What does the exercise of one’s second amendment rights have in common with outrage at a stay-at-home order during a pandemic? At first thought, we might say, “absolutely nothing.” To a Trump supporter, however, demonstrating the right to bear arms (big, heavy, semiautomatic combat arms—lots of them) logically goes hand-in-hand with demanding the right to take to the streets unprotected while a highly contagious virus is about because “we just want to go back to work, be able to shop again, go to the hair salon again.”
That these protesters took the opportunity to bring out their collections of assault weapons can be explained by the fact that there is evidence that the protests were organized by several right-wing gun rights organizations. Again, the rest of us are still trying to figure out why they made the connection between governors’ public health-motivated stay-at-home orders and the perception that the governors were trampling on their gun rights.
We can’t completely fault Trump’s base for this logic leap, however. It is, after all, modeled after the type of logic Donald Trump himself gets away with when making or justifying a move.
In the past week, protesters, many of whom arrived at statehouses in Minnesota, Ohio, Virginia, and Michigan decked out for combat and wielding signs (some of them anti-semitic, but that’s an ugly logic leap too complex for this piece), mobilized against the social distancing orders put in place by the governors of those states to try to slow the spread of the potentially deadly coronavirus. The governors were heeding the guidelines laid out by Trump’s own White House Coronavirus Task Force. The guidelines were, in fact, titled “The President’s Coronavirus Guidelines For America.”
Donald Trump himself had urged Americans to follow those guidelines for the sake of the country.
“Our future is in our own hands, and the choices and sacrifices we make will determine the fate of this virus and, really, the fate of our victory. We will have a great victory. We have no other choice,” Trump said on March 30. “Every one of us has a role to play in winning this war. Every citizen, family, and business can make the difference in stopping the virus. This is our shared patriotic duty.”
Yet over the past week, as protesters organized to protest the measures (blaming them on the governors, not Trump), Trump followed up by encouraging them to defy the social distancing measures. Yes, the ones his own administration had put into place.“LIBERATE MINNESOTA,” Trump tweeted, followed by “LIBERATE MICHIGAN.” (“Liberate,” we must assume, refers to liberating his base from their imaginary incarceration as prisoners of some sort of imaginary war.)Trump’s base was already conflating the governors’ efforts to protect them from contracting or spreading a potentially deadly disease with “tyranny.” And who could blame them, really? Trump supporters are a little touchy about the encroachment of government, except when it serves them.Trump, eager to get the economy going again, while not wanting to take responsibility for the many deaths that would surely result from opening the country up prematurely, saw the perfect opportunity: Blame it on the people. Encourage them to protest the lockdowns, then step in and grant their wishes to open up the country. Despite any ensuing public health disasters, the base would be happy that Trump was looking out for them and got them back to work the stores, and the salons, and Trump could say that despite the fact that he had seen disaster coming, he had done what “the people” wanted.
“LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” Trump tweeted later.
Not only should the Trump base defy their tyrannical governors, encouraged Trump, they should exercise their second-amendment rights—a mating call for Trump supporters if ever there was one.
Was it concerning to anyone on the right that President Trump’s promotion of armed “liberation” of states by invoking protestors’ Second Amendment ”rights” could be seen as a coded call for armed insurrection?
Probably not, since the Second Amendment, as they interpret it, appears to be the most important part of the Constitution to many who live in Trumpworld. And since “my personal freedom, no matter what” appears to be their interpretation of the rest of the Constitution, perhaps the logical leap for them is that any perceived violation of personal freedom also means “they want to take away our guns.”
Donald Trump backs COVID-19 lockdown protesters after calling for states to be liberated | The Sun [2020-04-17]
Armed protesters demand an end to Michigan’s coronavirus lockdown orders [2020-04-16]
The first time the word “hydroxychloroquine” stumbled its way out of Donald Trump’s mouth during a daily White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing, viewers knew it was destined to become a partisan topic. Donald Trump’s continued hyping of hydroxychloroquine as a possible “miracle cure” despite the fact that the FDA has not yet approved it for treatment of COVID-19 has led his supporters, as usual, to disregard science and concrete evidence in favor of whatever Donald Trump says.
