For four days, the Republican National Convention constructed a false image of America beyond the pandemic, where President Trump had moved quickly and effectively to crush the coronavirus.
For four days, the Republican National Convention projected the image of a nation that had beaten the coronavirus, with maskless supporters packed close together and free to carry on with their lives thanks to the quick, powerful and effective response of President Trump, who crushed a pandemic when it reached American shores. The truth is another story. With more than 180,000 Americans dead and the economy still mired in recession, no issue threatens Mr. Trump’s re-election like the coronavirus. To make the post-pandemic imagery stick, speaker after speaker — especially the president — had to paint a narrative that rewrote history and was resplendent with distortions, exaggerations and outright falsehoods. From the start of the pandemic Mr. Trump downplayed the coronavirus, saying in an interview in January that “we have it totally under control” and speculating in February that it “could maybe go away.” Far from condemning Beijing’s handling of what he would later refer to as the “China virus” or the “Chinese virus,” Mr. Trump initially praised President Xi Jinping’s handling of it. By March 15, as daily cases continued to increase, Mr. Trump said the virus was “something we have tremendous control of.” These dismissals, however, did not stop one speaker, a nurse named Amy Ford, from declaring on Monday that “President Trump recognized the threat this virus presented for all Americans early on and made rapid policy changes” or Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from claiming that “the president has held China accountable for covering up the China virus.” Mr. Trump did place restrictions on travel from China on Jan.31, effective February 2, but they only applied to foreign nationals and included exceptions. The porous “ban” ultimately allowed 40,000 to travel from China to the United States from the end of January to April. It wasn’t until March 13 that similar restrictions were placed on travel from Europe, and by then, a virulent European strain of the virus was already widespread in New York City. In fact, Mr. Trump’s botched announcement of the European travel ban set off a chaotic exodus of Americans from the continent that overwhelmed U. S. airports and most likely let in thousands of cases. Addressing the convention on Wednesday night,Vice President Mike Pence proclaimed that “before the first case of the coronavirus spread in the United States, the president took unprecedented action and suspended all travel from China, the second largest economy in the world.” That is not true. And in the telling of Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, “President Trump saved lives by shutting down flights from China and Europe.” Another speaker, Natalie Harp, put it more hyperbolically: “Millions would have died” had it not been for the restrictions. As the virus began to spread in the United States and around the world, the federal government was slow to develop testing at the scale necessary to monitor the pandemic.
