The simmering outrage of America’s physicians over Trump’s wild assertions last night in Wisconsin may be missing the nature of the astonishing new political invention of our Liar in Chief. Trump knows what’s coming. The few genuine public health experts with access to him have told him that the exponential rise in cases is about to turn into staggering numbers of hospitalizations and then deaths. The bad news will come with a truth like gravity. Faced with this certainty, Trump has taken mendacity to new heights. He has invented pre-emptive deceit.
COVID-19 deaths will be soaring as election day arrives. If Trump waits for that happen, there will be no way to lie his way around them. If he tells us that the rise in mortality is simply the result of doctors and hospitals trying to make money, something patently false, it will come across as a weak excuse. But, what if he offers the lie in advance. What if he offers the explanation before reality kicks in? At that point, he will seem prescient, not desperate.
To hedge his bet, it appears he may be gaming the system further by fudging the data. The reasons for his outrageous plan to take data collection on the pandemic away from the CDC comes clear. The CDC WAS INVENTED TO TRACK EPIDEMIC DATA. Trump suddenly shifted it to a new system owned by his supporter, right wing ideologue, Peter Theil. Evidence has emerged that Missouri and perhaps other states have been misreporting hospitalization data since October 17.
Trump’s response to COVID has never been about anything other than him and his own re-election. His lies, incompetence and spin have killed tens of thousands of Americans and permanently disabled hundreds of thousands. But even a superspreader event at his own White House has not chastened him. Still, the outrage of this new tactic should not be missed.
Trump is now lying about facts that haven’t even happened yet. Pre-emptive deceit. Think about it.
