March 21, 2020, saw President Donald J. Trump’s approval rating in handling the pandemic move beyond fifty percent. In an NBC poll, 56 percent of Americans approve of the President’s management of the Corvid-19 pandemic. Again, his unique communication style has connected with a majority in the country, despite his inept handling of the most critical crises in American history.
The daily news conferences are paying off for the President, who can’t seem to escape from them without putting his foot in his mouth and having to be corrected by his experts. Nevertheless, the “Make America Great Again” crowd is happy with how things are going in the management of the war on the silent enemy Coronavirus. Many of them pick up on Trump’s daily press conference hints that Covid-19 is not such a real threat, but a fake news item designed by enemies of the President — mainstream media — to make him look bad.
While the news of improved ratings bodes well for the President’s psyche, it confounds effort of the medical profession to bring the coronavirus under heel because more Americans are not taking an unseen virus seriously, thus not altering their social behavior patterns.
The acceptance of Trump’s underlining theme can only lead to more people, especially those in the Trump “fake crisis” orbit, becoming infected in the coming days.
Meanwhile, 427 people lost there lives in Italy from the coronavirus. The most massive single-day total since the pandemic silently crept into Italy. The total confirmed cases in the United States reached 300,000. New Jersey followed California and Illinois in requiring residents to remain indoors. The beat goes on.
Harold Michael Harvey is the author of Freaknik Lawyer: A Memoir on the Craft of Resistance. He is a Past President of the Gate City Bar Association. He is the recipient of Gate City’s R. E. Thomas Civil Rights Award, which he received for his pro bono representation of Black college students arrested during Freaknik celebrations in the mid to late 1990s. An avid public speaker, contact him at [email protected].