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Trump’s most dangerous lie: GOP enablers don’t deserve ‘herd impunity’

John L. Smith
John L. Smith
Opinion
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At a time when President Donald Trump needed a real showstopper of a crowd to sell his Mask-Optional America Tour, he found himself busted flat in Bullhead City Wednesday, straddling the Arizona-Nevada line and singing the COVID-19 blues.

It was reported that Trump had initially planned to make a Las Vegas appearance, but for some reason declined to challenge Nevada’s crowd restriction edict. No matter. He was looking for maskless minions to drive home the biggest lie of his campaign, the underplaying of the devastating coronavirus pandemic, and he came to the right place.

Trump preached to the converted in Bullhead City, one of the reddest towns in one of the most conservative states in the West. He wasn’t looking for votes 90 miles south of Las Vegas, but for props to illustrate his denial of the undeniable, that his incompetence and ego fanned the flames of COVID-19 as new cases raged. As true believers, his props didn’t let him down.

If they believed the science and statistics, they were willing to forget that daily COVID-19 cases were hitting record highs, the surge was again filling hospital ICUs to capacity and beyond, and virus-related deaths were climbing toward 250,000 as Election Day neared. From a review of the appearance, they only believed in Trump and were even willing to laugh off his half-assed introduction of embattled Arizona Sen. Martha McSally.

The commander-in-chief didn’t let his fans down. He trashed the press, maligned his opponent, “Republicans in Name Only,” and vilified government officials, Nancy Pelosi, stoked conspiracy theories, and above all dissembled about the coronavirus pandemic.

Forget about reminding the crowd to wear masks.

“You’re allowed to protest, but you’re not allowed to go to church,” Trump said. “You’re not allowed to have dinner with your friends. You can’t do anything, right? You can’t do anything. So we call everything a protest. This way we have no problem. We have states where you can only protest. You can’t do anything else.”

Of all Trump’s fabrications – and they are legion – his lie that the country is “rounding the corner” on the virus is among the most insidious.

Then there’s the double-speak, hinted at by Trump but often repeated unfiltered by his followers that the virus just needs to run its course through the population. Protect the most vulnerable and let everyone else ride out the storm in a dangerous take on the concept of “herd immunity,” which occurs when a high enough percentage of a population is immune to a virus that it slows its transmission and has the effect or protecting the vulnerable population.

That happens when enough of the population is immunized for the flu, its spread slows. Without a vaccine, pretending to be able to control COVID-19 with following strict guidelines turns into little more than survival of the fittest.

When the top medical and scientific experts point out his dangerous deception, one that continues to kill, Trump savages them in public or sends in his administration’s sycophantic stand-ins to repeat his nonsense. Occasionally, an administration mouthpiece craps out of turn and expresses candor.

“We are not going to control the pandemic,” White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told CNN’s Jake Tapper Oct. 25. “We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas.”

You know, whenever the vaccine is discovered.

Less than 24 hours later, Trump contradicted Meadows with his “rounding the corner” nonsense that flies in the face of the ugly facts. By the end of the week, he was accusing physicians of doctoring COVID-19 stats as part of some get-rich-quick scheme.

Instead of dwelling on the facts, Trump goes to Bullhead City, where it’s easier to deny the undeniable.

Diehard Trumpers in the Republican Party believe in another fallacy that I call “herd impunity.” It is the notion that as long as everyone goes along with the same lie about the deadly virus that’s about to kill a quarter million Americans, no one will have too much blood on their hands.

They underestimate the memory of an American people forced to mourn en masse even as they mask up and soldier on. In Las Vegas, located not so far from from Bullhead City, the COVID-ravaged economic recovery will take years.

As the people struggle to separate the administration’s facts from its falsehoods, there should never be herd impunity for the party officials who aided and abetted Trump’s most dangerous lie of all.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family’s Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in Time, Readers Digest, The Daily Beast, Reuters, Ruralite and Desert Companion, among others. He also offers weekly commentary on Nevada Public Radio station KNPR. His newest book—a biography of iconic Nevada civil rights and political leader, Joe Neal— “Westside Slugger: Joe Neal’s Lifelong Fight for Social Justice” is published by University of Nevada Press and is available at Amazon.com. Contact him at [email protected]. On Twitter: @jlnevadasmith

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