Herman Cain's Final Public Appearance Was Ironic--and Undeniably Typical

The former Godfather’s pizza boss died from coronavirus complications after famously refusing to wear a mask at the president’s re-election rally.

Malcolm Jones
Updated Jul. 30, 2020

Herman Cain, the Godfather’s Pizza boss who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2011, has died at age 74 of complications from the coronavirus in his hometown of Atlanta, where he had been hospitalized for four weeks after he appeared as a warm-up act for President Donald Trump at a June rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Cain’s final public appearance—at an event where masks were scorned and he didn’t wear one—was arguably ironic, but it was undeniably typical: The boisterous businessman turned politician turned conservative political commentator was all in for Trump, whose rise to power was forecast in several telling ways by Cain’s own career.

It was Cain who first accustomed voters to the idea of a malaprop-prone outsider with no political experience. Like Trump, Cain was a businessman who had never served in elected office. Years before Trump and his MAGA base, there was Cain, tapping into Tea Party fervor and holding political rallies that, with their blues bands and attendees attired in historical garb, called to mind variety shows and pageants more than political events. As Trump would later, Cain cast himself in the role of outsider. “I’m a problem solver, not a politician,” he claimed in 2011. He pitched himself as a common-sense businessman tilting against lifer bureaucrats and pols mired in the Swamp.

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It was as co-chair of Black Voices for Trump, a coalition of Black Trump supporters, that Cain attended the president’s flagrantly mask-less rally in Tulsa in June. Twelve days later, having tested positive for coronavirus, he was admitted to the hospital in his hometown of Atlanta, the same day he had earlier applauded South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem for not requiring masks at the president’s upcoming Mt. Rushmore rally. “Masks will not be mandatory for the event,” Cain crowed in what would be his last public announcement.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/herman-cains-final-public-appearance-before-death-from-coronavirus-was-undeniably-typical