Testing Negative For Empathy

Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or otherwise sensed. 

I would suggest a corollary to that is experience permanence, the understanding that your own experience is not necessarily indicative of the experiences of others. 

Another word for this empathy. 

Donald Trump waddled back into the White House convinced that COVID-19 is not really a big deal.  

"Don't be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!"

Trump's up close and personal encounter with the coronavirus pandemic seems to have imparted the wrong lessons. 

Whatever the severity of the symptoms Trump experienced before and after going to Walter Reed Hospital (and we never did get any straight answers about that), Donald Trump was able to walk back into the White House Monday and pose on the balcony like a triumphant autocrat.  

Trump isn't trapped in a bed in an ICU with a tube down his throat helping him to breathe until he may or may not die. 

Not like Jose Hector Gonzalez, isolated in a hospital for 2 months before death claimed him on May 11.

Brian Gonzalez, Jose's son, has a different view from Donald Trump's rosy perspective. 

“I think (Donald Trump) exists in this bubble and doesn’t understand, or doesn’t want to understand, how bad this is. As president, he has the best medical care you can find, and I think he’s under the impression that everybody gets the same kind of medical treatment. It is very frustrating that he cannot seem to empathize with anybody." 

Empathy? Donald Trump learned well from his father Fred Trump that empathy is for suckers and losers. 

The only thing that concerns Li'l Donnie is that he feels great! It's only his experience that matters. The experiences of others do not matter. 

A brush with a potentially fatal coronavirus has not impact on Trump who continues to downplay COVID-19, making false comparisons of the coronavirus to the flu.

COVID-19

• More than 211,000 people in the United States have died. 
• We are still in a hot zone where the coronavirus continues to spread. 
• With no viable vaccine, there is no way to control the spread the virus except through barriers like masks and social distancing. 

The Flu

• 24,000 to 62,000 people have died from October 2019 to April 2020.   
• Generally the flu has an expected time frame in which we can expect the majority of cases to occur.  
• These numbers are with a viable vaccine 

In summary....

COVID-19 IS NOT THE FLU!!!!!!

Trump's experience with the coronavirus was a positive one, an experience mitigated by the devoted high level medical attention that only a president of the United States could expect to receive. 

Trump's experience is the only frame of reference Trump can understand.

He cannot under his experience is different from most Americans.  

His experience was not that of Richard "Rysiek" Godlewski who died from the virus in May, alone and cut off from his family in a nursing home outside Chicago. 

His daughter, Helen Goldlewski Brownfield, is not happy with Donald Trump's cavalier attitude towards the virus. 

"He's not wearing a mask, and he's still actively contagious. It's so alarming. He doesn't seem to have any empathy for the people who lived through this, for the people who survived this, or for the people who perished."

Donald Trump's experience was not that of Marina Aversa. She didn't take the virus seriously because Trump had said it was it was nothing to worry about. 

Until Marina got sick. "It is a big deal when you are crawling just to pull yourself up to get some air. I would sit there crying and praying to God just to make it to the next day.”

So how does Marina Aversa feel in the aftermath of Donald Trump's own experience with COVID-19? Well, she's kind of pissed off about it.

“I saw the president take off his mask today, and it’s like making a mockery of anyone who has this. He also had the VIP special, while we did not. How can you sit there and say to people not to worry about it? It’s so ... wrong. You’re the president, you’re supposed to care about all of us.”

Jane Edith Wilson's mother didn't die from the coronavirus but it's impact was felt. Not able to be at her mother 's side because of quarantine restrictions in Iowa, Jane had to say good-bye to her mother on Zoom. 

“Every time you go on Facebook, you see another person who’s watched someone slip away from afar, but we’re not supposed to let this dominate our lives?” 

Wilson nonetheless wishes Trump a speedy recovery but she's conflicted about it.  

“It’s the craziest thing in the world to wish the best for somebody who I feel like would step over my dead body."  

Donald Trump's bravado aside, he may not be out of the woods yet from his encounter with COVID-19. The duration and intensity of the infection can still cause havoc for Li'l Donnie's own health. 

And his presence in the White House puts his staff and his Secret Service in danger. 

Of course the danger to others is of no importance to Trump. 

All that matters to Donald Trump is that HE feels great. 

Trump may have tested positive for the coronavirus but he's still testing negative for empathy.