The only thing more stunningly dumb than the willingness of Donald Trump’s disciples to die for the sake of their cult leader’s approval poll numbers is the fact that Trump, this past weekend, established a new and terrifying benchmark for “success” in fighting the COVID-19 outbreak. 

During a presidency that’s beyond satire, no one really anticipated that Trump’s Red Hat militia would end up being a death cult, but here we are. The cult’s warped calculus is basically this: Trump will only be re-elected with a prospering economy, but if COVID-19 decimates the economy, Trump could lose. So we have to save the economy, literally at any cost, even if it means we have to sacrifice older Americans (who typically vote Republican). 

Read the rest of Bob Cesca’s piece at Salon.