Magical thinking

Magical thinking is the belief that if a person wishes for something ardently enough the wish will be granted. In a child wishing for a pony it's cute. In a chief executive wishing publicly for a quick end to the COVID-19 pandemic, it's worrisome.

In a televised Fox News "town hall" meeting March 24, saying Americans are full of "vim and vigor" (when was the last time you heard that phrase?), the Great Pretender, in the face of all medical evidence to the contrary, all but predicted that COVID-19 would run its course in just a couple of weeks, so Americans could enjoy Easter, saying, "I would love to have it [America] open by Easter. . . It’s such an important day for other reasons, but I’ll make it an important day for this too. I would love to have the country opened up and they’re just raring to go by Easter."*

That may be a nice thought, but one has to ask "why Easter?" If he's suggesting Easter as a target because it's the most important day in the Christian calendar and getting everybody back into church would be nice, he might at least give lip service to the first day of Passover (April 8) and the beginning of Ramadan (April 23), respectively acknowledging America's approximately 7 million Jews and 4 million Muslims, who are also subject to illness.

But that's not Trump's vision. He wants Easter with happy families and springtime and new hats for the girls, egg hunts and chocolate bunnies. Oh, sure, Easter is important for other reasons--like the Resurrection, duh--but in Trump's mind it's his act of making it the day of the country's back-to-work "opening" that's going to make it a real big-time whoop-ti-do all-American celebration.

Two days into this ludicrous timeline, with a one-day increase of 15,000 cases, the United States gained the dubious distinction of having the most cases of COVID-19 in the world. And suddenly the Easter "opening" is forgotten, replaced with a can-do, all-hands-on-deck response, including invocation of the Defense Production Act to increase dramatically the manufacture of ventilators.

In a fluid situation such mid-course corrections can be necessary, but in the March 23 meeting the Great Pretender downplayed the severity of COVID-19, comparing it to garden-variety types of flu at least 20 times during the approximately 21 minutes that he actually spoke. And on March 27 he mocked state governors for overstating the need for equipment even as he ordered the building of ventilators to be accelerated.**

Magical thinking in an adult is not an indication of mental instability in and of itself, but in a person known to have a volatile temperament it should be of concern, especially when he is responsible for our nation's welfare.

-----Diogenes
 

*https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-coronavirus-town-hall-transcript-march-24-trump-wants-to-restart-the-economy-by-easter

**https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/489909-trump-uses-defense-production-act-to-require-gm-to-make-ventilators