Monday, March 23, 2020

A Trump Rally in Disguise

In a relatively intelligent society, Donald Trump's insatiable apeitite for publicity and praise reinforcement would do him a great disservice. During WWII, President Franklin D. Roosevelt limited his public interaction which gave greater credence to his words when he did hold fireside chats or radio addresses. The public still got information from others during those uncertain times.

Donald Trump has a personal documented history for calling newspapers and disguising his voice pretending to be someone else with information about and to promote Donald Trump. He loved seeing his name in print reporting about his business dealings.

During this coronavirus pandemic, President Trump cannot hold his political rallies because of the mandate to keep gatherings under ten people and the plea from medical experts to keep social distancing. Trump's itch and need to boast about himself and praise his decisions publicly is thus met daily as he leads a coronavirus team with updates. Trump talks primarily about how wonderful the 'team' is doing and in particularly repeats what he believes are 'things' he personally has done to address the pandemic. Trump also uses these pandemic updates to toss the raw meat to his base supporters who need to be reminded of "fake news," conspiracy theories and the ever popular hate rehetoric about minorities and certainly a few daggers at the 'Black President' that preceded him. It works with the simple minded haters. The reported bullying and physical attacks on Chinese-Americans has increased recently since Trump constantly refers to the coronavirus as "The Chinese Virus." Trump can also attack reporters who ask tough questions, especially those representing news outlets other than Fox News.  He takes mean-spirited tongue-in-cheek shots at the likes of Mitt Romney who voted against Trump during the impeachment hearings. Sadly, Trump's negative innuendo towards GOP Senator Romney came when a reporter asked Trump about Romney's self-quarantine due to exposure to the coronavirus. Ugly non-Christian inferences from Trump seems to please Evangelicals.

The digestive result works for Trump and it works because it feeds the appetite of many Trump supporters, who believe that most things bad, which happen in their lives is caused by people of color, 'foreigners,' minorities and immigrants.

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