Two Hundred and Sixty Three

Early yesterday morning Trump tweeted that he and Melania tested positive for COVID-19.

Why would he tweet this at 12:54 AM on a Friday morning?  Why would he tweet it at all?  If the president has a life-threatening disease, surely his doctor(s) would hold a press conference to announce it—and in prime time, not at 12:54 in the morning.

Not surprisingly, a lot of people are skeptical.  Some of the internet comments I’ve read speculate that Trump knows he did badly in his first debate with Biden, and wants an excuse to avoid the second.  But there’s no evidence that he did badly in the first debate.  Polls show that people who watched the debate had already decided who they were going to vote for, and watching the debate didn’t change their minds.

Polls also show that Trump was trailing Biden before the debate, and was still trailing him after it, so some theorize he announced he has COVID-19 in order to gain sympathy.

Some comments note that Trump asked his doctors to give him an experimental drug manufactured by a company in which he owns stock.  His ‘miraculous' recovery will no doubt increase the value of that stock.

They disagree about his motive for lying, but all agree that Trump is lying.  Usually they contrast his behavior with that of his predecessor and/or his putative successor.  Americans still can’t accept that all presidents lie.  The only question is what they lie about.

I find the campaign ads more interesting than the debates.  The Republican Party’s pro-Trump ads are laughably inept.  The Republican-funded Lincoln Project is creating better pro-Biden ads than the Democrats are.  Everyone knows the USA is headed for another financial collapse, and it's obvious that Republicans want a Democrat to be president when that happens while Democrats want a Republican to be president.

But I no longer find anything that passes for politics interesting.  I’m tired of deceitful politicians and the self-deception of those who vote for them.