Donald Trump has, I think, been truly representative of perhaps half of the American people, for he shares and by example legitimizes their vices. Both he and they are selfish, anti-intellectual, racist, patriarchists, materialists; they are functionally amoral, anti-social, self-indulgent, self-centered and angry all of the time.

This can be seen clearly in the refusal of large numbers of citizens to accept or cooperate with measures enacted to try to control the spread of COVID19. They are zealous only for their own convenience and so refuse to wear masks. They choose to believe that their unaided common sense is more reliable than those who are truly informed, the scientists and physicians. They believe that their financial interests should be taken far more seriously than efforts to contain the plague. They assert that not wearing a mask and crowding together in bars and sporting events is their choice, that they will take their chances, and those with whom they come into contact will have to look out for themselves. They are unwilling to forego any of their usual pastimes and pleasures in the face of a lethal pandemic. In practical terms, they care for no one except themselves. They are, on the whole, resolutely ignorant, have little comprehension of the biological, sociological, and political aspects of the pandemic, and so view public health measures as only one more effort to inconvenience them.

I have been thinking that it would be appropriate, in the U.S., for COVID19 to called Trump’s Disease, for the President has done more than anyone to allow the disease to prosper and grow. But perhaps Trump’s Disease would be a more appropriate name for the complex of determined ignorance and childish self-centeredness that Trump inspires into the anti-maskers.