A friend commented the other day that it seems we are dealing not with one virus, the coronavirus COVID-19, but a second virus as well, that being the virus of conservative Republicanism that surrounds Donald Trump. As every day goes by it seems like the cult of Donald Trump is growing stronger, and the people who surround him, who should be giving him accurate and factual information, are increasingly afraid to express anything which differs from what Trump thinks or believes to be true.

This became most obvious the other day when there were pictures of the vice president, Mike Pence, attending a gathering in the Mayo clinic. He was the only one in the picture who did not have a mask; every other person, whether doctor, nurse or some other medical professional, were wearing masks. Mike Pence stood out from the crowd. It was obvious to me that the only reason he was not wearing a mask was for an audience of one, namely Donald Trump. Everybody else wanted him to be wearing a mask. In fact Pence got a huge backlash of criticism for not wearing a mask; but he was obviously doing it just to please Donald Trump, the cult leader. He was afraid of what Trump would say if he saw pictures of Pence in a mask.

And how many Republican leaders surrounding Donald Trump are sycophantically just following his lead unquestioningly? From congressional leaders to conservative press, everyone seems frightened to cross the leader or to say anything at odds with what Donald Trump says.

The more of this behaviour that I see, the more it seems to me that people are blindly following the lead of an extremely dysfunctional and disturbed leader who does not seem to know what he is doing. They are infected with the virus. Trump looks like he is totally clueless as to how to proceed in dealing with COVID-19. And he seems incapable of listening to true scientific information and putting it into practice. If he himself has not come up with the idea he is too fragile in his personality to allow anyone else to get credit for positive moves.

Trump does not seem capable of true leader ship. A true leader would gladly gather people around him who are experts in their field, who know what they’re doing, listening to them, gathering information to put into practice. Trump’s leadership, if it appears present at all, is not even close to true leader ship. It seems illogical, inconsistent, varying wildly from day today, and sometimes just downright outrightly dangerous.

Trump seems totally divorced from any concept of truth; he seems totally incapable of speaking truth. He makes wild claims that are almost completely false. One of those claims is that he acted precipitously, that he acted early in dealing with this virus. From my perception Trump was at least two weeks late in responding to the virus and by many estimations was more like a month late in doing anything practical or rational. I think when all is said and done there will be tens of thousands of lives that can be put directly at Trump’s feet; he is responsible for the deaths of thousands and thousands of people by his failure to act on time in a meaningful or concrete manor in dealing with this threat to the nation.

And of course all of his Republican sycophantic toadies will share in this responsibility. Everyone who failed to counter Trump’s irrational ideas, who failed to prod him to act expeditiously, will share in this responsibility for the deaths of thousands of US citizens. It is like a virus infecting the White House, infecting the Trump administration. And so, in addition to dealing with the coronavirus, we must also deal with the Trump virus.

Spare us!!!