For Donald Trump, surviving coronavirus has become just another punchline on the campaign trail.
“I had so many doctors and each one of them studied different parts of the body,” the president told supporters in Waukesha, Wisconsin, last weekend.
A roar of laughter.
“And I had a moment where almost every one of them was touching me simultaneously.” More laughter. “I didn’t like it!”
More laughter.
“I said, ‘Doc, I wanna to get out of here, I’ve gotta campaign, I’m in the midst of a campaign against ‘Sleepy Joe’. Can you imagine losing to this guy!?”
Cries of “No!” followed by Trump parodying the voice of a doctor, comparing himself to Superman and referencing “Barack Hussein Obama” – cue a chorus of boos.
Opinion polls suggest that Trump could be a dead man walking, hurtling towards a psychologically crushing defeat like one-term president Jimmy Carter against Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Yet on the trail he continues to project the image of a happy warrior cruising to re-election, regaling big crowds with selective poll numbers, bogus conspiracy theories and his own brand of humor. And his base remains loyal to the end with cheers, merriment and chants of “Four more years!”, “Lock him up!” and “Build that wall!”
If Trump does lose next week – and the polls have been wrong before so that remains a big “if” – he will go down with all guns blazing.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
