They thought ignoring it and pushing for reopening was the best way to get Trump re-elected. That's really it. That's what it comes down to.
Maybe you're right. But I'm not sure how ignoring an infectious and potentially deadly virus makes any sense. And then you add reopenings, meaning more gatherings and human contact, and greater transmission is inevitable.
So they were just hoping to get lucky instead of doing anything constructive?
I still find this hard to fathom.
No, not quite what I am saying. I don't think they thought they would get lucky and the virus would go away. I think they just didn't care one way or the other.
Its not hard to understand if, again, you look at every issue from the standpoint of how it effects your reelection chances. When the pandemic really hit, they had two choices due to the timing of it (as they saw them, not saying this is correct). Either shut everything down properly to protect Americans and almost surely lose the 2020 election due to the economic fallout because however temporary it is it will probably extend into November. Or, force a reopening that limits the economic damage a bit and spin COVID deaths/sicknesses as unavoidable and/or China's fault. The later option was a hail mary, maybe, but it was the only option they thought they had because it was the only option that gave them a shot at 2020.
Trump played "wartime president" on TV because he saw the approval ratings it gave him (at first) but we all know those nightly shows were pointless, or really doing more damage than help.
I think the voter suppression angle has emerged as a plus for them. It may not have been their original intention but the thinking has definitely emerged that a vote held during a pandemic gives them home field advantage.
Now, we know that the best shot they had at reelection was to handle COVID properly. Americans supported the shutdowns by large margins. They gave Trump that wartime approval rating. If he had played the hero and gotten real results he likely would have kept it. But getting real results requires knowing what you are doing. And when it became clear that an Administration staffed by this "president" had no idea what they were doing (I mean, they put fucking Kushner in charge) well, they took the option they had.