EVEN IN HIS OWN SELF-INTEREST, TRUMP WON'T ACKNOWLEDGE ELDER VOTERS' HEALTH FEARS

This seems like another misstep.

White House aiming for Trump pivot from virus to economy

After two months of frantic response to the coronavirus, the White House is planning to shift President Donald Trump’s public focus to the burgeoning efforts aimed at easing the economic devastation caused by the pandemic.

... Trump is expected to begin to highlight his administration’s work in helping businesses and employees. Aides said the president would hold more frequent roundtables with CEOs, business owners and beneficiaries of the trillions of dollars in federal aid already approved by Congress, and begin to outline what he hopes to see in a future recovery package.

We all know that Trump's poll numbers have been slipping, and he was not impressing voters even before Disinfectantgate. But why this, when polls continue to show that voters are more afraid of the coronavirus's health effects than they are of the virus's economic impact?

I know that having meet-and-greets with CEOs is easy, while overseeing a nationwide crash program to increase testing and tracking would be hard. I know that Trump would rather project a positive image than perform a difficult task.

But I keep thinking about the big blue number in the lower right-hand corner of this chart:



In polls, Joe Biden is running 15 points better against Trump than Hillary Clinton did among voters 65 and older. Why would that be?

I'm 61. I'm in good health -- but I have no idea what would happen to me if I contracted the virus. Maybe Donald Trump assumes he'll never die, but I don't. Until now, I assumed it wouldn't happen for a while. I don't know if that's a reasonable assumption anymore.

Of course older people are worried. But Trump, the Power of Positive Thinking guy, doesn't want people to worry. He wants them to go back to work and shopping, because that's what his rich donors want. He wants a roaring economy again, because it never occurs to him that presidents can get reelected in tough times, if they're seen as doing all they can to minimize the pain. Instead, Trump is telling Americans -- especially the worried elderly -- to ignore the pain. Ignore the danger. Ignore their own completely understandable fear of death.

Trump really might lose a portion of his elderly base in November if he continues to pretend this fear isn't real.