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Trump’s Contempt for the Sick and Disabled Is Written All Over His Covid-19 Response
The president’s disgust for anyone he deems weak is key to understanding his handling of the pandemic
Donald Trump loves parades. In 2018, for no particular reason other than to gratify himself, he organized a military parade in his honor. But as plans for the parade developed, Trump insisted on excluding wounded veterans because “nobody wants to see” amputees, according to an explosive new piece in The Atlantic. In general, Jeffrey Goldberg writes, “Several observers told me that Trump is deeply anxious about dying or being disfigured, and this worry manifests itself as disgust for those who have suffered.”
Although Trump’s willingness to denigrate wounded and fallen soldiers flies in the face of American norms, he’s done it before. In 2015, he called Sen. John McCain a “loser” for getting captured during the Vietnam War, and one year later, he mocked Ghazala Khan, the mother of a fallen U.S. soldier. What’s different about the latest reporting on Trump’s comments is that it comes as we’re mired in a terrible medical crisis, when his terror of sickness is shaping his bungled response and endangering all of us.
