Donald Trump, right, and a tortoise

By Ademola Adegbamigbe

As President Donald Trump appeared on TV on Wednesday, 30 September, he played the big clown to the hilt. It was at the Presidential debate which took place at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University. It was moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News. Just as the way he wagged his finger with magisterial finality to tell contestants in his The Apprentice show, saying “You are fired”, he dismissed the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden’s belief in covid-19 protocols, especially, wearing of mask.

He said derisively: “I don’t wear face masks like him. Every time you see him he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away … and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.!”

With that repartee, you could imagine Biden’s mask as wide as the shield of Goliath. President Trump and his mouth…

Trump and the analogy of Tortoise’s wisdom

One day, the tortoise, in African folklore, became determined to appropriate the wisdom of everyone in the world. So, it gathered every wisdom, put everything inside a calabash  and wanted to hide it on a tree. As it was advised by all creatures, including the snail, to tie the container on its neck so that the receptacle would dangle on his back as he climbed, tortoise did not trust their counsel. 

It tied the container to its chest and began to climb, a task that was Sisyphean  in nature. At a point, its hands and legs slipped off the tree trunk and tortoise crashed, its shell breaking into pieces. 

Other creatures it despised helped him to attach the broken pieces to its back. Since that day, the carapace of the tortoise has remained rough.

That has been the case with Trump in these hard times!

Trump down with covid-18

Less than 72 hours after he cocked his snook at Biden, something happened. Covid-19, the pandemic that is on tour of the world landed in his homestead, affecting him and his first lady Melania Trump. They both tested positive for it, Trump revealed on his Twitter handle.

As he put it: “Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!” Trump tweeted shortly before 1 am (6 am in Nigeria) Friday.

Trump late Thursday night had said that he and the first lady would begin a quarantine process after top aide Hope Hicks tested positive for the virus.

In fact, one of his top officials, Hope Hicks, had tested positive to Covid-19. Thursday night, the President Twitted: “Hicks, who has been working so hard without even taking a small break, has just tested positive for Covid 19. Terrible! The First Lady and I are waiting for our test results. In the meantime, we will begin our quarantine process!”

After the debate, Trump still poked fun at the Democratic candidate. As reported by CNN, Trump on Thursday mocked when he spoke to a largely mask-less crowd in Pennsylvania, Trump, according to the report, asked his supporters if they know “a man that likes a mask as much” as Biden. “It gives him a feeling of security,” the President said. “If I was a psychiatrist, I’d say this guy has some big issues.” Now it is Trump that has a big issue of covid-19.

That Trump made jest of Biden’s mask symbolizes his general carefree attitude to coronavirus right from the beginning.

 On a visit to a Ford plant in Michigan in May, as reported by businessinsider, Trump wore a mask for part of the trip but took it off in front of the cameras. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, as the story had it further, accused the president of acting like a “petulant child” for flouting the measure.

The president said he had been “given a choice” about wearing a face covering.

“I had one on in an area where they preferred it, so I put it on and it was very nice. But they said, ‘Not necessary here,'” Trump told reporters.

He gave the same reason for not wearing a mask on a factory tour in Arizona earlier in May.

“But even though the White House itself introduced a rule requiring visitors and staff members to wear masks, Trump has in several briefings been the only top official not wearing one.

According to recent reports, Trump believes wearing a mask in public makes him look unpresidential and could damage his image on the campaign trail. He has argued publicly that he is tested often for the virus and is therefore confident he is not at risk of spreading it.

Biden, in contrast, has urged Americans to ‘follow the science’ and told ABC News in April that he would wear a mask in public.”

Still on Trump’s disregard of Covid -19 protocols, Cameron Peters wrote in vox.com:

“In fact, there are many reasons the US death toll is so high, including a national response plagued by delays at the federal level, wishful thinking by President Trump, the sidelining of experts, a pointed White House campaign to place the blame for the Trump administration’s shortcomings on others, and time wasted chasing down false hopes based on poor science.

Often as not, though, rather than argue the merits of its response at home, the Trump administration has chosen to focus on its action against China as a benchmark for success — and that’s not accidental.”

-Ademola Adegbamigbe, Editor of TheNEWS, has been reporting business, entertainment, politics and diplomacy for the past 26 years