These accounts of utter recklessness among Trump’s inner circle are jaw dropping.
But one thing about them I find puzzling: Trump is a notorious germaphobe. He’s also a coward. And his conversations with Woodward make clear that he knew COVID was both dangerous and airborne.
So I’ve just assumed all along that as he publicly played down the virus for political reasons, he was taking every precaution to protect himself. Like those rallies where everyone around him was required to mask up, but no one else was.
This of course would be consistent...
... with Trump’s general habit of going through life thinking he plays by a different set of rules.
So what happened? The best explanation I can come up with is some combination of him thinking his “great genes” made him impervious to COVID, and that he started to believe his...
... own COVID propaganda — aided by the Trump misinformation industrial complex consuming that propaganda, reprocessing it, and feeding it back to him in a way that made him believe it.
I mean, a notorious germophobe was mind-bogglingly reckless about his own health, in the ...
... midst of a pandemic, as he was getting daily reports that people were dying by the thousands.
It’s a pretty powerful demonstration of the dangerous bubble around the presidency — in general, but with this administration in particular.
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