The plan to destroy millions of Covid tests highlights Trump's maniacal impulses

Even though it's the epitome of government waste--which Trump claims he's rooting out--the existence of the tests threatened him, another indication of his fascistic nature.

I ordered four free Covid tests from the government last night after reading that the Trump administration was shutting down the program—in which tests are distributed to Americans—and was considering destroying 160 millions tests.

Until the story blew up after the Washington Post began reporting on it, they were planning to stop taking orders at 8 p.m., “transitioning away from government-distributed at-home tests to the commercial market just as we have in the past,” said a Department of Health and Human Services spokesman. Even if “transitioning away” from the free distribution was a good idea, why would you destroy all the tests you have?

We, the American people, paid for those tests!

Trump and his lieutenants claim they’re about stopping waste and fraud, but here they were, about to destroy $500 million in tests that we may urgently need if there is a Covid surge. Sure, it costs money to stockpile them. But it actually costs more to destroy them—and even more to buy new ones if you need them. We all remember when, under Trump’s first term, they didn’t have enough tests. Now they were talking about destroying what they had. Sheer lunacy.

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Why? It seems pretty simple. Trump hates them. He hates the idea of them. He hates the mere presence of of them. He hates what they imply: That testing is important, and that the government should have enough tests—and that he completely bungled it himself, and did not make that a priority in his first administration. Trump’s dire mismanagement of Covid was highlighted by the shortage of tests early on (and their really haphazard plans to get them), which would have helped slow the transmission of the virus.

And, in his mind, Trump lost the election in 2020 because of the pandemic. After the Washington Post revealed the plan to destroy the tests—having obtained documents and emails—the administration reversed course in a rare turnaround, and said it will continue to take orders and stockpile the tests.

I’m sure the reversal was more about the optics of destroying hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded medical tools while they’re claiming to cut waste than anything else.

And it exposes what a madman Trump truly is, someone in continued cognitive decline who, like other dictators, is obsessed with reconfiguring the world—carving it up with Vladimir Putin, and, perhaps, President Xi of China, his fellow authoritarians—while letting Elon Musk slash and burn everything domestically.

The cruel, frightening action of removing transgender people and the “T” in LGBT from the National Stonewall Monument website was right out of the playbook of deranged, controlling, and compulsive fascists—as is the destroying of Covid tests simply because of what they represent. It’s similar to his drive in cutting off of foreign aid, causing millions of people in what Trump has called “shithole” countries to suffer and die of disease.

Musk is behind many of the cuts in funding, and he surely is down with the transgender erasure—he’s a transphobic hatemonger who berated his own daughter who came out as trans—but Trump is the president, making the decisions. He clearly likes these ideas when they’re brought to him. And we know many of the most horrendous actions are driven by Trump and his own racist impulses, which have led his charge against diversity, equity and inclusion.

Trump wants to censor—expunge—any history that points to his crimes, and to the downfall of his first administration. All the January 6th cases were wiped from the Department of Justice websites, and any recounting of Trump’s indictments and crimes have been stricken.

Like other dictators, Trump thinks he can rewrite history via government censorship. That, of course, won’t happen, as history is being recorded elsewhere, by journalists, historians and others—all around the globe. And governments around the world that have survived authoritarians have made sure, once they’ve beaten back the dictator, that the dark history is meticulously recorded, and prominently centered.

But dictators don’t think that way. They believe they can control the world, including the recording of history. And in Trump’s case, you can’t blame him for thinking that. He’s gotten away with everything, and is more emboldened than ever. He was impeached twice but Republicans bowed to him and didn’t convict. The Biden administration blundered on bringing him to justice within four years, as Attorney General Merick Garland didn’t move fast enough.

Trump’s Big Lie—and continued lies—kept enough people behind him to help him stitch together a coalition and eek out a win in 2024. And then came the corporate media, the tech moguls and even some Democrats bowing in advance. Throughout the campaign, Democrats, including Vice President Harris, pointed to Trump as a fascist who was unstable and dangerous. That followed the words of General Mark Milley, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff and a retired general.

The media, including many pundits, also highlighted the words of Milley and Kelly, focusing on the dangers of Trump and his fascistic tendencies.

But since the election, they’ve dropped all of that—even though Trump and his administration have shown us fascism in action.

JD Vance actually told the Germans at the Munich Security Conference that they should not shun the neo-Nazi party in Germany and should stop banning Nazi slogans and symbols. Trump is working with Putin to allow him to take Ukraine, while saying the U.S. will “take over” Gaza. The Trump administration is banning words and phrases from government websites, and erasing whole groups of people.

That is the hallmark of fascism and yet, we’re not hearing it from the media and opposition, certainly not loudly enough nor as we did during the campaign.

So yes, after getting away with everything he’s done, and now seeing that even the media and his opponents aren’t calling it out, Trump feels completely empowered to engage in the rewriting of history and doing truly insane things in that regard. The move to destroy 160 million Covid tests, just so Trump could put Covid out of his mind, and out of history, is the latest sign of his compulsive, fascistic nature.