Trump tests positive for COVID and undergoes experimental treatment, and America gets to see a humbled, grateful side of a man who’s terrified to die. While some wish him well, others say he brought it on himself. Lies from all sides, and the timeline just doesn’t add up.
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Since Trump officially announced he had tested positive for the coronavirus, so many conspiracy theories have emerged. Some are more credible than others, like thinking this announcement was the “October surprise,“ and it was fabricated to increase Trump’s popularity and approval rating through sympathy. It worked for Boris in England after all. Others believe he’s using it to gracefully bow out of the presidential race he knows he is losing.
One thing is for certain, whatever they’re telling us, it is not the truth. This administration has consistently and pathologically lied for the past 4+ years. What makes you think they are not lying about this?
They even got their doctor to lie about when and if Trump was receiving extra oxygen. The doctor backpedaled after the chief of staff said how bad Trump was really doing because he wanted to keep things “upbeat.” Dr. Conley avoided questions on the subject, so yesterday the White House Physician tried to explain, “I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction.” Seriously? How would anything he say “steer the course of the illness”?
He now says Trump is improving, but again… What’s to say they’re not still lying?
In an effort to show that Trump was improving, he recorded a relatively short video on Saturday afternoon, as well as posed for some photo ops of him signing papers. The EXIF meta-data shows these photos were taken 10 minutes apart, but they were meant, releasing them on Twitter at different points throughout the day, to depict hours of work governing. One shows him with his suit jacket on at one table, and another shows him with a suit jacket folded over a chair in another room at a different table.
And the lies continue…
Although, I did have a few hours of struggle Saturday evening after watching Trump’s video in which he appears to be a human being capable of gratitude and humility. He must be terrified of dying in the next couple of days to have shown such decency and kindness and gratitude to the American people in particular. He did not look well, but in a way looks better than he normally did because he was humbled and not arrogant. He was not overly made up. He looked like someone deserving of our empathy and well wishes.
However, it took me reading only one page of Cohen’s “Disloyal“ to be reminded once again of this sociopath’s true nature. He has consistently lied, damaged our democracy, encouraged white supremacy, and put the American people in danger—and he has done so with repugnant arrogance, delusions of grandeur, and without empathy or decency.
In his video, Trump mentions how touched he has been by the outpouring of love by a virtual bipartisan populous. I’ve seen many on the left of the political spectrum wish him well and others wish him ill. Some say he’s a human being and deserves our kindness and others say we shouldn’t “stoop to his level” by exalting in his illness, and some have even gone as far to say Biden should suspend his campaign and stop ads. Seriously.
Still others say he is a sociopath who got what’s coming to him. Other than the couple of hours after his video, I am part of the latter group. He brought this on himself, just as he has brought this on likely 3/4 of the people infected and those who have died from this terrible virus through his constant downplaying, dismissing, and outright apathy for its horrific effects.
Rachel Maddow, who I truly respect under most circumstances said that blaming Trump is like blaming your best friend who developed lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking, fully knowing the dangers of smoking.
But no, it’s not. As one Tweeter named Chris Ibanez pointed out, a better analogy is “your friend who’s the CEO of a tobacco company getting lung cancer after intentionally hiding the risks of smoking from the public for their own personal profit.”
210,000 Americans are dead because of him, and I cannot repeat that enough. So many of those people died alone, scared, and slowly suffocating to death. The last person they saw was a nurse covered in PPE and perhaps holding a phone or iPad up so they could say goodbye to their loved ones from afar. Others died at home because they were denied entrance to already overcrowded hospitals, and still others could not afford any healthcare whatsoever. In the meantime, this man who perpetuated the spread of this insidious virus gets cutting edge treatment.
Other rich, white men who Trump socialized with during a $50k-a-plate fundraiser *after* he knew he was infected last Wednesday, are checking themselves in the hospital in an “Abundance of Caution” … well because they’re rich, powerful, and they can while the poor and middle-class die alone.
Although Trump didn’t officially announce his diagnosis until last last Thursday, October 1st/early morning October 2nd on East Coast time, more information has come out that shows a different Timeline. He might’ve known as early as Monday, going to the debate Tuesday night, but as his Doctor said, he was tested Wednesday morning (Sept 30th) and the results came back positive. He still traveled to Minnesota for that $50k a plate fundraiser with no mask in a room full of his supporters with no masks. Hope Hicks, Trump’s PR executive and senior political advisor, felt ill that evening on Air Force One, and she was diagnosed with COVID Thursday morning, October 1st. . .
Even before he announced it to the country, Trump was already under experimental treatment on Thursday. A day and a half after the confirmation he was infected, and three or four days after he started feeling sick (if he didn’t already know he was infected on Monday, September 28th).
Trump then suggested it was the US Military who might be responsible for making his staffer Hope Hicks sick, you know those “losers” Trump likes to mock for not having the smarts to stay alive during wars. Republicans thought it was a plot by Democrats since Biden tested negative (I kid you not).
But…let us be reminded of how Trump dealt with COVID over past 9 months:
Feb: “This is like the flu”
Mike Dorsey’s Tweet
Mar: “I’m not concerned at all”
Apr: “light at the end of the tunnel”
May: “we have prevailed”
Jun: “It’s going away”
Jul: “we are in a good place”
Aug: “it is what it is”
Sep: “we have rounded the final turn”
Oct: OMG IT’S THE PLAGUE!
The best thing that could happen for this country and our democracy is if he dies from this, although that would likely make him a martyr and everyone would forget the concentration camps on the border, the children in cages, the rise of white supremacy, the pathological lying, the assault to our democracy, and the complete disregard of our constitution. Still, this diagnosis has given me the first sliver of hope for our country in a long, long while. Maybe I won’t have to leave the country after all.
I suppose we’ll all know in another few days.
SOURCES
CNN: Trump Furious with Chief of Staff
Axios: White House physician says Trump is improving, admits he was on oxygen Friday
NBC: Some who toasted Trump at high-dollar event now seeking coronavirus tests
NBC: Doctors say Trump on steroid therapy, health improving after brief ‘episodes’
LA Times: New questions emerge about timing and severity of President Trump’s coronavirus infection
Business Insider: Trump suggested US troops or police were to blame for infecting White House staff just before he tested positive for COVID-19
NYT: SNL Season Premiere, Carrey as Biden
Hollywood Reporter: Carrey and Baldwin Go Head to Head in Debate on SNL
Axios: Biden tells Governors not to endorse him out of fear of Trump retaliation against them
FOR MORE RELEVANT TWEETS, please see The Daily Rose Podcast’s post