The big, ugly disconnect hanging over Trump's response to the crisis

President Trump has blithely declared that the most dire public health crisis in modern U.S. history will just “disappear” or “go away” nearly two dozen times since the novel coronavirus first arrived on our shores. It has been far and away one of the most consistent things he has said on any topic.

So is it any wonder that Trump’s position on the economic catastrophe it has unleashed is almost exactly the same?

A strange disconnect is hovering over two of the biggest events in our politics right now: the economic rescue talks in Congress, and Trump’s new ad campaign against Joe Biden, which boasts a retooled message that’s supposed to reverse Trump’s plummeting fortunes.

For Trump, both are proceeding as if the economic calamity we’re sliding into simply isn’t any kind of big deal at all, as if it’s something that will “go away” or “disappear” with little effort on his part, other than getting public officials to stop taking such nettlesome steps to combat the health crisis.

This is rooted in Trump’s sociopathic refusal to take responsibility for the mounting wreckage on his watch. But it’s also rooted in ideology, as the talks and Trump’s own ads reveal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/06/big-ugly-disconnect-hanging-over-trumps-response-crisis/