HEY 19, NO WE CAN'T DANCE TOGETHER

What’s in a number?  Does 13 “trump” 19? 

The 19 part of COVID-19 is giving Trump supporters fits.  Voices from the Ministry of Propaganda – Rush Limbaugh and Kellyanne Conway – have tried to convince their most gullible followers that it’s an ordinal number – the 19th COVID.  Which, they imply, means there had to have been 18 earlier COVIDS, and we didn’t shut the whole country down for them, did we?  That 19 must haunt their dreams. 

Trying to fight fire with fire, they’ve now enlisted the help of the number 13, as in MS-13.  They’re betting, or at least hoping, that lightning will strike twice, and that an encore of their greatest hits from 2016 will top the hit parade again in 2020.  His campaign has generated a transparently phony Biden ad featuring heavily tatted members of MS-13 glowering at the viewer while the text claims that Biden pledged not to deport them.   

I suspect that Trump has gone to the well once too often on the MS-13 thing.  Remember all those fearsome caravans shambling up from Mexico towards our sacred southern border?  To the casual observer, it appeared to consist mostly of women with children – aspiring welfare queens, no doubt, but nothing that looked particularly scary.  Ah, but hidden among them were MS-13 gang members and ISIS terrorists.  It’s an image that sends delicious shivers up the spines of the MAGA crowd, but it leaves most of the country curiously unaffected.  After all, that was supposed to be their ace in the hole for the 2018 mid-terms.  It didn’t work then, and I doubt it will work now.

Besides, aren’t the Chinese supposed to be the bad guys this time around?  The MS-13 ad shows a lack of message discipline. 

Fortunately, I’m here to help.  “Build the wall” worked so well in 2016 that it deserves another shot in 2020.  When he accepts his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention, Trump should demand that China build a wall to keep its viruses contained.  A second Great Wall – a Greater Wall, if you will – would make for the best Infrastructure Week ever.  The Greater Wall would be built on China’s eastern border, which happens to be the Pacific Ocean.  Build the Wall, coat it with hydroxychloroquine, and bingo, the virus can’t escape.  COVID-19 (and all future COVIDs) will be forced to head west.  Unless it goes north towards Russia or south towards India.  Modi and Putin might be annoyed, but all’s fair in love and re-election campaigns.  It’s not that much of a stretch to demand the same level of preparedness from foreign despots as we do from our own elected governors. 

And the beauty part is that, because Donald Trump is the world’s greatest salesman, China will pay for the wall!