× Expand Paul Sancya/AP Photo A ‘Trump Unity’ sign on a trailer is shown parked in front of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, April 15, 2020. Protesters came out on Wednesday to show their displeasure with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s shutdown orders during the coronavirus outbreak.

Trump is performing a natural experiment, Darwin style, when he exhorts his militants to gather, cheek by jowl, to protest social-distancing directives by popular Democratic governors. A person who accepted the science might notice that this would drastically increase their risk of infection.

This maneuver is especially risky in Michigan, one of Trump’s top targets, which has the nation’s fourth-highest rate of infection. It’s one thing to deny the science when the worst of climate change is still a few years off. It’s another to pretend all is well when the evidence is literally in front of your nose, in the form of droplets carrying COVID-19.

There are two possibilities here. The less likely one is that Trump supporters have some special Darwinian resistance to the disease. The greater likelihood is that disproportionate numbers of Trump shock troops will get sick.

It would be too cynical to conclude that Trump is performing a public service by infecting his base. Nobody should suffer this disease, not even people too obtuse to appreciate how they are being manipulated. (And as the tightly bonded Trumpers at protest rallies contract the virus, they will infect others.)

On the other hand, Trump’s Mussolini-style antics have definitely performed a political service, looking forward to November.

Governors, some of them Republicans, have filled the White House leadership vacuum. They provide a dramatic contrast with Trump, demonstrating to citizens what leadership looks like. Their approval ratings, in the 60s and 70s, are at least 20 and even 30 points above Trump’s. That’s why they drive him around the bend.

So lunatic ploys, like encouraging supporters to defy public-health orders and gather to protest, will not just sicken Trump’s diehard base. These stunts will also narrow it—as all but the hardest-core voters come to appreciate the sickness of Trumpism.