Quixote imagined himself fighting giants as he attacked windmills 400 years earlier in the world-famous Spanish novel.
The eponymous hero and his loyal servant Sancho Panza’s exploits are detailed in the 1605 literary classic which used the famous phrase, “Tilting at windmills” to reference someone attacking imaginary enemies. Don Quixote depicts a scene where the chivalrous but delusional lead character describes windmills as “hulking giants” and mistakes their blades as “long arms.”
A comment President Trump made during his visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday brought into focus a unifying theory of his administration’s fumbling response to the growing spread of the coronavirus.
He was asked if passengers on a cruise ship anchored near San Francisco, some of whom have been exposed to the virus, should be brought ashore.
“From my standpoint, I want to rely on people. I have great experts, including our vice president who is working 24 hours a day on this stuff. They would like to have the people come off,” he said, wearing a baseball cap promoting his reelection campaign. “I’d rather have the people stay, but I’d go with them. I told them to make the final decision.”
“I would rather because I like the numbers being where they are,” Trump continued. “I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault. And it wasn’t the fault of the people on the ship either, okay? It wasn’t their fault either and they’re mostly Americans. So, I can live either way with it. I’d rather have them stay on, personally.”
This is new territory for Trump, though, because he is used to demonizing other people, not mechanical equipment or diseases. The bottom line is that Trump will fight anything that in his mind is against him.
That’s called insanity. What else is there to say?
