President Donald Trump once again has put lives on the line to arrange an ego-feeding, image-boosting photo op — this time a drive-by to wave at supporters outside Walter Reed hospital in Maryland, forcing at least two Secret Service members to breathe the same air as a highly contagious coronavirus patient. This only a few months after Trump ordered federal agents and troops to violently clear protesters from Lafayette Park across from the White House so he could pose holding a Bible in front of a church.

Despite claiming he's learned a lot from his infection and that "I get it," he clearly doesn't. He continues a long trend of endangering Americans in order to stoke his own image while ordering his doctor to mislead the public so he wouldn't appear weak. Trump's repeated, self-centered disregard for the good of the nation should figure prominently into voters' calculus next month.

In some perverse way, it's perhaps understandable that America's first reality-TV-star president is more concerned with imagery than facts, but that doesn't make it excusable. From literally Day One of his presidency — when he promoted a transparent, silly lie about the size of his inauguration crowd — Trump has consistently demonstrated his all-consuming obsession with how things look, at the expense of addressing how they actually are.

In Helsinki, in front of the world, he stood next to Vladimir Putin and embraced the Russian autocrat's false denial of election interference, throwing U.S. intelligence under the bus rather than admit there was any shadow over his election victory. When the first round of pandemic stimulus payments went out this year, Trump insisted on the unprecedented addition of his own name to the checks, despite warnings that it could delay that desperately needed aid to millions of Americans. Administration officials recently acknowledged that an edict came down earlier this year discouraging West Wing staffers from wearing masks because it wasn't what the president believed was a "good look."

Even now, with reality having caught up to Trump in the form of a coronavirus infection, the White House refuses to offer a complete and coherent report of its seriousness — clearly in deference to Trump's bottomless need to project strength. The SUV ride Sunday was a new low. The presidential vehicle in which he rode is hermetically sealed against chemical attack, making the risk of viral transmission between those inside almost "as high as it gets," in the words of one shocked Walter Reed attending physician. Secret Service agents expect to risk their lives to protect the president's life, but not to promote his cheap political vanity projects.

It's telling that, even facing this illness, Trump continues to prioritize his ravenous ego above the good of Americans — and of America. Clearly, only an electoral defeat will change that.

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Photo credit: geralt at Pixabay