While there is plenty to dislike about former President Donald Trump, he is certainly owed a debt of gratitude for pushing relentlessly for the fast development of safe and reliable COVID-19 vaccines.
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Was he truly concerned about preserving the lives of hundreds of thousands -- and perhaps even millions – of Americans? Or was the speedy development of these vaccines a likely ticket to being reelected to a second term?
Donald Trump And The Coronavirus Vaccines
Regretfully, the use of the vaccines was not approved until more than a month after Election Day. Trump, who was infected by the virus weeks before the election, secretly got himself vaccinated as soon as vaccines were available.
You would think that he would have used his huge presidential megaphone to urge his fellow citizens to follow his excellent example and get their shots too. For a man who regularly demanded credit for things he hadn’t done, why did he treat the availability of the vaccines so hush hush?
The answer is obvious: The election was over, so there would be no political gain by even announcing that he had been vaccinated, much less that all his followers should get vaccinated too.
Imagine that the vaccinations had been available, say a month before Election Day. Then, we would have had Trump 24/7 alternately claiming credit for this miracle drug and demanding that every American get vaccinated.
During the next eight months, there was barely a peep out of the vaccine’s former cheer-leader-in-chief. Why not? I leave it to you to answer that.
Trump Asks Supporters To Get Vaccinated
But quite unexpectedly, Trump actually appeared to have had a change of heart as he prepared for his speech to crowd of some of his most ardent followers in Alabama on August 21st. After nearly an hour of tossing out red meat to the highly enthusiastic crowd on immigration, crime, and our precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan – and, of course, last year’s stolen presidential election -- he offhandedly mentioned that he had gotten vaccinated, and then dared to urge everyone else to follow suit.
He seemed genuinely surprised when many people in the crowd began booing, and he then kind of backed off a bit. Now consider that the vast majority of the people who voted for him last year, and continue to strongly support him to this day, have overwhelmingly opposed vaccinations. And now, their great leader – a man who can tell no lie – had told them that not only did he get vaccinated, but that they should too.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans died because of Trump’s utter botching the handling of the pandemic. But his ardent followers gave him a pass on that one. Somehow, none of it was his fault.
But now, he had done the unforgivable. He had told them that the vaccine could save lives. They had believed all his lies, but they could not believe him when he actually told them the truth.
Trump and his handlers will make every effort to either smooth over this grave error, or else ignore it, hoping that it would be forgotten.
What is highly ironic is that if Trump had only continued claiming credit for the development of the vaccine when it finally came into use, he could have gotten more of his followers to use it, helping to curb the spread of the virus. Now, when he finally brought himself to tell the truth, even his most devoted followers didn’t believe him.
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