President Trump’s once rock-hard base is splitting apart over the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, reports Politico.
While the MAGA-capped movement is divided over how seriously to take the coronavirus threat or how to tackle it, the message among his supporters is increasingly unanimous,” the political website says. “If Trump fails to control the virus, prevent its spread and prove his leadership, much less save the economy, he will lose the election and cripple his movement.”
The split is defined by Trump supporters on one side who dismiss Covid-19 “as nothing worse than the flu, and the drive to eradicate it as ‘climate change 2.0 — as in, a media-lefty mass hysteria,’” Politico says.
On the other side are those like Jason Miller, a Trump campaign adviser, “who have been sounding alarms on the coronavirus since January, and are calling for harsher lockdowns and social distancing.”
Some observers even think that in the end the virus will kill more Republicans than Democrats because the president and others have minimized its likely impact.
“The divide was in stark contrast on Fox News last week,” as the American public awakened to the growing crisis, Politico says.
One Fox host, Tucker Carlson, issued “grave warnings” about the coronavirus, accusing conservative officials of minimizing the problem. Meanwhile, commentator and Trump buddy Sean Hannity called the whole thing “fear-mongering by the deep state.”
Trump and other top administration officials keep comparing Covid-19 to the seasonal flu — a disease that kills tens of thousands of Americans every year — or even the common cold, both of which are caused other varieties of the coronavirus.
Virtually all health experts say such beliefs seriously understate the threat posed by Covid-19.
Health care reporter Charles Ornstein wrote recently on ProPublica that “not one public health expert I trust — not one — has said this flu comparison is valid or that we’re overdoing it…. This is far deadlier than the flu.”
Yet Trump-world continues to view the current pandemic through politically tinted glasses.
“Newsmax’s John Cardillo openly targeted conservatives who were ‘enabling … leftists salivating at the power grab COVID-19 presents,” Politico says. And Ryan Fournier, founder of Students for Trump, declared that “80 percent of these cases are mild, meaning you get common cold, like people are recovering. I just don’t see the need for all the panic.”
But others in what Politico calls “the loose confederacy of pro-Trump media” are signalling trouble ahead.
“That would be a massive vulnerability,” said Will Chamberlain, editor-in-chief of Human Events, if Trump started downplaying the disease again, and it were to get worse.”
Well, it is getting worse. In fact, it’s snowballing — growing faster by the day.
