The Nightmare Scenario: Donald Trump and a Global Pandemic

The other day I was having a conversation about the Trump Presidency and the multitude of close-calls we’ve seen in the first three years. The North Korea nuclear showdown. The China trade war. The brinksmanship with Iran. And it occurred to me that we have been incredibly lucky so far that Trump’s mistakes and ignorance have been mitigated by human decisions that have counteracted his horrifying instincts and lack of acumen.

It is reminiscent of a theory from the days of nuclear standoff between the United States and Russia, a piece of game theory that reduces an arms race to a contest wherein two players are both nearing the edge of a cliff and are in danger of falling to their deaths. Of course, logic dictates that both players decide to avoid the edge, but game theory produced an incredibly dangerous strategy: in order to keep the players from falling, one of the parties should decide toward the edge of the cliff and inspire the opponent to pull them back.

Nation states have been playing this game ever since, a terrifying scenario that sees brinksmanship turn into war and war into massive displays of societal destruction and human suffering. However, with Trump, opponents have found a rival who is more than willing to jump off the edge of the cliff, if only because his own ignorance precludes him from understanding the inherent dangers and malignant narcissism tells him he could literally survive anything. In these cases, North Korea, China, and Iran recognized they were participating with an irrational, dangerous opponent, and made the decision to pull back from the edge.

We have been incredibly lucky that human fear and uncertainty have kept us from toppling, but what we face now in a global pandemic knows nothing of fear and uncertainty.

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To understand this political moment, you must understand that what we know of authoritarianism is all wrong. American myths of history have told us that authoritarians and fascist leaders of the past were anti-democratic, dangerous, and genocidal, but ultimately competent and strong. The truth is that authoritarians are always incompetent but possessed of a toxic mixture of unshakeable certainty and crippling insecurity. They make for terrible leaders. They change course constantly. They excel only in setting their underlings against one another and in fomenting cultural rage among their bases.

What authoritarians are able to do, however, is to control the narrative of culture with an iron fist that ensures their side of the story has control. This total domination of reality makes sure that their mistakes are hidden and their incompetence masked by displays of power and anger. It is a performance, an overcompensation for fragile insecurity. Authoritarians cannot govern, and so they blame governance and democratic institutions for their failures and make short work of each before standing astride a power apparatus without challenge.

What we have seen so far with Donald Trump and the coronavirus pandemic is a leader incapable of grasping the threat facing him, much less capable of overcoming it. Authoritarians like Trump detest experts because their insecurity means they don’t want to believe others might know more than them. This is why he goes to the CDC and stands in front of scientists and brags that he’s an expert himself. This insecurity leads to a wilful ignorance that leads to mishandling of problems.

As reality distends and the virus spreads, raw, inarguable numbers tell a story. The Trump Administration is failing in fighting the coronavirus and has failed in every bumbling attempt. That much is indisputable. But it is obviously in dispute. Trump has already shown he is most concerned with managing the numbers and perception of the pandemic instead of the pandemic itself, lying constantly and begging the press to treat him more “fairly.”

This is all Trump is able to do. There is no ability to organize because to organize means to admit the problem is beyond his own personal control. He cannot listen to experts because even a solitary expert who knows more than him is testament to the possibility that he might not know everything. To give authority to others, to delegate anything, is to lose a grip on absolute power, which an insecure authoritarian craves and needs.

Unfortunately, history tells us there is only one path this will follow. The incompetence of authoritarians has to be masked at all costs, and so there will be crackdowns on the organs of information, disinformation campaigns, propaganda designed to eradicate objective reality. The mistakes Trump has made, the lives he will have cost, will be blamed on outside forces. Already they’ve begun blaming Democratic politicians. Trump has started wondering whether journalists might try and infect him personally. Republicans have blamed China, spread the conspiracy theory that coronavirus is actually a biological weapon. Immigrants have already been eyed and more is to come.

Make no mistake, Trump will veer toward the edge of the cliff here and his cult of followers will go with him. There’s no choice now for the Trump faithful. To admit he is incompetent and at all responsible now would be a devastating blow to their reality that might destroy their lives. There will be vast conspiracies, drumbeats of unnecessary war, scapegoating of political rivals, and a demonization and dehumanization of vulnerable populations.

He will race to the edge of that cliff, taking the rest of us with him, and wait for someone, anyone, to pull him back.

Unfortunately, there may be no one left to save him from himself.