Trump's campaign has an epically bad day -- and it's not just the virus

[brooklynite]

Washington Post

Trump’s illness means that he’ll be in isolation at the White House for the immediate term — and, therefore, not actively campaigning. The president has long seen his rallies as instrumental to his political success, one of the reasons he was eager that they resume earlier this year. Until his health is improved and the risk of infecting others reduced, he won’t be holding any event, much less a large rally.

As The Washington Post has reported, it’s not clear when Trump contracted the virus or when he might have been contagious to others. Over the course of this week, he traveled or met repeatedly with members of his family, campaign aides and elected officials. Out of an abundance of caution, his reelection campaign has canceled events including members of his family, who generally serve as prominent and active surrogates on his behalf. The duration of that ban isn’t clear, but it means a loss of a number of events with a little over a month to go until Election Day.

The ongoing pandemic is one of the primary reasons that Trump has consistently trailed former vice president Joe Biden in the polls. As a result, his campaign had repeatedly tried to redirect voters’ attention, training it instead on crime or the economy. The Trump diagnosis throws that out the window entirely. Over the short term — and probably as long as Trump is not on the campaign trail — the pandemic will be the most important campaign issue by far.

It gets worse for Trump’s campaign. After all, the focus of the race will be not only on the pandemic but specifically on Trump’s decision to repeatedly downplay the threat the virus poses as he has pushed for the country to return to normal. Trump’s broad effort to suggest that the pandemic was all but over meant that a number of states and tens of thousands of Americans treated it as if it was. Over the summer, that approach contributed to a big surge in new cases in the South. Trump’s own infection seems like a microcosm of his “ignore-it-and-it-will-go-away” national strategy.

[Binkie The Clown]

1. Old saying: Man plans...the gods laugh. nt

[ProudMNDemocrat]

2. There will be some sympathy, but not much.

Because Trump has shown little to none for those 209,000 plus who have died, and towards those who are infected.

[soothsayer]

3. How do ya like yer herd mentality now, Donnie?

[NoMoreRepugs]

4. The idiot deplorable base will not understand that

RUMP contracted the virus from not wearing a mask.
This level of ignorance concerns me.

[central scrutinizer]

5. "Abundance of caution"?

Don’t make me hurl. Abundance of ass covering

[empedocles]

6. If the press, et al, get on to, 'when did trump 1st have symptoms', when did he 1st test positive,

he will have a bunch of really bad days.

[Seems likely he knew at the Debate when he was raging and spitting Covid droplets at Biden].

[PTWB]

7. Glorious Leader suffering a nasty case of Covid will suppress R turnout.

To some degree.