Trump’s Biggest Gamble
(Door Hugo Kijne te Hoboken USA)
On September 3rd The Atlantic published an article revealing that Trump had called US marines who died in France in WWI ‘losers’ and American veterans ‘suckers.’ We have since learned that already in February the president told Bob Woodward that COVID is a serious threat, although he kept playing it down for months. Then we found out that most of the last twenty years Trump didn’t pay taxes, and during each of his first two years in the White House paid exactly $750, and finally the president called upon white supremacists to ‘stand by’ during his first debate with Joe Biden. There were enough scandals in one month to fill a whole presidency, but last week the president tested positive for COVID and most of those scandals now seem to have been forgotten. At a presser Trump’s physician initially said that his patient tested positive on Wednesday September 30th, but he had to make that 36 hours later because on that day the president traveled to Minnesota for a rally and the next day to New Jersey for a fundraiser. From Trump’s being fatigued after the rally and lethargic at the fundraiser observers derive that he had already been infected then.
The announcement was the beginning of a shadow play during which the president’s doctors gradually lost all credibility. On Friday October 2nd it became clear that Trump had been given oxygen at least twice and was being treated with a mix of antiviral drugs – including a steroid – that no other patient has ever been treated with. That evening he was transported to Walter Reed hospital where on Sunday a video was produced with the president saying that he was feeling much better, although his coughing had clearly been edited out. Sunday evening he went on a joy ride to great well wishers outside the hospital, exposing two secret service agents to his COVID droplets, and Monday morning Trump defecated with a tweetstorm of propaganda, after which he apparently demanded to be released. His doctors, whose Commander in Chief he is, complied, again giving a presser where information about the president’s condition was completely obfuscated, except for the statement that he’s not out of the woods yet. Trump seems to think differently, because upon his arrival at the White House he announced that he would soon be back on the campaign trail.
As things stand now, nobody knows exactly how the president is doing. A Tuesday statement from his doctors says that he has ‘not reported any symptoms,’ but taking Trump’s word for anything is dimwitted, to put it mildly. According to Dr. Vin Gupta, a pulmonary critical care physician, the cocktail of medications Trump consumes can only point at COVID pneumonia, which comes with debris in the lungs and difficulty breathing, something the president was clearly experiencing upon his return from Walter Reed. Many patients show improvement after two or three days of treatment but relapse later, so Trump’s critical time is still coming. He should be lying low, but cannot as his re-election chances slip away.
It’s obvious how the president will be campaigning from now on. He’ll say that COVID is a bitch but he has shown that it can be beaten, so there is no reason for the masks, the lockdowns, the quarantining and the contact tracing. All that one needs is a helicopter and immediate access to the best healthcare in the world. In a video that was shot after he came back to the petri dish that the White House has become Trump urged Americans not be ‘dominated by the virus and not to be afraid of it.’ That message alone will kill thousands who don’t have access to experimental medications and Marine One, but as always the president only cares about himself.
People who have experience with steroid treatments know that they can cause manic episodes that make patients believe they’re brilliant and create heavy mood swings, while they also temporarily make them feel physically stronger. In his tweets and statements Trump is clearly displaying these symptoms, and his decision to stop negotiating further COVID relief has all the trademarks. Even if his lungs turn out to be healthy he’ll come crashing down from his steroid high at some point and there is no telling how hard he’ll fall. The nuclear codes should have been removed by then.
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