By Stephen Macaulay

Let’s not engage in schadenfreude. If Donald Trump has COVID-19, that is a bad thing.

If your mail carrier has COVID-19, that is a bad thing.

If your minister or sister or coworker or son or dentist or. . . .  A bad thing.

Now there is the report that Donald Trump has tested positive for the virus, just like more than 34 million people on the planet.

He is president, but he is a man. As the old saw has it, he ties his shoes like the rest of us.

Let’s take a 19-year-old who went to Florida for Spring Break and who behaved like any (un)reasonable 19-year-old would during Spring Break. Hey, nineteen.

Yes, somebody warned them, experts told them to keep distance, and they told them to mask up.

Yes, they did none of those things.

Back at home in Wisconsin, the symptoms develop. And Auntie Sue and Uncle Bob get sick, too. 

Maybe it’s not death.  Diarrhea. Pneumonia. A lack of taste. An attenuated heart.

The beer-bonging, hookah-hitting 19-year-old was on Spring Break. That is entirely understandable. Ill-conceived. But what would you otherwise expect?

Donald Trump has the best doctors and scientists in the world.

In his own words, Donald Trump stated to Bob Woodward on tapes—tapes not made secretly, but with full knowledge and agreement—that he knows how virulent the virus is. Bad. Very bad.

Yet he has proven himself to scoff at the advice and has proposed all manner of bizarre therapeutics. Has stood in front of crowds of largely unmasked people whose shout-propelled aerosols undoubtedly made their way to the stage.

I hope that Donald Trump and his family and those surrounding him don’t have anything untoward happen to them.

But let’s keep one thing in mind: He is an educated, 74-year-old man with the best doctors in the world, the best scientists in the world, whom he has chosen to ignore.

He is not 19.

What does that say about his judgment?

Macaulay is a cultural commentator based in Detroit.

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news