Will Trump’s Strategy of Hoping Americans Become Numb to the Pandemic Work?

By Andrew Quist

According to a report from the Washington Post, the Trump Administration is hoping that Americans become numb to the coronavirus pandemic. The report states:

Trump’s advisers . . . are seeking ways to reframe [President Trump’s] response to the coronavirus—even as the president himself largely seeks to avoid the topic because he views it as a political loser. . . .

The goal is to convince Americans that they can live with the virus—that schools should reopen, professional sports should return, a vaccine is likely to arrive by the end of the year and the economy will continue to improve.

White House officials also hope Americans will grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day, according to three people familiar with the White House’s thinking, who requested anonymity to reveal internal deliberations. Americans will “live with the virus being a threat,” in the words of one of those people, a senior administration official.

The president himself has said numerous times and as recently as July 1 that he believes the coronavirus will “just disappear.” He also falsely said in his 4th of July address that 99% of COVID-19 cases are “totally harmless.”

While this head-in-the-sand approach is obviously a terrible strategy for dealing with the largest public health crisis in the nation in over 100 years, it is less obvious whether it will work politically. Will Americans become numb to the pandemic as the cases, deaths, and hospitalizations continue month-after-month?

Psychological research has shown that people do grow numb to statistics of illnesses and fatalities, a phenomenon known as “psychic numbing.” As political scientist Pierre Martin pointed out, “Americans have ‘grown numb to’ and ‘learned to accept’ thousands upon thousands of preventable gun deaths a year.”

However, there are two reasons why Americans are not likely to become numb to the mass casualties from the virus as we have for gun deaths.

First, the coronavirus pandemic is touching too many lives. Many people throughout the country have fallen ill or lost their job from the pandemic, or have a loved one, friend, or acquaintance who has fallen ill or lost their job. The effects of the pandemic are not statistics to most people. It is real. Nearly everyone in the county is (or is being told they should be) wearing a mask and practicing social distancing. A crucial voting block for Donald Trump, voters over the age of 65, are scared of the pandemic and do not trust his stewardship of the crisis.

Another reason people are not likely to become numb to the pandemic is because imagery conveying the seriousness of the crisis is being broadcast by the media. While statistics can have the effect of numbing our emotions, vivid imagery arouses our emotions. Images of people on ventilators and of long lines outside testing centers strike an emotional chord. Also, the image of a graph showing an exponentially growing curve of cases is frightening, especially when compared to the flat curve represented by the case totals in other countries. From an emotional perspective, the actual statistics matter less than the trendline of the curve shooting upwards. The curve tells the story “things are rapidly getting worse.”

Americans just aren’t buying President Trump’s false narrative that the pandemic is going away and we should all go back to normal. Even in Texas, a state with a populace more conservative than the rest of the country, a recent poll found that a majority of people think it is more important to try to control the spread of the virus even if it hurts the economy.

Still, as the months go by, and if the curve of cases again plateaus, there is a risk Americans could eventually grow numb. To counter this, health officials and journalists should emphasize personal stories and images to keep Americans emotionally and intellectually engaged with the reality of the crisis.