Did President Trump’s Handling of His Illness, With the Spectacle of His Opulent Health Care, Alienate his Base?
No one decent wishes President Trump, the First Lady, or any of the White House staff who were infected with Coronavirus, to be ill or suffer harm.
But many commentators and observers on both sides of the aisle have been struck in the last few days, with the lavish spectacle of just how good President Trump’s health care is when he suffers from such an infection. It’s hard to forget the vision of a dozen white-coated doctors striding out. of Walter Reed hospital, all of them in attendance on this one patient. It’s hard to forget the helicopter standing by to airlift the single suffering patient. It’s hard to ignore the fact that on the President’s discharge from the hospital, during what are for other people some of the most dangerous days of a COVID-19 infection, our President has a fully equipped equivalent of an ICU, in his home. Add to this the striking images of him on video advising the rest of America to play down their fears of becoming infected with this dreaded disease– “don’t let it dominate your lives.”https://www.nytimes.
Is it surprising that today, some polls show Biden up in double digits in battleground states? It’s possible that for once, the king of reality TV got the optics wrong. It’s possible that people who are working two jobs, fearing eviction, people who don’t have health insurance, people who are in minimum wage jobs for which they wear masks all day and are still scared, people who worry about waiting in the ER with a loved one or worry about being fired if a loved one gets sick — are drawing away from their previous support for this President. The one thing that is not evident in President Trump’s video bulletns from his own illness — is a sense of compassion for the poor health care or inadequate support for sick people, who don’t have his resources.
This video points out too, that President Trump sought to get rid of the inadequate health care that Americans already have. And his team have supported bills that would roll back “Obamacare.”
Given that he has his own fully government funded health care, the contrast in his luxurious health care treatment and the bare bones care experienced by others who get sick in America, may just be too hard for many undecided voters to take.
Watch the video HERE and decide for yourself.