If the coronavirus pandemic was created to damage President Trump, that would be a pretty impressive level of coordination on the part of world leaders. You mean to tell me that the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak to be a pandemic just to damage the reelection chances of the president of the United States? And Italy, in basically shutting down its entire country, played along? That would be a conspiracy theory worthy of Jacob Wohl.
Apparently, this line of thinking is also in character for Jerry Falwell Jr., the Liberty University president who appeared on Fox & Friends on Friday morning to assure everyone that the coronavirus is not worth the hype.
Could COVID-19 be the “Christmas Gift” North Korea’s leadership promised America back in December?https://t.co/qMf91I6CgA
— Jerry Falwell (@JerryFalwellJr) March 13, 2020
“It’s just strange to me how so many are overreacting,” Falwell says, echoing the rhetoric of his buddy in the White House. “The H1N1 virus of 2009 killed 17,000 people. It was the flu also, I think, and there was not the same hype. You just didn’t see it on the news 24/7. It makes you wonder if there’s a political reason for that. Impeachment didn’t work, and the Mueller report didn’t work, and Article 25 [that’s Amendment 25 to you, Jerry] didn’t work, and maybe now this is their next attempt to get Trump.”
Who is “they”? The deep state? The organizers of Pizzagate? The media, who are not actually responsible for closing Disneyland and the NBA?
To his credit, Falwell says his university has limited any events with large crowds for the time being, so it’s clear that he doesn’t think the outbreak is a total joke. Did he suspend events for swine flu in 2009? It doesn’t look like it.
During the coronavirus outbreak, it’s important that we not overreact. But it’s also important to take the situation seriously, and above all, not politicize it or use a massive health risk for our own personal gain. (It could be worse: At least Falwell isn’t one of the writers spreading plagiarized news about coronavirus through self-published books on Amazon.)
But, Falwell’s comments on Fox do get worse. After speculating that the media may have ulterior motives for their focus on the coronavirus, he hints that the outbreak might be the Christmas present North Korea promised to the U.S. last year. “Could it be they got together with China and this is that present? I don’t know,” he muses. “But there really is something strange going on.”
If the coronavirus outbreak really is the result of biological warfare, doesn’t that weaken the claim that it’s nonsense drummed up by the media to harm the president? Just spitballing here.
Anyway, Falwell goes on to say that social distancing helped limit deaths during the 1918 Spanish flu, which is why Liberty will no longer host large gatherings. It’s almost as if those who cancel their gatherings aren’t “overreacting” after all.
For the sake of our public health, people on both sides must stop politicizing the coronavirus outbreak. It is truly a sign of the stupidity of our times that anyone can find a way to make a health crisis about Trump. No, it’s not Trumpvirus. And no, it’s not getting hyped up to damage Trump. The outbreak now a pandemic, which means we should stop the politics and agree on one thing: It’s time to start taking the coronavirus seriously.