Those who challenge Trump’s promotion of the drug, also known as Plaquenil, by pointing out that we don’t have enough evidence yet, that we should tread carefully—that hydroxychloroquine is still in the trial stages for use in combatting COVID-19—are now met with hostility, labeled as partisan, and accused of wanting Trump to fail more than they want to see an effective treatment. Apparently, support or non-support of using the untested drug on coronavirus patients has become a test of one’s fealty to Donald Trump.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, has repeatedly warned that there is no wide or definitive data to support the drug’s efficacy in treating COVID-19, but according to an April 6 report in Politico, “Behind the scenes, career health officials have raised even stronger warnings about the risk to some Americans’ heart health and other complications, but been warned not to publicly speak out and potentially contradict Trump.”
“What do you have to lose?” Trump has said, as he encourages the drug’s use. “It’s been out there for a long time. What do you have to lose? I hope they use it.”
In his characteristic manner of setting up an untruth in such a way that he can easily backpedal it later, if necessary, he has also said, “What do I know? I’m not a doctor, but I have common sense. The FDA feels good about it, as you know, they approved it.”
Donald Trump’s carefully placed “As you know, they approved it” refers to the FDA having approved hydroxychloroqine years ago as a drug for malaria, as well as for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Trump knows that anyone who chooses to will understand it to mean that the FDA has approved it for use against the coronavirus.
The FDA has now authorized limited emergency use of Plaquenil for trial on certain COVID-19 patients, only. Medical experts warn, however, that the reported benefits of the drug for treating COVID-19 are anecdotal, and that very little scientific evidence exists yet to confirm its effectiveness. Not only should the drug not be pushed to the general public without thorough testing, it could cost the lives of some patients.
Does it make Trump supporters at all uneasy that their president is promoting a drug against the advice of the leading medical experts and scientists? Does it frighten them, even a little, that these leading scientists and medical experts are now being cautioned against disagreeing with the president, who is not a scientist or medical expert?
Apparently, the answer is no. Trump supporters not only ignore the disturbing scene of a president who repeatedly overrides the experts, they borrow from Trump’s false narrative to speak with authority about the drug’s benefits, as well as how “safe” it is to use.
As they have done with the topic of the coronavirus itself, Donald Trump’s supporters take their cues from him regarding what they see as fact and fallacy. The virus quickly became a partisan issue, and even now, it is often possible to guess who supports Donald Trump and who doesn’t by how they’re responding socially and logistically to the virus and the prevention of its spread.
Trump supporters’ unquestioning loyalty to Donald Trump, combined perhaps with an irrational desire for a miracle, has added the hydroxychloroquine topic to the list of other now-partisan topics that, were rational thought involved, should never be partisan issues.
Right-wing pundits such as Fox News’ Laura Ingraham have begun using their pulpits to promote hydroxychloroquine to their audiences, contributing to the partisanship surrounding it. Ingraham even went so far as to mock Dr. William Haseltine, a former professor at Harvard Medical School who has done groundbreaking research on HIV/AIDS, calling him a “quack” when he doubted the drug’s efficacy.
If at some point in the future, hydroxychloroquine does prove to be a “game changer” for treating COVID-19, we all win.
If, however, hydroxychloroquine proves to be ineffective, will world-class medical experts still have to tread lightly around Donald Trump with the evidence? Will scientific proof still be viewed with hostility as nothing more than the desire to “see Trump fail”? If we become sick with COVID-19 and the ER doctor is a Trump supporter, will he or she choose hydroxychloroquine for us over other, possibly better choices?
Trump grilled over continued promotion of hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus | Guardian News [2020-04-06]
Trump Adviser Navarro Clashes With Fauci Over Coronavirus Treatment Endorsed By President Trump | NBC News [2020-04–6]
