Change of Strategy

Trump is re-starting his COVID-19 briefings again today.

Just in time for the election, fifteen weeks from today, with Inauguration Day six months away.

It's part of a strategy to appear in command of the pandemic.  And thanks to the American penchant for embracing the appearance over the actuality, it might just work.

Trump has tried to campaign on the economy, which is weighed down by the pandemic, then on racial fears of brown people moving in to low-cost housing in the suburbs, which most suburbanites - not all of whom are white these days - don't seem to care about as much as they used to.  Go after Joe Biden for waiting to abolish the police because Bernie Sanders and the Squad (not to be confused with Huey Lewis and the News) are demanding he do so?  Everyone knows that defunding the police doesn't mean abolishing the police, and Joe Biden is more for police reform anyway.  So now Trump will make it look like he's leading on COVID.  And he'll restrain himself just enough to ensure that the cable news channels will turn a deaf ear to demands that he be pulled off the air like last time.

However . . . polls already show that Trump is highly distrusted when it comes to the pandemic, so there's a chance that this gambit won't work.  Especially when Dr. Fauci likely won't be there today.  But be always on your guard.  After all, some voters may suspend their disbelief to Trump's advantage, and this country is full of people who have been able to suspend their disbelief so masterfully that they think William Shatner has hair.