Despite being hospitalized for a very infectious disease, Trump put Secret Service agents in danger Sunday by forcing them to ride around with him inside a sealed vehicle while he waved to his devoted fans along Rockville Pike. The best line I saw about that was someone who wrote, “Secret Service agents have sworn to take a bullet for the president. But no one ever said anything about taking a bullet from the president.”
As always, Trump was only thinking of himself, not the impact on the health of the people around him — which includes all the residence staff at the White House, from ushers and cooks to housekeepers and butlers, most of whom are people of color. At least two of them have contracted coronavirus in the last week.
Then the Liar-In-Chief did it again Monday, forcing agents to share the air with him inside Marine One while he was flown back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which reminded me something I wrote Friday on this site,:
If Trump doesn’t become seriously ill from the coronavirus, look for him, his supporters, and right-wing propaganda media to play him up as Superman. Forget the 200,000+ who have died and tens of millions who survived but still have lingering complications. To his followers and enablers, Trump’s recovery would be proof that COVID-19 isn’t as big a threat as his opponents have made it seem.
Sure enough, after forcing medical staff to release him from Walter Reed, Trump returned to the White House, pulled off his face mask, and tweeted that COVID-19 is nothing to be scared of. As always, his sycophants in right-wing media played right along, proclaiming him a hero for taking on the disease on our behalf.
I don’t know what’s worse: the coronavirus or the derangement.