Trump invites many things: disbelief, derision, contempt, hatred, fear, amazement, dislocation, bewilderment, denial and on and on and on. But the fact that such a supremely unsuited, cataclysmically inept buffoon actually made it to the White House compels any reasonably compos mentis observer of the political scene to resort to Conspiracy Theories to explain the inexplicable.
It was not exactly rocket science to work out that a person who swaggeringly dismisses much of the science behind viral spread and who is loath to be seen either wearing a mask or physically distancing (except from his wife, of course) will in the normal course of events succumb to the virus himself. And lo! It came to pass that the German demi-god Schadenfreude saw the contempt that Trump displayed for Generally Accepted Science and decided to let Nature take its course and allowed statistical probability to claim another victim.
Let us be very clear, much as I loathe Trump and the grotesquery that he has made of the Republican Party, I do not wish him ill. Politically I wish him to the oblivion he and his party richly deserve, but I would not wish Covid on anyone. Not even him.
So, now that I have made my position clear on his personal health, we come to my personal Conspiracy-Theory-Take on the news that Trump and his wife have tested positive for the virus.
The first question I would ask is, “How do we know that Trump is positive?” Do we have an independent verification of the results? I would not trust anyone (ANYONE) in the Trump camp to recognize the ethical difference between truth and falsehood.
The Trump of ‘alternative facts’ lives in a world where the only truth is Trump, everyone and everything else is a reflection of him. He is the living embodiment of the facile philosophical thought experiment that seeks to discommode you by the unsettling thought that, “Everything in the World is just part of my dream”.
In Alice through the looking-glass Tweedledum and Tweedledee explain to Alice about the vital importance of the sleeping Red King, “If he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be? You'd be nowhere. Why, you're only a sort of thing in his dream! If that there King was to wake, you'd go out -- bang! -- just like a candle!”
That was an extract from a Classic piece of Victorian children’s literature, a fantasy, unreal whimsical. Trump takes it as a manual for political life!
So, what do I ‘believe’ is behind the so-called Covid diagnosis of the Orange Leader of the Free World?
Let’s start with how far Trump can delude himself. We know that he redefines reality to suit his purposes, but surely even he must at least glance at the polls that suggest that he is behind in all the areas that matter. He must (surely) recognize that there is a very real chance that he is going to lose in November and with that loss comes the very real probability that he is going to be prosecuted for some of the crimes that he has committed during his appalling presidency.
Bearing that in mind. I do not believe that Trump has a positive Covid test. He is using the ‘diagnosis’ for his own means.
The first “’Presidential’” debate was an accelerated train wreck of a disaster. He would be well advised to do no more. His period of quarantine gives him an obvious excuse to provide a series of videoed, scripted electioneering interventions where serious editing could make even that boor look mildly authoritative. His quarantine would also give him the excuse not to have rallies filled with his repulsive base ostentatiously not wearing masks or distancing, where his ‘born again’ conversion to the precautions that have been suggested since earlier in the year will not impact the visuals of rallies.
It is in Trump’s interests for him to get ‘seriously ill’ and to have to hand over the presidency to that odious bigot Pence. As soon as Pence is president, he can then pardon Trump for all the crimes that he has committed during his mendacious, kleptomaniac, nepotistic, terminally corrupt time in the White House.
After being pardoned Trump can either 1) make a miraculous recovery if it seems likely that he can get a second term or, 2) leave the tail-end presidency and disaster of the election to Pence as Trump ‘struggles heroically with the virus’ and laughs all the way to the bank. Again.
Trump is the acme of untrustworthiness so anything he does or says cannot be taken at face value, least of all his dealings with the virus. Would that he has a Demesne conversion and becomes a reasonable human being, but that is not on the cards. He has made a life of lies and there has been nothing over the last four years to suggest that there is any possibility of change.
I will follow the news and look forward to the conspiracy theories linked to the latest developments that match and extend my own!
