Epidemic

President Trump was asked about the coronavirus on Saturday. He responded, 'No, I'm not concerned at all. No, I'm not.' His lack of concern is becoming concerning.The stock market is tanking. The energy sector is cratering. The global economy looks like it could be headed for a recession, And China claims that it’s on the road to licking the virus.For Trump the political implications could end up being dire. The surge that Joe Biden is enjoying would be almost unthinkable absent the coronavirus. Biden will likely stomp all over Bernie Sanders in Michigan and elsewhere. There will be no contested Democratic convention. Instead, the party is unifying as rapidly as it can behind him.And Trump? As is his wont, he’s acting like this is another hoax, a crisis that’s no biggie.

I like to keep a couple of books within easy reach of my desk to remind myself what sort of creature I am dealing with. As I often write about academics and academic administrators, one of these is Ralph Buchsbaum’s Animals Without Backbones: An Introduction to the Invertebrates, whose title perfectly captures the mushy, moist, moral manner of those matchless, modern martinets. Since I also often write about what Lionel Trilling called the ‘bloody crossroads’, where politics and culture meet, the other book within easy reach is Charles Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.  The chief instigator of madness these days is Donald Trump. He is like that old-fashioned confection called Fizzies.