Conservative author David Frum believes President Donald Trump's push to reopen the economy during a lethal pandemic is part of a calculated reelection strategy that will sacrifice thousands more lives in order to secure his victory.
Pointing to what he describes as an "ominous" report from Axios about Trump pivoting away from trying to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and toward economic recovery, Frum argues that the president believes he can make fears about the virus go away by hyping up the economy -- even if people keep dying from the disease.
"Trump is consciously choosing to risk higher virus casualties in Q2 in hope of jolting the economy into revival in Q3 to save his re-election in Q4," Frum writes on Twitter. "It's a desperate gamble to save himself by sacrificing others. It's also not very likely to work."
In an earlier tweet, Frum said that the president's extreme narcissism made him unlikely to care about the thousands of people who will die as long as it gives him a marginally better shot at winning this November.
"For an extreme [Narcissistic Personality Disorder] case like Donald Trump, the lives and troubles of other people are remote, incomprehensible -- less real to him, and infinitely less important, than an incorrectly melted slice of cheese on his day's hamburger," he writes.