Head Tale

Trump looks like he is gasping for air pic.twitter.com/4k2v4Jxlir

— Brennan Murphy (@brenonade) October 5, 2020

There’s a lot of controversy about Trump, his Covid diagnosis, and what is the “appropriate” reaction to the serious illness of such a divisive figure.

Now, normally, most people would not wish death on anyone else unless they are sick or evil themselves.

But many feel there’s an exception to be made for Trump.  Here are a few of the main reasons I’ve seen…

1. His lack of response in the early days of the Covid pandemic has led to the US being one of the worst places in the world for disease spread, number of cases including (as I write this) over 200,000 deaths.  So many people see it as fitting that Trump become part of those statistics.
2. There’s a certain schadenfreude in seeing someone who acted as if Covid wasn’t dangerous and downplayed basic precautions like masks getting really sick and possibly even dying from it.
3. There’s also a belief that this would be a suitable end for someone who has a long history of other immense cruelties – towards women, towards minorities, towards migrant children, towards tenants in his buildings – on and on and on.
4. There’s a hope that the death of a cult-like leader like Trump might be one of the few things to reach many of his supporters who have truly drank the “MAGA Koolaid” and think Trump is infallible and worship his every word.
5. They may not all be full-on MAGA hat wearing zealots but older white voters are one of Trump’s most reliable voting blocks (and one of the most reliable voting blocks in general) so if someone who has similar demographics – age, race, maybe weight? – gets sick and/or dies, that might make them more likely to vote for, uhm, another septuagenarian white male who at least shows more respect for his own health and the health of those around him than Trump has.
6. Some who are nervous about going so far as to hope for death will couch their opinion – “I don’t hope he dies but I hope he recovers to live long enough to lose the election and/or be persecuted for his crimes.” but that inevitably leads to a response that he’s clearly trying to cheat to win the election (up to and including promoting violence at the polls) and his death might tamp that risk down.  There’s also the fact that rich and powerful, especially former Presidents, are *very* unlikely to face normal justice, no matter how serious their crimes.
7. Joe Biden has opened up a double-digit lead on Trump but Trump remaining sick would likely prevent him from campaigning and making up ground.  And, if he were to die, it’s all but guaranteed that Biden would win the election.
8. This isn’t directly about Trump but Twitter has announced they will ban people who wish Trump death (will this post slip through if I’m just capturing the reasons I’m hearing *other* people say they hope Trump dies?) but they’ve been very hypocritical about letting death threats go for others in the past.
9. It may open some people’s eyes to inequity in the American healthcare system if Trump gets the absolute best medical care and still dies, what hope did any “regular” people have?
10. Trump dying and being completely removed from the equation might be the single best opportunity for the US to return to “normal” whatever that is because, even if he loses the election and even if he’s removed without a long legal battle (or worse), he’d still be around, bleating and negatively impacting the nation.