How Trump treats his supporters

On Tuesday night, just one week before Election Day, Donald Trump‘s campaign stranded hundreds of supporters in freezing temperatures after a rally in Omaha, Nebraska. The supporters, many of whom were elderly, were required to park approximately three miles away, and take buses to the rally. However, when Trump was finished speaking and took off on Air Force One at approximately 9 p.m., the buses to take the attendees back to their parking lots did not arrive. “By nearly 10:30 p.m.,” the freezing attendees were still waiting in lines for buses. Between the rally itself and the queuing for buses, at least 30 people required medical attention, and seven had to be taken to nearby hospitals.

Trump’s stranding of supporters in the cold is the perfect metaphor for what he and the Republicans have done to most Americans for many years: left us figuratively out in the cold to fend for ourselves, whether it’s COVID, Hurricane Katrina, the Great Recession or other crises, with the negative economic and healthcare consequences that flow from such Republican bungling. This week, for example, as Trump’s inaction on the Coronavirus has led to new record-setting increases in cases and deaths across the country, the stock market is tumbling as a result.

Donald Trump’s economy

While the whole country was talking about the presidential debate yesterday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, released its “third revised” estimate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) demonstrating that the U.S. had a record-setting 31.4 percent economic contraction in the second quarter of 2020. This follows a five percent GDP decrease in the first quarter of 2020. In short, under any reasonable definition, we’re in the midst of the Trump Recession.

Moreover, the Trump Recession, including many retail bankruptcies and closures, was caused, or at least made worse and longer, by the lack of an effective national COVID response by Donald Trump and his Republican apologists. As has been well-documented, Trump and Republican politicians downplayed the Coronavirus pandemic, did not help provide enough crucial supplies and equipment, ordered businesses and public venues to be closed too late (if at all), and pressured states and local governments to reopen too early. This was not just one of the worst decisions in history in terms of public health, morality and government, but also one of the worst economic and political blunders in history. Failing to take COVID seriously in order to “boost the economy” did the opposite.