Trump praises Trump's response to the COVID-19 crisis

A Self-Congratulatory President Who Can’t Change His Tune

Egomania trumps leadership

As the entire world grapples with an ever evolving pandemic, one world leader is making sure that the conversation around his personal handling of the current crisis is as much of a focus as the coordinated effort itself, and thus the health of the citizens who elected him. These actions are not at all surprising coming from an individual obsessed with his public image. As the situation sharply escalated over the last month his tone and response has only changed when it was critical and politically expedient for him to do so, all the while shifting the goalposts such that whatever was being done at the time is exactly the correct and intended action.

A vocabulary of superlatives

“We’re rated number one. We’re rated number one for being prepared. This is a list of different countries” says Trump on February 26th with clear access to data showing that the United States was not prepared for a severely contagious outbreak in key areas. “We’ve taken the most aggressive actions to confront the coronavirus. They are the most aggressive taken by any country” touts Trump on February 29th even when it is fairly common knowledge that the Chinese government frequently employs draconian tactics, denying civil liberties we enjoy in order to achieve results. “The big decision was early when we shut down our borders. We’re the first ones ever to do that. We’ve never done that in our country before” adds Trump on March 9th despite the fact that travel restrictions had already been put in place in various parts of the globe. “I’d rate it a 10. I think we’ve done a great job” responded Trump on March 16th when asked to rate his response to the virus thus far. That question was essentially rhetorical, and the reporter probably knew as much, given that it would have been physically impossible for any other answer to come from his mouth. Terms such as ‘most’, ‘first’, ‘best’, ‘strongest’, and countless others are the only adjectives in this man’s lexicon.

Using vagueries and sweeping generalizations to avoid scrutiny

If you ever hear Donald Trump share specificity, concrete detail, or use nearly any proper noun you can be confident that someone wrote it down for him to recite. His preferred playbook is to refer to whatever he thinks ‘people’ know or what those ‘people’ are saying. In doing so he lazily but effectively is able to create his own narrative because somebody somewhere must have said or thought whatever that thing is. “I mean people like the job that we’re doing” he shared on March 18th. “Somebody was on yesterday, on one of the networks, and said that there’s never been a president even close that’s been able to do what I’ve done” Trump claims on March 19th. “And many doctors, and I’ve read many, many doctors, they can’t believe the great job that we’ve done” boasts Trump on March 20th.

Brut.