Trump said, ‘It is what it is’ about COVID-19. Here’s how to interpret that comment

Twice in recent weeks the innocent-sounding phrase, “It is what it is,” has been spoken by high-profile speakers at important junctures in this crisis-riddled election year.

In an interview at the White House on July 28, Axios reporter Jonathan Swan pressed President Trump to explain his administration’s performance and evaluate the tragic consequences of a pandemic that continues to devastate the country. The president’s conclusion: “It is what it is.”

Nearly three weeks later, in a pre-recorded speech on the first day of the Democratic National Convention, former First Lady Michele Obama called for the removal of the president in this year’s election. “Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country,” she said, punctuating her own conclusion with the same phrase, “It is what it is.”

I teach history for a living. I instruct my students that history is much more than a mere collection of “facts,” it is a form of thought. To think historically and to develop a keen sense of historical awareness requires one to reflect deeply upon not only “what” things are (or were), but why and how they have become that way. “To explain change over time,” I teach my students, is the historian’s calling. Moreover, there are many dimensions to historical thought and practice, three of which are relevant when considering the now hackneyed phrase, “It is what it is.” They are context, process, and empathy.

▪ Context is everything. Analysis of the context of any historical event, either one residing in the remote past or one occurring in a more recent time, is essential when making a historical argument. Historians must consider the cultural, social, political, and ideological climate of the time in which any event took place.

There is a more specific situational context as well. In our example, President Trump faced off with a skilled reporter whose dogged follow-up questions put him on the spot and revealed his shaky, at best, understanding of a pandemic that is on course to kill 200,000 people by the end of September. Unlike the president, who could offer only a scattered explanation of his administration’s performance in combating the coronavirus, Michelle Obama calmly, but emotionally, delivered a finely tuned speech and searing indictment of the current president, ironically using his own flippant phrase to drive her point home.

▪ Explaining change over time, or process, is also fundamental to the discipline of history. There are myriad and competing historical arguments for virtually every major human event, all vying to best explain how “it” came to be “what it is.” Evaluating the degree of validity in any historical argument requires due diligence and much detective work, culling evidence from a variety of sources. In his speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump Jr. defended his father’s response to the pandemic, claiming he “acted quickly” to confront the coronavirus. Multiple timelines of the pandemic, however, suggest an alternative interpretation. The president went from proclaiming on February 10 during a stump speech in New Hampshire that, “Looks like by April, in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away,” to asserting during a Fox News interview with Chris Wallace on July 19, “I think we have one of the lowest mortality rates in the world.” Wallace’s response: “That’s not true, sir.”

▪ Finally, there is empathy, a word that has been bandied about a lot lately. For historians, empathy requires one to enter into the feelings, mentalities, and motivations of humans from past ages to reach a better understanding of their experiences as well as our own — a tall order. Basic human empathy is the sincere effort to understand and feel another’s experiences, both the joyful and painful ones. Uttering “It is what it is” regarding a virus that has taken so many lives and has caused so much pain and human suffering is not empathy, nor does it reflect a firm understanding of how the country has arrived at this point in time. Michelle Obama, and millions more, know that “it” did not have to be the way it is, nor should it be.