I have come to believe that Trump is intellectually incapable of understanding this. It’s not just a strategy. The way he talks about it shows that he can only see this in terms of the numbers looking bad for him, that much we know. But I also think he truly doesn’t understand that the cases would exist whether we tested for them or not and that knowing about the cases reduces the spread because people can self-isolate and contact tracers can find those who’ve been exposed. He can’t see this, no matter how many times it’s explained to him.
This is not unlike some of his followers I saw on TV at the Arizona rally today who refuse to wear masks because the fact that they have not personally gotten sick yet proves to them that this is not a real threat. This goes beyond partisanship or belief in conspiracy theories. It’s a fundamental inability to understand how this works. It’s kind of frightening.