I think I'm not communicating well, because a fair few people are taking my "it's ok to be happy Trump is sick, but please stop saying illness happens to people who deserve it" as, like, pro-Trump so I'm gonna delete the thread.

I feel like the last 4 years have really highlighted how much far we have to go re: ableism, fatphobia, etc. and how we talk about horrible people who happen to also be ill, fat, etc.

I think schadenfreude in this case is fine and appropriate. The single biggest cause of covid misinformation caught covid because he refused to take the precautions that he's been mocking for months. Statistically, luck couldn't protect him forever from catching it.

But the people saying he caught it *because* he's a moral monster... well, why did the other people catch it? Were the 200,000 dead also moral monsters? If he spreads it to his staff, to Biden (god forbid), to reporters, are they all moral monsters who deserve it?

It probably seems like a fine distinction to a lot of folks, but "you're sick because you're bad" is a thing that a lot of disabled people like myself have had to live with for years. It's why Trump brags about his good health: his fundie base associates health with God's favor.

& I worry that if the narrative becomes "he's sick because he's bad" then there will be an implied "and now he's healthy because he's good" when he recovers--which he almost certainly will because he has the best healthcare on earth to look after him.

Reporters are already prepping their "his illness deepened him as a person and now he is truly America's president" articles as I type this, I'm sure. There will be many people who believe that his recovery is a sign of his betterness. Covid "cleansed" him, etc. Fundie beliefs.

So there's a lot of reasons why it's important to me that we don't assign a mystical "he's bad and that's why he's sick" reason to his illness.

He's sick because he didn't wear a mask. He'll recover because he has better healthcare than any other American. Those things matter.

It's not about whether or not people should laugh or celebrate. Laugh and celebrate!

It's about how our association of health with goodness has helped him all his life and may yet continue to help him during and after this.

He's sick because he didn't wear a mask. We need to be wearing masks.

He'll recover because he has healthcare. We deserve the same excellent healthcare.

Every pundit in America should be making those points until they're blue in the face from repeating them.