David Frum, former speechwriter for George W. Bush, said on Monday that Donald Trump is pushing to reopen the country quickly because he knows a potential coronavirus resurgence would disproportionately hit blue parts of the country.
During a discussion with MSNBC’s Ari Melber, Frum said, “[The virus] takes casualties in places that Donald Trump cares less about, and it imposes economic costs on people he cares more about.”
In other words, the president wants restrictions lifted because he knows the negative health consequences will mostly hit people that don’t support him, while the economic benefits of reopening will boost areas of the country where more of his supporters live.
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Former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum said Donald Trump is fine with letting the coronavirus rip through the country since it will disproportionately hit people who don’t support him. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/9PWXbwCcxf
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) May 18, 2020
Frum said:
It’s pretty apparent that the president’s strategy – and maybe it’s the only strategy that’s available after the mistakes of January and February – is to let this disease rip through the country and take the punch. And that’s easier for him because we know more in May about the disease than we did in January and February. And one of the things that we know is that it is very much not an equal opportunity killer. It takes casualties in places that Donald Trump cares less about and it imposes economic costs on people he cares more about. And so the tradeoff that Donald Trump is constantly making is he wants to reduce the economic cost to the people he cares about by increasing the health costs upon the people he does not care about.
Trump has never cared about his non-supporters
Unlike presidents who came before him, Donald Trump has shown time and again that he only has an interest in leading the parts of the country – the minority – that voted for him in 2016.
Through hateful and divisive rhetoric and policies, his entire presidency has been one giant wink and nod to his foaming-at-the-mouth base of supporters – not anyone else.
One might have thought – or at least hoped – that a global health crisis that has claimed nearly 92,000 American lives would change that for him, but it hasn’t. In fact, he has become even more hateful and divisive throughout this pandemic.
At the end of the day, Donald Trump is simply incapable of viewing the country outside of his own political lens, which is why he’s more than happy to push the country toward a potentially dangerous and deadly reopening.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
