"It will go away"

That's what Donald Trump has been saying since covid-19 first appeared on our shores. Here are some clips CNN found (the list is unlikely to be complete).

February 28	"It's going to disappear, one day, it's like a miracle, it will disappear".
March 10	"It will go away, just stay calm, it will go away".
March 30	"It will go away, you know it is going away, and it will go away, and we're going to have a great victory".
March 31	"It will go away, hopefully at the end of the month, and if not, hopefully, it will be soon after that".
April 28	"I think what happens is, it's going to go away; this is going to go away".
May 8	"I feel about vaccines they way I feel about tests; this is going to go without a vaccine".
June 16	"I always say, even without it [a vaccine], it goes away".
July 1	"I think that at some point that's going to just disappear, I hope".
July 19	"You know I said, it's going to disappear, I'll say it again, it's going to disappear".
July 21	"The virus will disappear, you know, it will disappear".
July 22	"You know I say, it's going to disappear, and they say 'oh that's terrible', well it's true, I mean it's going to disappear".
August 5	"It's going away, no, it will go away, things go away, absolutely, no question in my mind, it will go away. Hopefully sooner rather than later".
* August 6	"My view is the schools should open. This thing's going away, it will go away, like things go away. And my view is that schools should be open."

He's right in the sense that eventually, when everyone has either gotten sick or vaccinated, it may go away.

But since the vaccine is unlikely to be here in less than five to six months, and (thankfully) we're not going to get to herd immunity before then, the relevant question is not if it will go away but how long it will take and, more importantly, how many more people will die before the vaccine is widely deployed.

It is both astounding and pitiful to see a grown man in such complete denial, and so publicly. Of course he might understand the gravity of the situation and simply not care, but I choose a slightly more charitable interpretation.

His failure to deal with the pandemic effectively has finally and very publicly exposed his lack of managerial acumen, that he is in fact just a charlatan playing a role for which he is unqualified.

But given his self-perception as the "stable genius", having to admit to himself he had been completely wrong and that he really isn't up to the job, would create a cognitive dissonance so profound, so psychologically debilitating, that his mind simply cannot permit that to penetrate his consciousness.

In a way that's good news for the country since it also suggests he will not change course in his bid for re-election. On his current trajectory current polling suggests he is unlikely to stay in the White House for a second term and sticking to his guns will mean staying on that course.

It will also be interesting, if he is defeated in November, to see how he fares afterwards. A public rebuke of such magnitude should be psychologically crushing; but I doubt it will. He will simply cling to the narrative that he was unfairly treated, that he actually won, and that voter fraud was the only reason he lost. So perhaps all his talk of voter fraud that has so many of us worried that he will not go quietly into the night, is not simply about challenging a possible loss in November, but creating the basis for a narrative that he can live with psychologically if he does lose.

^*  updated, August 7