It is clear to anyone paying attention that Bristol County sheriff Thomas Hodgson has an oddly pathological and self-serving devotion to Trump. It goes beyond simple admiration.

The sheriff takes every opportunity to get in a photo with his idol, many having his teen-aged girl crush smile as he stands near him or is handing him some sort of award for something his sheriff organization finds important enough to spend money on a plaque for, or praising him at every opportunity no matter how irrelevant.

He has even recently come up with a claim that anyone criticizing his own job performance is an Anti-Trumper.

Questioning him is questioning Trump, as far as he is concerned.

His over the top devotion reminds me of the stories when I was a kid of fans of the television show Superman who put on capes or tied towels around their necks, jumped off tall structures, and hit the ground breaking a bone or two, or, worse, tying a rope around their waist hoping to simulate flight by dangling from tree branches or shower curtain rods and accidentally hanging themselves when the rope slipped.

Adoration to the point of imitation has its danger.

I suppose there are some who should be glad the sheriff wasn’t as avid a fan of that show as he is of Trump.

And if his praise and fawning weren’t enough, he worked hard to get himself a position as a co-chair of Trump’s reelection campaign here in Massachusetts. He wasn’t asked, he volunteered himself.

Being a fan is one thing. No one has a problem with a teenager having posters of an idol on bedroom walls,  although it would seem a little strange for a grown man to do this, or wanting to emulate a celebrity by taking up the sport they play or the musical instrument they are known for. That would be productive.

The problem comes in when the idol worship subsumes the worshipper who slowly identifies so closely with the idol, they become poorly executed carbon copies.

I may not be a psychologist, but like anyone with an opinion and an outlet, that doesn’t stop me from expressing my thought that Sheriff Hodgson is so enamored of Trump, he is becoming a weaker version of him, at least in his own mind

We have already seen his obsession with getting Trump’s attention by volunteering county jail inmates to help build the wall on the southern border and doing that at his official swearing in as sheriff by the governor in 2017.

Now it would seems that he wants it noticed that he is handling the Covid-19 pandemic just like Trump has been handling it, unfortunately with the same results I.E, letting it spread until, rather than being something to prevent, it became something to handle.

This is how Trump handled the virus until it got out of hand.

Back in January, Trump claimed, while the rest of the world was addressing the pandemic seriously,

 “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”

So why do anything?

As far as addressing it?

 “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China. It’s going to be fine,”

and in February insisting.

 “The Corona virus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

Because the Stock Market is more important than people’s lives, it didn’t matter how many people went down as long as stocks went up.

And how was he doing addressing the virus?

 “CDC & my administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”

Toward the end of February he assured the American people,

“If the virus disappeared tomorrow [Democrats] would say we did a really poor, and even incompetent job. Not fair, but it is what it is, So far, by the way, we have not had one death. Let’s keep it that way.

 And at the same time, he assured us that a vaccine was coming, and soon.

 “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away. They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”

More assurance came when he said,

“So I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away.”

And, in spite of first President Bush and then President Obama establishing protocols, compiling a document for dealing with pandemics, and putting together a commission to deal with one, after he dismantled the commission and ignored the book he claimed,

“If you go back six months or three months ago, nobody would have ever predicted.”

Well, they may not have predicted it exactly, but for the first 2.5 years of his tenure, the way to deal with it had existed

When asked if schools should be preparing for the virus, he assured us,

“I would think so, yes. I mean, I haven’t spoken specifically about that with the various doctors, but I would think so, yes. I think every aspect of our society should be prepared. I don’t think it’s going to come to that, especially with the fact that we’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.”

And then there are these quotes:

“One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

In March he returned to vaccine claims,

“You take a solid flu vaccine, you don’t think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?”

“A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.”

 “If we have thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work – some of them go to work, but they get better.”

“I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down. We’ve really been very vigilant, and we’ve done a tremendous job at keeping to down.”

And then he made his now famous promise and praised his own mental acuity,

“Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. And the tests are beautiful. They are perfect just like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”

“I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”

As far as numbers, his idea was to limit finding out how many people have it or acknowledging, when he spoke about a ship with American passengers waiting off shore,

“I like the numbers being where they are, I don’t need to have the numbers double because of 1 ship that wasn’t our fault.”

“We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on Coronavirus.”

 “The Fake News media & their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power to inflame the Coronavirus situation.”

