Outside China and Russia, the United States of America is unique in the tension its population holds to revolt against its leader. Whereas China and Russia are quasi-dictatorships, the USA remains a free democracy.

But over the past couple of weeks, I thought that Donald Trump had a strategy to counter that.

You see, the USA had exploded in Black Lives Matter protests and at their start, Trump went uncharacteristically silent. While cities burned and anti-White Privilege—anti-police vitriol literally spewed spittle and blood in the air, Trump sat and watched.

He then cleared Lafayette Park, Washington, DC, in an infamous fog of gas and rubber bullets knowing fully well, he’d only incite the protests more.

All of which made me feel, he had a diabolical method to his madness.

In a country that had already lost 100,000 lives to a Covid-19 pandemic—was Trump letting an almost exclusively Democratic crowd now protest itself to a Covid air-filled death?

The fewer the Democrats the lesser the electoral threat and the greater the opportunity to gaslight the media into thinking that Democratic-States had let so many die. And while some of his national guard and Thin Blue Line would be exposed too, that was their duty. Had Trump crafted a viral cliff over which his enemy would drop like Lemmings?

No, it seems.

Because today, Trump also announced that he wanted crowds of Republicans back at his own campaign rallies: starting next week.

He re-Tweeted the idea of another in this regard this time Fox News contributor, Byron York, that read:

Given recent gatherings, seems reasonable time for President Trump to resume holding rallies. Could be held outside. Give out masks at entrance, encourage use. But mass gatherings are now OK. Biden could re-start, too, of course.

No, Trump was just plain crazy. Here’s what’s wrong with that plan:

  1. If his Republicans didn’t want to wear masks at Walmart, they weren’t going to wear masks at a rally when their president, had prior to told them they didn’t need to. Wasn’t Covid a hoax?
  2. We still don’t know the Covid impact from the BLM protests vis-à-vis any future large gatherings.
  3. His Republicans were only a few weeks ago abusing doctors and nurses for criticising their right to freedom from lockdown.
  4. All of which meant Republicans were now going to die too.

Not to mention that before his announcement, Harvard’s Global Health Institute was already predicting 200,000 US Covid dead before September was out—regardless of voting intent.

Which all basically points to this. Trump is panicked by polls that are showing him losing the presidential race. So, Nero-esque, he’s now fiddling The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

Trump has never had a strategy full stop.

© 2020 Adam Parker.