" Fate leads the willing, Seneca said, while the unwilling get dragged.

For his entire life, Donald Trump has stayed one step ahead of disaster, plying his gift for holding reality at bay.

He conjured his own threadbare reality, about success, about virility, about imbroglios with women, even about the height of Trump Tower.

As president, he has created a bubble within his bubble, keeping out science and anything that made him look bad. He has played a dangerous game of alchemizing wishes to facts, pretending that he was a strong leader, pretending that the virus will magically disappear and that it "affects virtually nobody,'' pretending that we don't have to wear masks, pretending that dicey remedies could work, pretending that the vaccine is right around the corner.

Now, in a moment that feels biblical, the implacable virus has come to his door...

... And, in the end, the con man in the Oval Office could not con the virus. He was a perverse Pied Piper of contagion, luring crowds to his rallies and events on the White House lawn, even as he mocked the safety measures recommended by his own government, sidelined and undermined Dr. Anthony Fauci, and turned the mask into a symbol of blue-state wimpiness.....

.... Even for Trump, it was an astonishing act of hubris, asking his base to choose between paying homage to him or protecting their own lives.....

...... The pictures from the Rose Garden last Saturday, where President Trump nominated Judge Barrett, scream superspreader. There's a maskless Trump and maskless Republican lawmakers and a maskless president of the University of Notre Dame and lots of hugs, kisses and handshakes. Mike Lee and Thom Tillis, both Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, were there; on Friday they said they had tested positive for the virus, as did John Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame, and Kellyanne Conway, Trump's former top aide who was also in the Rose Garden that day. (Judge Barrett, who recovered from the virus this summer, graduated from the law school and became a professor there.) Bill Stepien, Trump's campaign manager, also tested positive. Three White House reporters have also reported testing positive this past week.....

..... It's impossible to know how or even whether this illness will change the president. But hopefully it will change his skeptical followers and make them realize that this vicious microbe really is contagious, that President Trump is not invulnerable and that therefore they are not either, that crowding together at rallies is not smart, that wearing a mask is important, and that it's not all going to disappear like a miracle......

Opinion | Reality Bursts the Trumpworld Bubble - The New York Times


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/03/opinion/trump-coronavirus-covid.html

TO SUM UP THE CURRENT SITUATION:

A self-proclaimed billionaire is getting free publicly-funded health care so that he can stay on the job. At this job, he---with help from other wealthy people---is suing to prevent low-income people from getting publicly-funded health care.

Ladies and gentlemen...the GOP.

chazzed said:

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TO SUM UP THE CURRENT SITUATION:

A self-proclaimed billionaire is getting free publicly-funded health care so that he can stay on the job. At this job, he---with help from other wealthy people---is suing to prevent low-income people from getting publicly-funded health care.

Ladies and gentlemen...the GOP.

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Based on the level of income tax he pays, he may qualify for medicaid as a private citizen.