Donald Trump: The Pied Piper of Tulsa

DJT, the Pied Piper of Tulsa

Update:  Afterwards.  Thank God that of the supposed 1 million followers to pack the arena and area, only about 12,000 showed up (my guess) to fill the bottom half of the arena.  That is about 1%.   People are smarter than we imagined.  Some of those interviewed were poorly informed, thinking that the Coronavirus was only as bad as a cold or the flu.  While there were no seats on the ice rink, many people stood just facing the President for the whole speech, which is very dangerous.  Also, when entering the arena, there were zig-zag lines where everybody passes many people several times, without any social distancing.  Very counter to social distancing.

Update:  June 20.  In fairness, the BOK center is a very high ice arena, with steeply rising stands, so released virus droplets will circulate outwards and upwards, and away from the spectators.  Also, there are no chairs on the ice base level, so nothing to linger there, and the President and his party are far from the stands, so they are protected.  The overflow crowd is densely seated, but they are outside, which also gives them protection.  Usually, there are carefully chosen people standing behind the President, but this does not appear to be the case so far.

Update:  They emptied out the overflow and brought them inside, where the upper seats are mainly empty.

Update:  Trump stated that people should turn off NFL football if players knelt and “disrespected the flag” when the National Anthem played.  However, almost all of Trump supporters are wearing cut up American flags, including the giant flag in the press with Trump’s picture on it and Keep America Great on it.  All of these are violations of the Flag Code to respect the flag, which Trump must have had drilled into him at his Military Academy.  In terms of contact tracing, there are many pictures and tapes of who is seated next to or in front of each other, which can be used later, if testing sites or hospitals interview patients to find out who attended the rally.

 

The analog of Trump and the Coronavirus to the Pied Piper story is too striking to pass up.

The Pied Piper came to the city of Hamelin and offered to take the rats out of the town, supposedly to protect them from a plague.  He did this successfully, supposedly colorfully dressed, and playing a piping instrument.  He then got rid of the plague rats, drowning them or over a cliff.  When he came back to be paid, he was only given a pittance.  So, when the adults were in church, he marched the children out of town, and they were never seen again.

Clearly, Trump eventually stumbled and was pushed to give some leadership to our nation’s lockdown and battle against the Coronavirus, but left most up to the states and cities.  Then, he wasn’t paid off with high ratings, for his claims of being the best plague fighter, like the world had never seen before.

Finally, he gave up on fighting, and tried to get paid off with restoring the economy, despite the viral resurgence that would follow.  Finally, he led those of his followers who were behaving like children in the face of warnings by informed adults, and subjected them to his most infectious rally in Tulsa Oklahoma, tomorrow, June 20, 2020.  This ignorant reincarnation of the plague will stick with Trump forever as the “Pied Piper of Tulsa”.

These stories are taught to children for a reason, to not repeat these in their lives, and especially, to not follow demagogues.

For such a large group compacted together and yelling, I doubt if the six foot limit has any meaning there.  People will be inside for five and a half hours.  I fear that the President and all of his party may well be infected.

Postscripts:  Trump, the supposed “Law and Order” President, tweet-threatened that counter demonstrators would be roughly treated in Tulsa, but not his own demonstrators.  The Oklahoma Supreme Court also threw out a suit to halt the Trump rally.

Personal note:  as an outdoor piping Ocarina player, I can say that animals totally ignore music, except I imagine, for a few birds, who occasionally pause in their tweeting.  Unlike our President.

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
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