Not for the first time, the whole world is conspiring against Donald Trump. Sure, nations across the world from Japan to France to Canada went into lockdown in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, just like the United States. But somehow, everyone is out to ruin Mr. Trump's Economy. At least, that's what you might be led to believe by the scattered protests against social distancing measures—backed by the same kind of ultra-rich right-wing capitalists who funded the Tea Party, and encouraged by the president—that sprung up around the U.S. this weekend. It's a hoax, even if more than 40,000 Americans have died from it. It's a hoax, because that's easier to grapple with than the notion that if not for the lockdowns, the death toll would be many times greater.

Never mind that some other nations that responded more effectively than the United States has are beginning to ease some of their lockdown restrictions, embarking on the first steps towards whatever new normal awaits. The world's richest and most powerful country, on the other hand, still doesn't have adequate testing. South Korea had its first case one day before the United States in January. On Monday, they reported just a handful of new cases, in large part thanks to a sophisticated test-and-trace regime they nailed because of their experience with respiratory pandemics. The U.S. may not be up to speed on testing before September.



None of this is any match for the truly wild forces in American life, however: the conspiracy-minded, the truthers, the anti-government extremists, the virulent strain of anti-intellectualism that has always caused us problems. If you were looking for an avatar of All-American Ignorance, one appeared in Denver this weekend, in the form of a woman leaning out of her truck to scream at a frontline healthcare worker that he should go to China if he wants communism. Imagine the outright gall it requires to scream at people who've spent weeks working around the clock trying to keep their fellow citizens alive—and watching many of them die—that they're somehow betraying the American Idea.

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Two nurses stage a counter protest 💙 pic.twitter.com/GzInxIp5y2 — Scott Dworkin (@funder) April 20, 2020

Anything I Don't Like Is Communism. That's the rule. This notion was seconded by another protester out in California:

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

She does not understand social distancing, communism or math. pic.twitter.com/eDp4yS11d8 — Emerson Collins (@ActuallyEmerson) April 19, 2020

That sign featured handwriting that was eerily similar to the one held by the Baskin Robbins Freedom Warrior. Give me Banana Nut Fudge or give me death!

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

“Ma’am, this is a Baskin Robbins.” pic.twitter.com/F0iVIzfWmG — Vanessa Ramos (@thatRamosgirl) April 18, 2020

To be clear, the message here is not "give me liberty or give me death." It's "give me liberty and also some death," even if these folks are not the people who may ultimately suffer and die because of what often boils down to selfishness. Even by engaging in these protests, they put themselves and innocent others in greater danger. If they succeed in pressuring local authorities to lift social-distancing measures too early, the damage will be many times worse. And make no mistake: these folks are often not gig or hourly workers desperate to get back to work. Sometimes, they cite a desire to go to a hair salon as their justification for undermining the national response to a pandemic. Give me convenience or give me death! Well, also death.

Treat yourself to 85+ years of history-making journalism.

Subscribe to Esquire Magazine

We are all desperate to resume something resembling our normal lives. For rational people, this might undermine the usual narratives around Media Bias: do you really think reporters hate the president enough to lock themselves in their houses for months on end, losing close to everything that's good in life, just to possibly damage his re-election prospects? (Also, this crisis is set to cripple the news industry, with mass layoffs and salary cuts.) It's absurd. No one is happy about what's happening, but some of us—in fact, the majority of the nation—can understand that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do because it's better for everyone. This is a lesson children are taught. The Coalition Against Doing Our Own Hair needs a remedial class, maybe.

Haircuts are top of mind at these events. Toby Scott / Echoes Wire Getty Images

Moreover, re-opening the country too early is not in the interests of any of these people, or even the president. It's not just that many more people will die, which they clearly don't give a shit about, it's that we would likely have to go back into lockdown if that happens. It's not even clear that you can "re-open" the economy if huge numbers of people are not confident that it's safe to go out to restaurants or whatever. It's all well and good to say we're re-opened, but you can't make people go to the mall if they think they are going to contract a deadly virus at Cinnabon. This is why you should base your decisions on what we know about the science, which is not some foreign interest pushed by academic pinheads but is, in fact, the crowning achievement of the human race. If we compile lots of evidence and know as much as we possibly can about the phenomenon, we can all have greater confidence that when it's time, it really is safe. In the meantime, the federal government will have to keep stepping in to help individuals and small businesses stay afloat.

The rest of this is delusion, cooked up by rich people who want the market to go back up and served to people who are scared and frustrated and, sometimes, selfish. (Also, sometimes they are Nazis, and sometimes they are members of far-right militia groups, though those protest attendees do not appear to be representative of the whole.) It is a symptom of a nation that has decided that what you want to be true might as well be true, and can become true if you just say it loud enough. It is also a convenient way to elide the fact that we are locked down almost completely, and will have to stay in lockdown longer, because of the president's complete incompetence and deranged self-absorption, which led him to play down the threat—saying cases would go to zero miraculously—while doing next-to-nothing for more than a month before the virus struck here in earnest.

Another possibility is both. Karen Ducey Getty Images

In an attempt to avoid blame for the fuckup, he is now pushing responsibility onto states and governors, who are forced into bidding wars and competition for resources that are only made worse by the federal government's destructive interventions. He is also pushing the re-opening process onto governors and private enterprise in an attempt to spread the blame around if we re-open too early and fuck everything up. This is when he's not using his briefings—which are theoretically about disseminating information about the virus and our mitigation efforts—to read op-eds praising him, play video of governors praising him, attack reporters for asking why he is using this time to talk about all the praise he's getting, and to make creepy (jokes?) about "arousal."

It pretty much tells the story that none of the people so desperate to re-open the country that they're going out to protest—possibly infecting themselves and others with the virus—are asking why the United States of America still can't figure out testing after months. They aren't asking why other countries that have figured out their responses are beginning to re-open. They aren't asking why that is, and whether the president might have some responsibility for a national initiative he himself has compared to a war. It's always the fault of someone else. Like the communists!



Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io