If Donald Trump wants an encore performance in the Oval Office, he has a vulnerability that he needs to address. It isn't classified documents, election interference, hush money to a washed-up porn star, or urinating Russian hookers. It's his response to the COVID pandemic.
Republican voters seem to be forming into four major groups. There is the "NeverTrump" contingent of establishment Republicans. Their hatred of Trump supersedes their conservative principles (looking at you, Bill Kristol). They would vote for Josef Stalin before they'd vote for Donald Trump.
Next are the MAGA loyal — the "only Trump" contingent. They think The Donald is the universal solution to every American problem. They would vote for Trump even if he ran on a platform of sacrificing virgins to the sun god to reverse global warming — sorry, climate change.
There are the undecided conservatives who have no particular hatred or affection for Trump but fear for our country and want whoever will defend it best. They're waiting to see how the primaries play out.
Finally, there's a fourth group, which isn't being addressed by the media much. It comprises the former Trump voters who have soured on him because of the pandemic response he triggered. When Donald Trump announced "two weeks to flatten the curve," — and Democrat governors took it as a green light for two years of feeding their God complex — people lost livelihoods, property, educations, family fortunes, and personal freedoms. I receive tons of email from people who voted for him in 2016 and 2020 but claim they will never vote for him again — because the pandemic protocols ruined them. That's a problem that Donald Trump needs to address.
No one (except the Dems) is accusing Trump of being a Bond villain, determined to destroy anyone not current on his Mar-a-Lago country club dues. It's hard for a CEO of such a vast enterprise to know if every "public servant" is really serving the public. People might be inclined to give the Donald a pass for the misdeeds of Anthony Fauci, if it weren't for his constant plea for credit. If he demands recognition for the "greatness," he also gets blame for the not-so-great. That leaves the fallout from the COVID pandemic hanging around his neck like an anchor.
But rather than address the mistakes that were made, and showing sympathy for the devastation it wrought, Trump is on the campaign trail claiming that the MAGA vaccine could have never been deployed without his MAGA leadership. He's demanding credit for the vaccine that doesn't prevent the illness, or prevent the spread of the virus, but which may have dangerous side-effects (see, for example, my vax story).
We don't know the whole truth about COVID yet — and neither does Donald Trump. But it's starting to look as though the truth is too big to hide much longer. It's coming out in the drip, drip, drip fashion that the truth always comes out when people who know the truth fear our learning it. Our understanding of what may turn out to be the biggest scientific scandal in history is slowly evolving.
We were told that COVID was a spontaneous variant that occurred in a Chinese wet market and did not originate in a lab. Now we know that was false.
We were told that the NIH ceased doing gain of function research when Barack Obama banned it. Now we know that the NIH just changed the name and funneled gain of function grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology through EcoHealth Alliance.
We were told that COVID may have come from a lab but was not the result of bio-weapon research. The Sunday Times has discovered that the Chinese military collaborated on COVID research, using funding provided by the United States.
We were told that our NIH is staffed by unbiased scientists, concerned only about the well-being of Americans. Now we know that its scientists receive royalties for medical advances made with our money.
Trump's opponents aren't pouncing on him for his COVID response — yet. That would require the sacrifice of a few of their own — those who found the chance to play dictator for a day too tempting to resist. But if they get desperate enough to stop Trump, that will change (see Al Franken). I'd be nervous if I were Gretchen Whitmer, Andrew Cuomo, Gavin Newsom, or the "Big Guy" who tried to mandate the vax.
Trump's Republican challengers aren't attacking him over COVID, either — yet. They're letting him bask in his "greatness" while the drip, drip, drip continues. They may not realize that COVID is Trump's Achilles heel. Or they may just be letting the truth continue to emerge for a few months, waiting for the right time to use it.
Could this hypothetical chain of events become a reality? A House committee completes its investigation of our pandemic response and publishes its final report. The investigation concludes that
Anthony Fauci facilitated the creation of the virus using our tax dollars.
The research was done at a facility with questionable safety protocols and Chinese military connections.
Researchers at the NIH received royalties for vaccine patents — and those royalties were boosted by Joe Biden's mandate.
Anthony Fauci used his position at the NIH to hide his involvement in the greatest humanitarian crisis in recent history — which resulted in almost 7 million deaths worldwide and incalculable financial damages.
An hour after the House report drops, Ron DeSantis releases a campaign video about Trump awarding a Presidential Commendation to Anthony Fauci for his "service" during the pandemic.
The media may want to hold off on those DeSantis political obituaries — at least until the drip is over.