“It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

And his most recent comment on testing,

“When we have a lot of cases, I don’t look at that as a bad thing. I look at that as in a certain respect as being a good thing because it means our testing is much better. So, if we were testing a million people instead of 14 million people, we would have far fewer cases, right? So, I view it as a badge of honor. Really, it’s a badge of honor. It’s a great tribute to the testing and a lot of the work that the professionals have done.” 

And, here we are with the latest numbers of those who have contracted and died from something that was supposed to have just gone away.

That may have been a lot to take in, but it will help in understanding Trump’s Mini-Me, Sheriff Thomas Hodgson of Bristol County, Massachusetts.

When concern in the beginning days of the COVID-19 pandemic was expressed about the spread of the Corona virus among those in the state’s prisons and jails, both inmates and staff, a reasonable step to thin the enclosed population was proposed by prosecutors in Massachusetts, “Cite and Release”, that would look at inmates on a case by case basis, and release those who were incarcerated for non-violent crimes, those sitting in a cell who were waiting for their court appearance for having allegedly committed such a crime because they could not make bail, or those who were within days or weeks of their release having done the majority of their time.

Those who had committed or were charged with committing a violent crime would not be eligible.

The Bristol County sheriff immediately opposed it. 

“We have no current plans to release inmates in the manners you described.”

He claimed his approach for the welfare of those under his care was the best, but there is doubt because, judging by his actions and expressed attitude, it could merely be his feeding his ego that  carefully promotes a tough guy image, or his need to have people in his jails in order to feel complete.

His explanations for his opposition seemed to mirror Trump’s comments about the corona virus made at the same time as if he were echoing them using Trump’s phrases like “ever in history”, “no one has done more”, and, when he chooses to avoid having to state something in solid terms while claiming he has the greatest plan ever that no one has ever seen before, “We’ll see”.

After saying,

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“We have no current plans to release inmates in the manners you described”

He subsequently explained,

“Releasing people to go back into the community, whether back to friends, family, or whoever may be exposed already? Why would we add people to that environment, when we have a controlled environment here? We could probably get them medical treatment faster.”

At the time he made that statement the population at the Bristol County House of Corrections was at 955, down from a previous high of 1,300  with about  650 employees who left and re-entered his facilities on a daily basis and could be bringing the virus in with them.

“We’re disinfecting as much as we possibly can. We are taking extra precautions. We are spraying more than we normally do. We educate the inmates about the preventive measures…. We’re doing probably more than most people would be doing on the outside. … We’ve not had any circumstances with any inmates here indicating (that they may have the coronavirus).”

When it came to the calls to reduce the prison population to protect the safety of the inmates he said,

“To make an arbitrary statement like that, without understanding the impact of it and the level of risk here versus on the outside, says it all. That’s why we are in the business we are in. We’ve dealt with this before in a prison setting. We have protocols. We make adjustments. We pay attention to the CDC. We pay attention to briefings from the White House.… As far as I’m concerned, it’s a baseless suggestion.”

We all watched those briefings and could see that they weren’t the best guide to follow.

He went on to explain that the “arbitrary” proposal co-aligned with the preexisting views of the ACLU and politicians.

He would later refer to these people as “Anti-Trumpers”.

In like manner, when advocates addressed releasing non-violent ICE detainees that had not broken any law beyond being here without the proper papers, the sheriff’s spokesperson who speaks for the sheriff said,

 “We suspect these detainees are working with outside political activist groups to use the coronavirus crisis to advance their political agenda.”

When an activist group demanded that  “incarcerated and detained people, who pose no danger to individuals and the community” should be released “to thin out the population so that safer practices can be implemented”, and went so far as to not only criticize, but make a suggestion for a solution,

“These should prioritize those with serious medical conditions, others awaiting trial for inability to pay bail, and those who have been jailed for technical probation and parole violations. Anyone who is infected with the virus should be quarantined off site, but not at home, so as not to infect family members and friends,”

the sheriff dismissed it as a political agenda.

Then in April it began.

 On March 25 a nurse at the jail complained of not feeling well and went home. After five days she took the test for COVID 19 and was found positive. Hodgson’s response was,

“It’s encouraging that she’s had no symptoms for a week and is feeling well. It’s also encouraging that no other BCSO or CPS staff members, nor any inmates or detainees, have reported symptoms.”

And, so, they could just move on.

