In the last week Trump has been touting jobs numbers and has been going off about statues being toppled over, and has even been ranting about flag burning.

All in the middle of a pandemic, which he dismisses as inconsequential, over and over again..

Any silver lining for progressives? One could imagine that liberals could be satisfied on two fronts: Trump is doing irreparable political damage to himself by downplaying and dismissing a pandemic that is ravaging the United States, to the point where we’re getting shut out by other nations. And we can also give everyone the ultimate “I told you so”, because everything, absolutely everything we said about Trump getting elected has come true. We saw all of this coming.

Conservatives are very obsessed with image. They want to be perceived of as strong, as standing up, as hard and actionable. They take it to ridiculous extremes, even to the point of making face masks a political issue.

But many conservatives only go so far. There are some base scruples to even many of the most right wing of politicians, but not Trump. Trump is only obsessed with his image, and only himself. Which makes it bizarre that he’s handled the Covid-19 crisis so badly. If he really is obsessed with getting reelected, should he not be taking better steps to stem the pandemic? He won’t wear a mask because he believes it would make him look weak. He wants to dismiss the outbreak because it’s not convenient to his plans.

When Trump was vying for the Republican nomination Lindsey Graham said “If we nominate Trump, (the Republican Party) will get destroyed, and we will deserve it.” That might be a prophecy that’s coming true, since the GOP has hitched its wagon to Trump to the point of being referred to as “The Party of Trump.”

There is a point to progressive movements: We actually want our citizens and the people who inhabit the United States to thrive, be healthy, and be protected. We want universal heath care. We want to fight climate change, we want equal rights for all, not because of how we think it will makes us look or because we want to score political points or grab power, but because we want people to live openly and live well.

I want Trump to stand up and lead us in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. I want him start throwing around those executive orders he loves so much to institute a National mask requirement, to place a National lockdown to bring down the Covid curve, and to get congress to divert federal funds for massive and widespread Coronavirus testing. I want him to do this because it’s not about Trump, it’s not about my politics and my side getting an upper hand in the upcoming election, it’s because I want us as a Nation to really fight this disease.

There are tens of thousands of Americans who are gone right now, who didn’t need to die, who didn’t need to suffer and expire from this disease. There are thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands more, who will die and who don’t need to die if we just take national action now.

I want what’s right, and what’s right for all of us right now is for Trump to take the reins and really get to the business of locking us down and masking up, and really ramp up the testing instead of trying to slow it down. Would it make him look better? Would it help his election chance? Who knows? Who cares? Because when it gets right down to it I want people to be sheltered and protected against a disease we could have fought from the beginning.

Is it too late to do those things? I’m not an epidemiologist so I can’t say. But I do know we need a real national leader to set this country in the right direction in this fight. I don’t care who that leader is, even if it’s Trump.

So I say, take the reins Donald J Trump. I implore you to do the right thing.