Trump got Covid-19.

Trump got covid-19. 

By now, it is a one-day-old news, and in today’s fast media world, that’s old news. Trump however joins his beloved counterpart, Boris, and other national leaders in Russia, Brazil, India, Australia, on the Covid-list. 

But don’t worry, he will get the best medical attention, the quickest and the most thorough, because after all, he is the President of the most advanced nation. Get-well, hallmark-like greetings from leaders all over are in fact pouring in. Japan, Korea and Israel are all wishing him and the First Lady a swift recovery. 

You can say that Trump will lick the virus and lick it good (pardon the pun). 

Well, tbh, I too wish him and Melania well, and a quick recovery (as my disagreement with him is not personal, but on principles). 

I guess if the most powerful leader in the world, surrounded by the best medical team and security guards, whose guards incidentally were also infected, has himself contracted the world’s most elusive and smart virus, then I trust that no one, especially in a nation under Trump, is safe from it. So, in a quick return jab to what he had said about Biden’s low class ranking in the recent debate, you can also say that Trump was outsmarted by a microorganism that was, well, in a class of its own. 

But, after all’s said, here’s an innocent plead to his die-hard fans: the infection effectively concludes one’s verdict of the way Trump has handled the pandemic, right? It was a resounding failure, right? 

However you would like to spin it, even when you twist it to say that he is going for herd immunity, an idea toyed and rejected by Boris, you can’t deny that when the enemy has entered the home of your leader, who was supposed to be well and heavily guarded, all other homes that follow his attitude and way of doing things thus far, will equally be, if not more so, sitting ducks for covid-19, right?

(As an aside, I know this is not the time to kick a man while he is, well, down. But that is not my point. My point is about self-awareness, self-examination, and self-correction. If you can’t even look at your own St James’ mirror and spot the flaws staring right back at you, and then do something about it, and go save lives and a nation in need of a strong, firm and morally courageous leadership, then the hope of a nation resting on your shoulders has all gone to waste. And mind you, admitting one’s error and making timely changes is not in any way deemed as a seal of failure. It is in fact the shining emblem of a successful leader, one of humility, character and integrity). 

But guys, strap on, and sadly, Trump, being true to his nature, will do none of that (pls prove me wrong). As I write this, he had just tweeted, saying, “I think I’m doing very well.” I trust knowing his megalomaniac ambitions, almost unmitigated since Nov 3 is drawing near, he will do a Neo resurrection of the Matrix Revolutions. 

The plot for the likes of Trump is nothing prophetic. Compared to the 200k death in America, largely faceless passing of lives, Trump will milk all the media coverage he can squeeze. The covid pandemic may be uncharted territory for global leaders, but we must not forget that we are entering into his home ground with this personal infection. Recall the reality tv series - The Apprentice? 

Mind you, this territory is Trump’s territory. He knows how to make a grand entrance, with alien-like floodlights behind him. He will beat the virus. He will set the stage for such glorified comeback. He will bathe in it like a young prince on coronation day. He will emerge from the spikey ashes like a rising American bald eagle with implanted follicle. 

That is the predictable Trump we have all come to know; for an orange crab can’t walk straight.

The world will then return to cheer for their hero. This time it will be loud and bold. And every word that comes out from the resurrected Trump will be gold. 

Just as the spike in the coronavirus infection comes in the daily thousands and deaths in the hundreds, the spike in his ratings will hit the roof. The world is looking for a hero, and the one who comes back from near death is the best (for when we lose authentic leadership, the leadership left for us to contend with are largely shallow ones).

Here, I recall these words by James Madison: “No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.” 

But, he is forgetting that “order and stability” is not the only way to govern. In a democracy, one as wild and divided as America as it stands today, where partyism trumps bipartisanship, tribalism trumps diversity, and racism trumps unity, one can still govern well, at least for a glamorised electoral season, by exploiting disorder and instability to perpetuate one’s stranglehold. 

That is why in the Art of the Deal, Trump unveiled his art of dealing with people with his signature playbook rule applied with equal foolhardy zeal from the boardroom to the Oval Office: -

“I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole.”

Anyway, let me end with what one author wrote about Trump leadership: -

“He was like a twelve-year-old in an air traffic control tower, pushing the buttons of government indiscriminately, indifferent to the planes skidding across the runway and the flights frantically diverting away from the airport. This was not how it was supposed to be.” (“A Warning Anonymous”). 

That about sums up how Trump had handled the coronavirus pandemic. It has in fact come home to roost. And the one virus the commander-in-chief has spent his last year of his first presidential term fighting against, ironically, breaking all the rules of social distancing and mask-wearing in public, and boasting that like a miracle it will go away by April, is now battling with it from inside his body.

No doubt, he will overcome it. But the more important and urgent lesson is, will he learn his lesson? I really doubt it. Prove me wrong...pls.