Trump is like a man dancing around because he needs to pee

Trump's push to shorten coronavirus shutdown proves the captain is flying blind

On a day that a hundred American deaths were reported, the US president made clear his intention to reopen the country for business much sooner than expected and, seemingly, sooner than medical experts believe to be safe. 

Everything we know about him suggests this impulse has been guided by Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the stock market, poll numbers, the imminent election and pure gut instinct. Not science.

It represented yet another violent policy swing. First, Trump told Americans there was nothing to worry about and the virus would disappear “like a miracle”. 

Then he spun 180 degrees and declared himself “a wartime president”, issuing federal guidelines urging Americans to limit social contact and stay home. 

Now, it seems, he is pivoting back to the original position.

Perhaps it was just coincidence that, on Sunday, Fox News host Steve Hilton told viewers: “You know that famous phrase, the cure is worse than the disease? That is exactly the territory we’re hurtling towards… You think it’s just the coronavirus that kills people? This total economic shutdown will kill people.”

Perhaps it was also just coincidence that, on Monday, the stock market dropped past its closing level on 19 January 2017, the day before he took his oath of office. The entire Trump stock gain is wiped out.

The economy had been booming with a record number of jobs, he said. “We can’t turn that off and think it’s going to be wonderful. There’ll be tremendous repercussions. There will be tremendous death from that. Death. You’re talking about death. Probably more death from that than anything that we’re talking about with respect to the virus.”

He pointed to the depressions and suicides caused by economic recession but did not present any evidence the death toll would be higher than from the coronavirus.