Media trivialize a suicidal Brad Parscale, all just to own Trump

It took a matter of minutes for the media to mock Brad Parscale after it was reported that the ex-Trump campaign manager had been involuntarily hospitalized after his wife alleged that he was intoxicated and threatening suicide while armed with a loaded gun. Though later reports have hinted that Parscale’s mental health problems may have involved domestic violence, it only took his reported threats of suicide for the media to use the initial story to advance their war on President Trump. Here, some examples:

The evil narrative at play here is the everything-Trump-touches-dies jest that the Left loves to take literally. The stupid narrative at play is that Parscale’s life-or-death decisions hinge on some political conspiracy or fear rather than the misfortunes of a year that are in fact behind a nationwide suicide epidemic in addition to whatever personal situation he might be facing.

Early in the lockdowns, medical experts warned that we would see suicide rates skyrocket — what JAMA Psychiatry attributed to economic stress, social isolation, decreased access to community and religious support, barriers to mental health treatment, illness and medical problems, and outcomes of national anxiety. Another factor reportedly at play in the Parscale conflagration was domestic violence, which has similarly increased amid the coronavirus lockdowns. A June CDC survey found that a staggering 1 in 4 respondents aged 18 to 24 have seriously considered suicide, and 40% of adults overall have struggled with mental health or substance abuse issues.

So when the media sees a drunken and depressed Brad Parscale threatening his own life after allegedly battering his wife, they see the problem as Trump-specific. In reality, Parscale’s story is far from unique. How many women (and how many men, for that matter) have struggled to escape increasingly inebriated or abusive spouses this year? And how many men have found themselves staring at the bottom of a bottle and considered ending it all?

Surely we’ll learn more of the sordid details about Parscale. But the media ought to take off the partisan lens and realize it’s a tragedy far too common in our current coronavirus purgatory.