CT Blue

Stories like this merely make me curl further into a fetal position as November 3rd approaches.

Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and senior adviser of President Donald Trump, privately bragged to journalist Bob Woodward in April about the president’s decision to shun the advice and opinions of health experts, just as the death rate from the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. was reaching peak levels.

“It was almost like Trump getting the country back from the doctors. Right?” Kushner said in recorded conversations with Woodward. “In the sense that what he now did was, you know, he’s going to own the open-up.”

“Trump’s now back in charge,” Kushner also said. “It’s not the doctors.”

Kushner claimed that the U.S. was moving through the “panic” and “pain” phases of the pandemic, and experiencing the “beginning of the comeback phase” by reopening — a direction that was widely criticized at the time.

As Kushner made these comments, the seven-day average of daily deaths related to COVID-19 was above 2,200 per day. There were 754,037 coronavirus cases documented at the time, a figure that would double a month later and triple by mid-June.

Sure, this should just make us laugh at what a clown he is for letting Woodward tape him saying that stuff, but think about it.

Let’s start by bearing in mind that Kushner knew 1) he was being taped by Woodward, which meant he couldn’t deny his statements to anyone but Foxaholics; 2) presumably knew, or should have known, that his comments would likely become public prior to the election; and 3) knew, or at least should have known how unlikely they were to be helpful in any honestly decided election.

There are only two possible explanations for his actions.

The first is that he’s a monumentally stupid person who actually didn’t understand the potential political implications for such a statement. Despite his Harvard degree (I won’t libel Harvard by saying he had a Harvard education) he may in fact be that stupid. But in any ordinary election this would have been a very stupid thing to say, so we should not bet on this explanation.

In light of my conclusion above, the second explanation is more likely. That is, that Kushner, being the arrogant son of a bitch that he is, knew very well that in any normal time in this nation’s history, it was the last thing he should have said, but he was secure in the knowledge that the Republicans could steal the election no matter what the now almost overwhelming number of people in this country may think, want, or for which they may actually vote. We have already seen that Kavanaugh is absolutely willing to do what must be done to throw the election to Trump, and we mustn’t be fooled by Barrett’s recusal from a recent case; she is merely holding her fire.

It’s worth remembering, too, that this is hardly the only time that a Trump administration official has said something extraordinarily stupid, particularly about COVID. Just this past Sunday Mulvaney allowed, on national television, that they were just going to let it run its course. They have given up even pretending to care about their own supporters, never mind the American people. How else to explain the Pence spokesperson’s statement that it was okay if he held superspreader events because he himself has good doctors.

In any other year, in any other political time, given the current state of the polls and the improbability of any significant change in those polls, I would be avidly looking forward to November 3rd. As it is, I look forward with a strange mix of optimism and dread. Part of me can’t believe this nation’s judiciary has sunk so low that it would allow Trump to steal this election (which will take more fancy and transparently ludicrous jurisprudential footwork than Bush v. Gore), but the history buff in me sees the signs of decline too clearly. We should be ashamed as a nation that someone as mediocre as Donald Trump (no Julius Caesar he) and his hangers on may be the source of the Republic’s destruction, but there it is.