US President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Georgia. Photo / AP
OPINION:
One of the more baffling things about the US election is Donald Trump's decision to make an overwhelmingly unpopular position one of the centrepieces of his re-election campaign.
To illustrate my point here, I'm going to refer to a Fox News poll that came out today. This one has Joe Biden leading the President 52 per cent to 44, but I'm actually more interested in diving into the crosstabs.
This, in particular, struck me as significant.
It lines up with the sort of results we have been seeing on this question throughout the entire pandemic.
A large majority of Americans believe limiting the spread of the coronavirus should be a higher priority than reopening the economy.
I emphasise the word "large" there. There is no conceivable polling error bad enough to flip the numbers you see in that poll. It's not close.
And that is why I'm finding the US President's rhetoric so perplexing in these closing days of the campaign. Not only is he wedded to a deeply unpopular opinion, but he's gifting the obviously popular position to his opponent.
Trump is telling voters the US is "rounding the turn" and the virus is "going away", despite the nation's record-breaking infection numbers.
He's saying governors should reopen their economies, even in the worst-hit states.
One of his core attacks on Biden is a warning that the Democrat will impose coronavirus lockdowns again.
"This election is a choice between a Trump super recovery and a Biden recession. It's a choice between a Trump boom and Biden lockdown," is his constant refrain.
The President is holding massive rallies with no social distancing and few face masks, and he's mocking his opponent for holding much smaller events in accordance with local health guidelines.
He constantly complains about the news media's coverage of the pandemic, saying it's "all they talk about" and the coverage will stop the day after the election.
"We're rounding the turn. You know, all they want to talk about is Covid," Trump told supporters at one recent rally.
"By the way, on November 4, you won't be hearing so much about it. 'Covid, Covid, Covid. Covid! Today let's talk about Covid.'
"No, we are rounding the turn."
He tells his supporters that if they catch the virus, they'll get better, and "99.9 per cent" of people are fine anyway.
Trump has been claiming that American healthcare workers are overstating the death toll to get more money.
A few weeks ago he warned Biden "will listen to the scientists" if elected, and he meant it as an insult.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows recently said America was "not going to control the pandemic" and the administration was focused on getting a vaccine out there instead.
I mean, I could keep going. At every turn, the President is spreading the message that the virus isn't as bad as his critics or the media say, and the economy should be everyone's top priority.
Meanwhile, the American death toll from the virus currently stands at 230,000. The country has repeatedly set new records for daily infections over the last week, and broke the 100,000 mark for the first time two days ago.
More than 40,000 Americans are hospitalised, and there are fears that deaths will spike again in the coming weeks, as fatalities tend to lag behind any increase in cases.
While Trump has been consistently downplaying the virus and prioritising the economy, Biden has been allowed to tie himself to the relatively uncontroversial idea that containing the virus is important, and things like social distancing and masks matter.
"The President of our United States has not just chosen to ignore the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have died on his watch. No, Trump's actually decided it's to his political advantage to diminish the value of those lives already lost while jeopardising millions more through super spreader events and outright lies," Biden said at a rally in Iowa yesterday.
The problem is, I'm not sure any of that is to Trump's political advantage.
The President's strategy here is … interesting. Which is a polite way of saying it doesn't seem to make much sense.
Wealthy nations say it is politically unrealistic to expect more money.