I have to write this post before i forget.
First of all, let me stipulate that I suffer from a neurological disease that affects both my mind and body. As a result, I have an unhealthy preoccupation with disease in general and I observe things that don’t seem important or real to others.
I watched Trump’s Oval Office performance a couple of days ago.. It was Zombie Trump; he seemed tranquilized to the max as he read some stuff from a Teleprompter that was composed by others.
I watched his press conference today. He seemed like he was on speed rather than tranquilizers. He rapidly read a prepared script, without disguising that it was someone else’s words. He declared a state of national emergency over the coronavirus, despite having said definitively a couple of weeks ago that the U.S. had fifteen cases that would decline to zero in a short period of time. No effort was made to reconcile his current statements to his previous ones.
Many things in the present statement were jarring:
- Trump declared a state of emergency in the US., over something that was the problem of Europe and the Chinese a couple of days ago.
- Trump allowed Vice President Pence to speak.
- Even before he spoke, Vice President Pence blinked a few times and nodded. He differentiated himself from a potted plant.
- There was this hilarious thing going on where Trump would try to shake hands with the other speakers and they would try to avoid it. Finally, someone offered an elbow bump and he seemed to get the message.
- Trump as apparently been exposed to the coronavirus twice and he continues to model the wrong behaviour.
- We are now (apparently, because other pronouncements have proven false) going to have drive-in testing in Walmart, Target and CVS parking lots.
- If the previous bullet point is true, Trump’s base is going to start believing that coronavavirus is real, cause if it it’s right there in WalMart’s parking lot, how are they going to ignore it?
Of course , if Mamaw dies of pneumonia and Aunt Agnes is sick. that might get their attention too.
Talking about business leaders, Trump declared they were right there behind him and INSIDE HIM.* I swear I heard that.
With the state of emergency proclaimed and Trump appearing more rational than usual, there is only one possibility, because Trump only does things that will help Trump. Trump is positive for the virus.
*I admit, though, I have occasional auditory hallucinations. Last night, as I was watching a movie, this buzzing sound came up out to the side of the TV. It got louder and louder until I got very concerned (the voices in the movie couldn’t be heard), despite having trained myself to ignore these things. Then it just stopped abruptly. My mental health professionals seem only worried about actual voices, but for me it’s been mostly background type noises amplified to a ridiculous degree. If anybody else has had similar problems, I would like to know.