A follow up press release from the sheriff’s office regarding this case said,

“Any headlines or press releases from political activist organization claiming infections or outbreaks are completely false and reckless.” 

In another statement the sheriff’s office added,

“There are lawyers who represent clients in our custody that are spreading lies and rumors around the community to advance their personal political agendas in a time of national crisis.”

By April 7, a correctional officer and a K9 officer tested positive for COVID-19 according to a press release from Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson’s office.

“Both are feeling well,” Hodgson said. “They have some minor symptoms but both said, overall, that they’re feeling okay. That’s very encouraging.”

Taking into Consideration that there is an incubation period during which symptoms may be absent, and considering that these officers and the nurse traveled between the jail and the community outside, the virus was in the jail.

Steps to release those eligible under “Cite and Release” could still be taken.

In typical Trumpian fashion, while the sheriff praised his staff and tried to make it appear his critics were being unfair to his staff when they were holding him, and not them, accountable for his refusal to be cautious, when announcing that he was giving his staff a raise during the pandemic, he revealed more than he may have intended.

“My staff has to come into a very challenging environment.”

If all was well how could the environment he initially described as “we have a controlled environment here?” have become a “challenging environment” unless the sheriff knew that he was projecting an image of being in total control while hiding that he knew this was not so?

He went on to say what in retrospect was either his not seeing or choosing not to accept reality,

“Provided we remain mindful and vigilant with our social distancing and personal sanitation, both here and in the community, we can reach our shared goal of preventing our inmate population, us, and our families from becoming exposed to and infected by COVID-19.”

But things had to be done his way.

And rather than science and preventative measures, the sheriff continued to rely on his self-image and luck, and echoing one of Trump’s signature phrases when it comes to results.

“So far we don’t have any COVID-19 cases, knock on wood, in regards to our inmates and detainees. We hopefully won’t have any, but we’ll see.”

By April 21, while an additional staff member tested positive for COVID-19, the sheriff would continue to claim that no inmate or ICE detainee had tested positive mainly because they were not being tested in spite of calls for it beginning on the first days of March, and although he followed this news by appealing to emotion by saying,

“Massachusetts has been hit very hard by the coronavirus and the next few weeks are expected to be pretty rough, so I hope everyone stays safe, practices social distancing, and follows strict sanitation recommendations,”

he still refused to follow the practice of releasing those who were eligible according the “Cite and Release” recommendation he had in knee-jerk fashion refused to follow when it was first proposed over a month before.

As April was coming to a close, 2 more staff members tested positive, and obviously this was a concern to inmates aware that there had been a method proposed to keep them safe even if it meant house arrest and ankle bracelets.

On May 1 there was a “riot” of questionable origins in the Ice detention center on the campus of the Bristol County House of Correction, and in response, a judge decided that it was time for accountability and required regular testing with required reports of the results.

Obviously now the Trumpian belief that the fewer people you test the more you can claim low numbers ended.

On the same day as the ICE detention center “riot”, a county inmate, who had been sent to a local hospital for a pre-existing condition was given a COVID-19 test the day before, and was notified he had tested positive on May 1.

The corrections officer who had accompanied the inmate to the hospital was also tested and on May 2 he was notified of the positive result.

Knocking on wood was not the right approach, and this was just the beginning.

Within days of the order to have inmates tested, according to a press release, six Bristol County Sheriff’s Office staff members and eight inmates tested positive for COVID-19 that week, however a later press release on that same day stated that seven staff members had recovered from COVID and had returned to duty while eleven are away from the facility recovering.

This increase in numbers is happening in a place the sheriff assured the public, his employers, it would not happen because he just knew that what he was doing was the only acceptable approach, and, so, he needed no advice from anyone else. And, as is typical of him and his idol, where people have been criticizing his leadership during this time, he thinks pointing to a squirrel will distract the public, and he is pretending that his critics are attacking his staff by this mental flatulence,

“The COVID pandemic has taken a toll on our country. In the middle of this national epidemic, essential workers like those in corrections, law enforcement, and health care have joined others at grocery stores, gas stations and other places in reporting to work to keep our country going. They deserve an enormous amount of credit.”

Okay, sheriff, fine.

But what about his responsibility?

The virus is in his jails and his ICE detention center, and he purposely refused to see the inevitable coming.

And that is how the idol helps a pandemic spread in his wider world, and his biggest fan emulates him to do the same in his smaller world.

It’s a glorious and dangerous bro-mance.