So when his marketing campaign made the choice to carry a marketing campaign rally indoors in Nevada on Sunday night time, Trump was, at first, searching for No. 1.
Trump’s sentiment is not stunning given his “me”-centric view of the world. However it’s yet one more piece of proof that proves how little he really understands what it means to be president.
Being president is not about searching for numero uno. It is about placing what you need behind what you imagine is the appropriate factor for the nation. Trump has by no means — and can by no means — function like that.
(Sidebar: That underlying aim of searching for the frequent good versus what’s good for you would not assure success, after all. Human nature nonetheless tends to revert to a what-does-this-all-mean-for-me views at occasions. And whereas previous presidents have tried do the appropriate factor for the nation, it doesn’t suggest they at all times bought it proper.)
Contemplate the scene on Sunday night time. The possibilities of Trump getting Covid-19 from talking at an indoor marketing campaign rally pale compared to the possibilities of the 1000’s of attendees getting it. Trump is, as he notes within the Evaluate Journal interview, “on a stage and it’s extremely distant.” He is additionally examined repeatedly and travels in a bubble that ought to decrease his possibilities of getting the coronavirus.
To which, some folks — together with, undoubtedly, lots of these in attendance on Sunday night time — will say: America is a free nation! Nobody can inform me the place I can go and never go!
However keep in mind that your rights solely prolong so far as they’ll till they start to infringe on different folks’s rights. And since I’m going to take a wild guess and say that the general public who went to the Nevada occasion will not be self-quarantining for the following 14 days, then their resolution to attend Trump’s rally signifies that they’re placing in danger anybody they arrive into contact with over the following two weeks.
It is attainable — and we will hope — that nobody who went to Trump rally on Sunday night time had coronavirus or will get it from being amongst so many different folks. However we won’t know that, and neither can anybody who was on the occasion and is now again interacting with tons of people that did not attend.
The purpose of all of that is that we anticipate leaders to steer by instance. The bar for holding an indoor rally because the coronavirus continues to contaminate greater than 40,000 Individuals a day and kill upward of 1,000 should not be whether or not Trump feels secure there. It needs to be whether or not public well being officers imagine it has the potential to be a super-spreader occasion.
Sadly, Trump appears to not grasp that essential distinction. He desires to place the coronavirus behind him, politically talking, and deal with massive and boisterous crowds once more. So the Sunday night time rally occurred.
However that is not the management we should always anticipate from a president. That is the alternative of it.
