The Political Impacts of President Trump Contracting COVID-19 - Rob Horowitz
Tuesday, October 06, 2020
Before exploring the politics surrounding President Trump contracting the virus, I wish the president a rapid and full recovery from COVID-19. Even in our bitterly divided and polarized nation, I believe this is a nearly universal sentiment.
The most likely political impact of the president’s bout of COVID-19 is that it keeps the coronavirus pandemic front and center in voters’ minds, making it an even more important election issue than it already is. This will hurt Donald Trump and help Joe Biden because the overwhelming majority of voters give the president failing marks for his handling of the virus and believe the former vice president would do a better job.
This is the case so far with nearly all the news surrounding the president’s contracting of COVID-19 reinforcing a picture of an administration and president whose absence of internal common-sense precautions mirror their failure to launch a robust effort to combat the virus nationwide. As more Trump advisors and Republican senators test positive, examples of reckless disregard of public health protocols have dominated news coverage. These include the failure to socially distance or wear masks at both the outdoor public and indoor private events held at the White House to mark the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. These events appear to be the source of infections for a number of people close to the president
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTSimilarly, the absence of precautions at Trump debate preparation sessions and during daily activities in the White House-- where mask-wearing was frowned upon as opposed to encouraged---has emerged as a key storyline. Perhaps the most damaging visual image, however, was supplied by the president’s family, as they refused to wear masks at the presidential debate, despite the fact it was a requirement of the Cleveland Clinic, which was retained by the Commission on Presidential Debates to ensure the safety of the participants and the audience.
While the president’s bout of COVID-19 so far, has served mainly to amplify his failed response to a pandemic that has cost more than 200,000 American lives, it does provide him with a desperately needed opportunity to reset. If he can demonstrate some learning behavior from what must be a difficult experience and convincingly outline a new approach to taking on Covid-19 informed by what he has gone through, the political pluses of his illness could far outweigh the minuses.
After all, before he contracted the virus, the president was decidedly not on a path to be re-elected. President Trump’s disastrous debate performance had already resulted in Joe Biden expanding his lead both nationally and in the key battleground states in polls taken after the debate and before the president’s diagnosis was announced. In the highly regarded Wall Street Journal/ NBC News poll, for example, Joe Biden now leads President Trump nationally, 53% to 39%.
President Trump will have a sympathetic audience when he has sufficiently recovered to speak about his experience with the virus and what he has learned. If he uses this opportunity to commit to being an apostle of mask-wearing and social distancing and shows he is serious by requiring masks and other protocols at his campaign rallies and at the White House and is able to demonstrate message consistency on this score for the rest of the campaign, that will be a political plus. If on top of this change of tone, he can provide a real plan going forward that at least implicitly concedes that not enough has been done to date, that will put him in an even better position.
If past is prologue, President Trump is unlikely to make these politically necessary and much more importantly, substantively essential changes. A famous old remark that the great Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban made about Palestinian diplomatic efforts comes to mind: “The Palestinians never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” That is an apt description of President Trump’s whiffing on the multiple opportunities he has had to expand his political base to something approaching a majority.
But there is a potential political lifeline for the president, if he wants to grab a hold of it.
Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.
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