I never thought I would see the day.

As the world continues to muddle through the COVID-19 pandemic, I find myself in an interesting position. As a political science student, this entire situation is the closest thing my field of study ever gets to an experiment. That sounds horrible but I don’t mean it to be. People are dying and that is horrific. According to the WHO there have been almost 200,000 confirmed deaths. So when I say experiment, I am referring to the responses of states across the globe in regards to the current situation. How do we respond to something that we can’t hit with a really big stick or shoot with a really big gun? If you live in the good old USA apparently it’s to inject yourself with disinfectant.

Now I don’t want to go on any sort of rant but just for a moment I would like us to consider exactly what the President of the United States said as we approach the upcoming election in a few months. According to Real Clear Politics, Joe Biden holds a lead over President Donald Trump in the national polls at 48.3% to 42.4%. Now if we learned anything from the 2016 election, when it comes to Trump, poll numbers are next to useless when trying to anticipate how people will actually vote. Don’t believe me? Go see if you can find Hillary Clinton’s blue wall. The point is Trump doesn’t care what the polls say. More importantly, he doesn’t seem to care what the experts say either.

According to NBC News, the White House has said that the media is taking the President’s words out of context. Apparently so are the makers of Lysol as the company released a warning not to ingest any of their products. The point is, this is not the first time that the President has simply ignored the experts before forcibly being brought back to the realm of the somewhat reasonable. This is what has defined his administration. Whatever Trump says, goes, regardless of the outcome. And this is dangerous. Pure disdain for the knowledge of experts is going to get even more people killed and in the long run, get him voted out of office. But why should he care? After all, everyone thinks he is doing such a great and fantastic job.