity plummeting not only because of his seeming indifference and detachment. It also suggested an incompetence in the face of a human crisis of extraordinary proportions.
The same is on display in Trump’s gross (mis)handling of the coronavirus and it could undo him. Time will tell. But, of course, the much larger issue is to what degree will his incompetence, ignorance, and lying exact needless suffering and death from people here as well as worldwide.
