He decried the use of masks, and refused to be seen using one for months, and he supports anti-maskers.
He has held mass gatherings where people did not social distance or wear masks.
He undercuts virtually all of his scientific advisors - especially Fauci - pushing conspiracy theory-based treatments and perspectives which, if followed, would actually kill people.
He blames the recent massive spread of the disease on testing...as in, the USA tests so much more than any other country that the Americans naturally find more COVID-19 than any other country, the implication being that there is no real issue.
He refuses to lead on this issue, preferring distractions such as his growing confrontation with China.
People wonder at his intelligence - why ignore taking steps that other countries are doing successfully worldwide, and the best scientific advice?
He is not nuts - I think Trump knows exactly what he is doing, which is this...
Trump's sole focus is on November 3, 2020. Present opinion polls indicate that he has a less than a 10% chance of winning re-election. Because of this, he needs a different strategy from that of "being elected" to stay in office. This is where COVID-19 comes in.
Trump has recently indicated that he may try to delay the election because of COVID-19. This is related to his concern that the related use of more mail-in ballots means mass fraud, as more COVID-19 = more mail-in ballots = a stronger accusation of fraud. Both the delay gambit and allegation of a fraudulent election could potentially keep him in office regardless of the outcome of the vote.
This strategy only works if the pandemic is still raging in November. If America has dealt well with the pandemic by then, then the vote would not be delayed and there would be no basis for increased use of mail-in ballots, so there would be less of a basis for Trump to challenge the vote based on claims of mail-in fraud.
COVID-19, like the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that he has been actively encouraging and making even more violent, is therefore his political friend.
And so, Trump's COVID-19 strategy should be obvious - he has been doing whatever he can to keep the pandemic raging across the country, because this is the basis of his "Plan B" strategy for staying in office should he not win the vote itself.
Unlike any previous American president, he is willing to do things that others have never been willing to do. This includes purposely dividing his country on race lines, and stoking the flames of a pandemic knowing it will kill tens of thousands of people as part of a strategy to try to stay in power.
Trump has no doubt already instructed A.G. Barr to prepare documentation to bring legal proceedings to contest the election, based on the the fact that he will claim main-in-ballot fraud, no matter what happens with COVID-19.
Although Republicans have so far said that a delay to the election is not on, expect Mitch McConnell to start to soon start to voice his opinion that the election should be delayed...a shameless sycophant is always a shameless sycophant.
The Trump Doctrine is to focus only on Power at Any Price through Any Method, at the expense of everything else.
There has never been an American President like this man.
