CNN and others are reporting early Friday morning (1:15a) that Donald and Melania Trump have tested positive for COVID-19.
I invite your comments — I suspect this may have a huge impact on both our immediate and our long term history.
Updated with new question
I think it’s at least a little more likely that the election on November 3rd will be between Mike Pence and Joe Biden. Here are some questions to ponder:
- Will the media be more or less willing to talk about Herman Cain now that this happened? Will this make it harder or easier for the media to talk about the dangers and risks of this disease?
- What happens to the ballots that have already been cast if Mr. Trump is unable to compete?
- how sick does Mr. Trump have to be and for how long before the 25th Amendment is invoked?
- What happens if this turns out to be a non-event? What will happen to our national pandemic response if Mr. Trump is able announce “Melania and I had it, it was nothing” a week before the election?
- What happens if this turns out to be another lie? What happens if this turns out to have been manufactured as another media stunt, in order to provide an excuse to say that he was “right all along” and that the disease is another “liberal hoax”?
I don’t know if I’ll be able resist making some reference to Darwin and natural selection before this is all over.
Anyway, what sayeth BMG about this?
Please share widely!
These are the right questions, I don’t have any answers For #2, at least in Minnesota it could possibly entail a new special election.
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2020-09-24/minnesota-candidates-death-triggers-special-house-election
As for #1, one of the many instances where Wallace failed to call out Trump’s lies on Tuesday was when he said “nobody has gotten sick at my rallies”. Pretty brutal to forget one of your most prominent black supporters so quickly.
For #2 it probably depends on the state like I said before. It’s very easy for the RNC (the actual committee not the convention) to meet and decide on Pence as the new nominee. It’s a bit harder to change this now that the ballots are printed and would be subject to intense litigation.
For #3 it seems unlikely, just because so much of the 25th was based on the naive understanding that the cabinet would put country before party. Now the language is clearer on physical incapacity rather than mental incapacity, if Trump is on a ventilator and unresponsive I expect the cabinet to do this. BoJo and Bolsinaro worked through their sickness, but they are younger and in better shape than Trump. So it depends on how severe he thinks it is and his cabinet thinks it is.
For #4, I’m betting this is the likeliest outcome. It might cancel a debate or two. I hope it cancels the last one while we move the town hall to that time slot to accommodate the self quarantine, it’ll be a lot harder for Trump to filibuster ordinary voters asking him the questions. Another thing that could move the needle is the leaks already coming out about how seriously Trump took this in private and how he lashed out at subordinates who didn’t keep their distance from him. Perhaps he makes a speech calling sympathy to those who suffer and takes it more seriously, maybe even pushing through a lockdown now that the only person he cares about got sick, which would actually infuriate his base and possibly turn it against him. The only thing scarier than the MAGa diehards are what they do without a leader telling them what to do. Hopefully they go home.
#1, the media is not liberal. It loves this fuster-cluck, all of it. It drives ratings and that drives revenue. While Rachel Maddow is one of my favorites and clearly a progressive liberal, her bosses are simply excited about a media spectacular and the audience it creates. The media will not talk about Howard Cain unless someone on Fox News his image recreated on a slice of rye toast…a nice human interest story.
#2, It’s weekend at Bernie’s time. Trump will be in isolation and the press not allowed in his room…..the RNC will run tapes (probably making them up now) and once elected, he “dies” on the way to inauguration, hello President Pence.
#3 The 25th is dead.
#4 Buckle up, it’s going to be a rough ride into this dictatorship.
#5 See #4
Here’s some other answers from one of my favorite election news sites
https://electoral-vote.com/#item-1
I agree with you on all these.
My reactions to your numbered points:
The elector switch is not as easy as you’d think it would be, it’s probably better for the RNC to keep Trump on the ballot no matter what happens and instruct their electors to vote for the ticket as printed. Similarly for the Democrats if God forbid something happens to Biden. Then the dead Presidential candidate is elected and the VP ascends to the presidency at the nomination and can select his or her choice for VP to be confirmed by Congress.
Several states have laws against faithless electors the Supreme Court unanimously upheld this past spring. Now electors could choose to invert their tickets or vote for Harris or Pence for president and either party could instruct a new Vice President if the need arises. There’s also a risk if enough electors mess up their balloting that it triggers a contingent election in the House.
So the parties in either case (hopefully neither and certainly hopefully not both) would probably stick to the original ticket. I believe this is how it was done in the West Wing when Leo McGarry passes away on election night.
https://electoral-vote.com/#item-3
I’ve actually questioned how The West Wing addressed Leo’s death because the electors are still the deciders. They would vote for someone and if they don’t all end up doing the same thing then the Senate and not the 25th amendment process gets to decide who is VP. I also question the constitutionality of directing electors how to vote. The Constitution leaves to the states the manner of choosing them, but all record indicates the Framers wanted the electors themselves to make the actual choice. It’s actually and somewhat ironically the extra-constitutional parties that insure against going rogue by choosing loyal partisans.
Herman Cain’s death was reported at the time, and immediately dropped.
If black lives matter, then surely Herman Cain should be talked about each time Mr. Trump tries to minimize the pandemic.
There have been more than 200K deaths, so I don’t know what harping on one particular death accomplishes. Surely it won’t affect Trump since he doesn’t think about it that way and it’s questionable to say the least whether he thinks black lives matter.
Herman Cain was a high-profile black GOP celebrity.
I’m not talking about just Mr. Trump — I’m talking about Democrats and journalists. Why did Chris Wallace or Joe Biden not mention it when came up Tuesday night?
The pandemic is hitting black and Hispanic communities MUCH harder than others. It is interesting that this Trump-is-infected story seems to have pushed the BLM protests off the radar.
I’m still not seeing what responding to every instance of Trump downplaying the virus with “But Herman Cain…” accomplishes. You aren’t really surprised that a President contracting a potentially serious or even fatal disease sucks up the news oxygen from BLM (or anything else for that matter) are you?
Let me offer a specific example of what I mean, from the last debate (https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-joe-biden-1st-presidential-debate-transcript-2020):
Let me just highlight the key points of this exchange:
Q: Are you not worried about the disease issues [of those big rallies], sir?
A: Well, so far we have had no problem whatsoever. It’s outside. That’s a big difference according to the experts. We do them outside, we have tremendous crowds, as you see, and literally on 24 hours notice. And Joe does the circles and has three people someplace.
A: We’ve had no negative effect.
The moderator then moved to a segment about the economy with no follow-up.
Herman Cain was healthy when he attended one of the first of those big rallies, in Tulsa OK. He was diagnosed with COVID-19 within days. He died within weeks.
Herman Cain was a black man who was prominent within GOP political circles. He was a former candidate for President. He was infected at a rally for Donald Trump.
Yet Mr Trump says “We’ve had no negative effect”, and the two other white men on the stage silently move on.
That was the time for Mr. Biden to jump in and say “Tell the family of Herman Cain that you’ve ‘had no negative effect'”. That was the time for Chris Wallace to remind viewers that Herman Cain was infected at one of those rallies and died shortly after from the virus.
When white Republicans are sickened by the virus, it’s all over the news. When Herman Cain was killed by Donald Trump’s criminal negligence, there’s no mention of it.
That stark difference is what I’m talking about.