Is Trump creating a death cult?

Heaven's Gate

Amid demonstrations against shelter-in-place policies, Michael Tomasky wonders how far Trump and Republicans will go by opening up the country too soon:

,,,people are going to get sick, and they’re going to die. And the Trump GOP view is: Well, that’s life. Death, that is.

Most of them will have been old. They’re worth the price. Sure, they fought in wars, tended victory gardens, built the greatest middle class ever. That was then. Today, they’re a burden. 

Louisiana GOP Senator John Kennedy came oh-so-close to saying it openly Wednesday night to Tucker Carlson (who thanked him for his “wise words”): “We’ve got to reopen, and when we do, the coronavirus is gonna spread faster.” He threw in that “we have to be ready,” but he knows very well that we’re not ready...

That, between now and Election Day, is what Trump is going to divide this country into—the timid people who seek safety and science and reassurance, and the brave souls who are willing to embrace the liberation of death...

Thus, the question of the 2020 election, as Trump and his party attempt to frame it: Are you manly enough to sneer at death, like real men do in the movies (which are fake, of course), or are you one of those pusillanimous patsies who quivers under the bed sheets like some avocado toast-eating intellectual, whining that we have to listen to the experts?