Stop Saying ‘We All Wish President Trump Well.’ A Lot Of Us Don’t — Without Wishing Him Harm

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

“We all wish the president well” — or some variation on that sentiment — has been a constant refrain in the media since President Donald Trump announced he’d tested positive for Covid-19, but a lot of people, myself included, just do not.

There’s a separate issue involved here, the question of whether it is the place of journalists to “wish” anything while they’re reporting the news, but given the fraught tines in which we live, I’m inclined to extend grace to the humane impulses of even the most hard-boiled members of the fifth estate. If you want to wish Trump well, have at it.

In fact, former Vice President Joe Biden has had at it, repeatedly and emphatically. This, just days after Trump mocked him at a debate for wearing a mask to prevent the spread of infection — an infection that Trump may very well have been carrying onto that debate stage.

But I’m not mad at Joe. I’m not even mad that he really, really means it — unlike, I suspect, many of the media figures who regurgitate the rote mantra before every report on Trump’s condition, his lying doctor, his superspreader joyride around the hospital, or his Ill Douché balcony photo op upon returning to the scene of a raging outbreak that he abetted.

I’m tempted to praise Joe Biden for his decency and his grace, as so many have. I hesitate because to do so would be to imply that those who feel differently lack those qualities, and they deserve a voice.

There is a gulf of emotions between wishing Trump well and wishing he would die from Covid-19 — a sentiment that will get you sanctioned by Twitter these days. Maybe I’ve missed the outrage over that assault on liberty from the folks who fled Twitter for Parler because they couldn’t spread disinformation about the virus or be a little racist. (It’s not an assault on liberty).

On that wide spectrum, I personally sit right in the middle. Emotionally, I do not have one single fig to give over what happens to Trump over the course of his illness. Fig is an arcane euphemism for fuck.

I’m sure there are people who know my politics, who think they know me, thinking “Yeah, right. You hate the guy.”

They probably think I’m holding back, that I must harbor some not-so-secret ill wish for Trump that I’m just keeping to myself so I can maintain the moral high ground. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t hate Trump, I don’t view him as a monster, he’s an unexceptional exemplar of unpleasant human nature who has been elevated and enabled by monsters. Without the ugly core of white resentment in this country and the greed of cowards thirsty to hold onto power, he’s the idiot at the end of every bar if those idiots all won the Powerball.

Removed from emotion, it’s a different story. Even Fox News’ Chris Wallace was quick to acknowledge the practical political disadvantage for Trump, and in a darkly comic touch that made me momentarily proud of him, twisted the knife by saying “It is what it is” — an infamous phrase that Trump used to assess the horrific death toll he has overseen.

But this episode was also a potential divot in the political infield. If Trump had taken the opportunity to “pivot” to being even a smidge more reasonable about the pandemic, there were plenty in the media ready to lap it up.

So far, that hasn’t happened — and hasn’t happened with a vengeance — but never underestimate the universe’s capacity for perverse humor. The media is never more than one “pivot” away from forsaking all and worshipping the golden calf that has been Trump’s political career. This is nothing to rejoice over.

Even if I were inclined to assess Trump’s post-diagnosis behavior as politically fatal, as one recent poll suggests, the cost of that behavior — flouting safety precautions, falsely comparing the pandemic to the seasonal flu again, potentially infecting more people who will infect other people, pricing the death toll into the cost of doing business — is far too great. Practically speaking, there’s no upside to this.

On an emotional level, I personally wish nothing for Trump. I do not care one way or the other what happens to him. I will not rejoice if he dies of this or anything else, nor will I rejoice at his speedy recovery or his long and arduous recovery.

On an emotional level, I do possess a well of anger and concern for Joe Biden, who was forced to stand across from the Superspreader-in-Chief for 90 minutes the other night, and who despite his extremely responsible behavior remains at risk.

My primary concern, the “thoughts and prayers” that filled my heart ever since I heard of Trump’s diagnosis, is and has been for the millions of Americans who have been victimized by Trump’s handling of this pandemic. There are over 210,000 people confirmed dead from the coronavirus, tens of thousands more uncounted, and tens of thousands more will die.

Every one of those people has a family who must now grieve, living with the knowledge that their loved one died alone in body, if not spirit. They — and every other American with eyes, ears, and an immunity to bullshit — must continue to live in terror that they or someone they love will contract this virus, largely due to a nationwide algae bloom of anti-maskers whose incubator is the Trump rally.

The Boston Globe published a story today with a headline for the ages. It reads “He listened to Trump and wouldn’t wear a mask. His family received his ashes just days ago”

I was raised with a strong sense of forgiveness and compassion, probably the same one that animates Joe Biden and those sincere well-wishers in the media. I’m emotionally conditioned not to rejoice at someone else’s suffering. That holds. My values also force me to struggle with my anger at the man in that headline, whose behavior put the lives of others at risk through no fault of their own. I judge myself for it.

Thankfully, I have thus far managed to escape the direct effects of the virus, and I’m counting my blessings. My family is safe so far, and we’ve managed to avoid the job losses that have plagued so many Americans. But even from a place of relative privilege, this has been rough.

Now imagine how it is for those who aren’t so fortunate, whose general stress and terror at life in the pandemic era is compounded by the death of a parent, the serious illness of a child, the loss of a job that doesn’t appear to be coming back.

Those people have every one of my thoughts and prayers, and none of my judgment for anything they might feel.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.