Denial and Defiance: Trump and his base continue to downplay the virus even as U.S. death toll nears 200,000
Jodee Burton, a retired preschool teacher who now helps with her husband’s logging business, lives on a remote patch in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a state that has been embroiled in a partisan battle over how to respond to a pandemic that has killed nearly 7,000 people there and almost 200,000 nationwide.
This mix of denial and defiance runs contrary to the overwhelming evidence about the spread and toll of the virus, and it is at the center of Trump’s reelection effort as early voting begins in Minnesota, Virginia and other states. It is an outlook shared among his most loyal supporters and pushed by many of his allies in the political and news media establishment.
He has attacked communities that have resisted reopening schools and business, and suggested the death count was either exaggerated or mainly a problem in blue states. There is little doubt that much of Trump’s base embraces his attitude and shares his optimistic assessment of the country’s path to recovery. Polls show that Republicans approve of how he has handled the response to the virus by overwhelming margins and — unlike much of the country — think the United States has moved too slowly to reopen. A majority of them also support wearing masks, though not by the same margin as Democrats or the nation at large.
Trump accepted his party’s nomination for a second term with a speech to Republicans crowded onto the White House lawn — again, most not wearing masks as they cheered the president and gaped at a fireworks display. “There’s been all kinds of cases where there was a motorcycle accident and, oh yeah, he died of COVID,” said Stephen Guentert, 52, a math teacher from Freeland, Michigan, who attended a Trump rally last week. “No he did not. He died from a motorcycle accident. Or somebody was shot in the head and he’s listed as a COVID death. So if you take just the deaths that are strictly from COVID, there’s not that many. So, I’m not afraid of it.
“The message he is sending to these people is, ‘Don’t pay any attention to this,’” she said. “He has been undermining scientists and science since he got into office. That has left his base willing to believe these conspiracy theories.”Tucker Carlson told his viewers on Fox News the other night that COVID-19 was “not dangerous to the overwhelming number of people who are destroyed by the COVID restrictions.
“He’s creating conflict with the segment of voters in his base who are actually concerned about coronavirus,” said Nick Gourevitch, head of research for the Global Strategy Group, a Democratic polling firm. Republicans, he said, “are more splintered than Democrats are on COVID topics, which makes it hard for them to turn these battles into political winners.”
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