SIMPLE & QUICK: POTUS 45 pivots on pallid pandemic response; signals to base he is a real politician now

The President resurrected the coronavirus briefings he abandoned in April to signal a pivot in his re-election strategy. The meetings came to an abrupt halt after the President asked Dr. Birx to look into injecting disinfectants into the lungs of Americans with Covid-19. The President’s negative polling accelerated and he moved on to different topics. The President was not accompanied by health officials, or anyone.

For all of the month of May, and all of June, and the first two-and-a-half weeks of July, the President and his campaign spent exorbitant energy and resource to rally the base. The President held ill-advised rallies in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Phoenix, Arizona. Neither of those did the trick, so the risk-reward calculation changed. The President and his VP evolved MAGA 2020 rallies into official events.

These events had a net loss effect, too, as The Donald’s ratings continue to dive further into the red. This political fallout caused the President to spend this past week panic-hopping network news interviews and impromptu White House briefings. Public sentiment now is that the President is behaving bizarrely and only making matters worse.

Donald Trump certainly entered American politics as an outsider with seemingly novel ideas to make America great again. Today, President Trump is very much just another politician. This has never been more apparent and the change will undoubtedly reverberate through his base. The President announced yesterday that “whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact” in fact, “we’re asking everybody when you are not able to socially distant, wear a mask.”

Instead of repeating, “the virus is going to disappear,” the President issued the first somber truth on the matter at yesterday’s briefing. Donald Trump now admits that the coronavirus, “will probably get worse before it gets better.”

The death toll is climbing again after the predicted lag behind a second surge in the first wave of the, “viscous and dangerous illness.” The States hardest hit have shifted from the coastal elites to the American heartland.

The Presidential change in tone yesterday and today do not accompany any change in strategy or national planning. However, as sure as standard political behaviorisms go, Americans will soon see a new, albeit half-hearted, attempt to hoist a national pandemic response plan. Unfortunately, the guts of the national plan will not target improving public health, they will target improving re-election odds.