Election 2020: Woodward's Pandemic Revelation May Be Apt, but It Doesn't Qualify as a Bombshell

See, before, or even just yesterday, America had this feeling: Trump has no clue what he's doing, especially with this pandemic.

[Above: Bob Woodward. Image Retrieved From Getty Images® .]

Since it began, the general consensus among those concerned about COVID-19 is that President Trump fumbled the ball on the pandemic and thus proved to be a liability to the wellbeing of the American people.

Yes, it was well-established from the start and remains a visceral opinion on the crisis. And yet, the sound of galloping hooves click-clack-click on the cobblestone road excite us as out of the fog emerges Bob Woodward, lamp in hand, proclaiming: Trump knew since January that the virus was worse than he made it out to be.

Indeed, in Bob Woodward's latest book, Rage, which will be released September 15, the assertion that Trump very well knew the severity of the virus, contradicting how he addressed it to the public in order to avoid "panic," is backed up with 18 on-the-record interviews with Trump. Woodward wrote that the first interview came ten days after Trump was briefed on the serious danger of the coronavirus.

"You just breathe the air and that's how it's passed," Trump told Woodward way back on February 7.

It is now September. That means for seven months, Bob Woodward sat on this information. Adding to the proliferating question marks are the facts that this is the follow-up to Woodward's first massively successful book on the Trump presidency, Fear, and that the book release comes just seven weeks before a hotly contested election. While what is revealed in his latest book is vital for holding the president accountable, it sure sounds like Woodward and his publishers were primarily preparing to cool off in a pool of cold hard cash.

Joe Biden, today, echoed what is revealed in Woodward's book, saying that Trump screwed up "on purpose."  

Woodward's decision to wait points to a grim fact about our political system: that we do what we're told. Critical thought is presumably prohibited. Instead, we stick with the medium and wait patiently for the next curated message to arrive. You may have to wait upwards to six or seven months, but the info will be fed to you. 

See, before, or even just yesterday, America had this feeling: Trump has no clue what he's doing, especially with this pandemic. In fact, it was already well established, by Americans and fact-checkers alike, that Trump was downplaying the virus from the start. Last week, before the Woodward "bombshell," Biden claimed Trump's coronavirus response failed because he just "doesn't care."

The information revealed by Woodward, it should be noted, is simply not going to dissuade anyone remotely skeptical of the pandemic. It is nothing new. By July, 40% of Americans felt the worst of the pandemic was behind them, and more particularly, 61% of Republican voters felt the same. No matter how irresponsible it is to ignore a public health crisis, there is a significant amount of voters who signal that, to them, Woodward's big revelation is merely water off a duck's back.

PEW Research released some polling data in a study last month, and the numbers in the study suggest that Woodward's interviews are not as big of bombshells as the media is reporting. That is because we no longer vote according to the combination of personal values and objective facts. Instead, we vote on impulse and on how we feel.

For instance, one poll gauged voters' opinion on the importance of the debates and found that only 33% of all voters said they were focused on their importance, while 59% said otherwise. Only one third of voters care what the candidates have to say, the rest have already made up their minds. In fact, when citing negative reasons for supporting their candidate, many feel sure that the opposing candidate is potentially disastrous. Support is just disdain for the opposition; 21% of Trump voters are going that way because "He is not Biden," and 56% of Biden voters support him because "He is not Trump."  

The lack of interest in the debates probably stems from the data that shows the biggest gap in the two candidates' beliefs. Likely to nobody's surprise, 86% of voters feel that Trump and Biden take different positions, and only 9% see their beliefs as being similar. To give some perspective, in 2000 there was more balance with 51% believing Bush and Gore took similar stances on the issues, contrary to 33% saying otherwise. The ideological divide deepened over the next two decades, and the balance is so out of whack now that the choice between one candidate or the other feels like being forced to choose between cotton candy and sashimi-- they couldn't be any more different. There is such a stark contrast in candidates that voters don't even engage with the issues that matter, there is no overlap necessary to have a nuanced political opinion. Instead, voters battle with what qualifies as an "issue." Voters will simply belittle, or completely disregard, the importance of one issue in favor of another.

The PEW Research study also finds that Trump may have better support from his own party this time around compared to 2016. In the last presidential election, the percentage of those who agree that neither candidate would be good was 46% among Republicans, and 33% among Democrats. This year, it was down to 14% among Republican voters, and 22% among Democratic voters. According to the data, Republican voters are more on board with their candidate, or at least more resistant to the liberal opposition, than they were when they rallied behind George W. Bush in 2004. Back then, 17% of Republican voters felt neither Bush nor Kerry would be a good president. 

Ultimately, Republican voters just don't hold the pandemic with as much weight as Democrats. The study states that when asked about their biggest concern for the candidate they are choosing to support, only 3% of Trump supporters cited his handling of the pandemic.

It was already established that Trump fumbled the pandemic, whether or not that mattered very much depends on the person.

So, again, what was the reason for this wait? If Woodward were honest, he'd say: to benefit this political system and the people affected by it, of course, by selling books. Because nothing promotes American democracy like profits.

Nope, Woodward just contributed to all the noise.