18 IX 2020: Trump and the Triumph of the Will

Trump has overruled the testimony given at a congressional hearing by Robert Redfield, M.D., the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Redfield stated that, given the wait for a tested vaccine and sufficient supply of vaccine, it would take until Fall 2021 for the country to get back to normal. Trump hastened to condemn Dr. Redfield, declaring that the poor old Doc “got the message confused … didn’t understand the question.” What he means is “Dr. Redfield did not give the right answer.” In Trump’s view, a vaccine against COVID19 widely distributed is the elixir that’s going to win the election for him, and Trump’s gut tells him that distribution of the vaccine will begin in October, i.e., before the election. And when Trump’s oracular bowels, or, rather, Trump’s desperate needs have spoken, reason, science, and truth are forbidden. Trump has constantly found that his uninformed surmises and self-centered wishes have nothing to do with reality, and his way of getting around this is to get rid of reality. In his Sixth Satire, the Roman poet Juvenal presents a scene in which a woman of the Roman aristocracy on a whim orders the crucifixion. She sweeps her husband’s reasonable and humane objections aside, and proclaims: “Hoc volo, sic iubeo; sit pro ratione voluntas.” = “This is what I want, this my command; let will take the place of reason.”