Trump staked out his position early on as being against mitigation measures such as masks, social distancing, and lockdowns because he was pushing the narrative that coronavirus was not a big deal. He decided early on that the mitigation measures would be bad for business and therefore he is against them. Democrats, in an effort to try to save lives, pushed the mitigation measures as hard as they could to try to get people to adopt them so they wouldn't die. Republicans are so focused on preventing any scenario where the Democrats look good that they are willing to prevent anything that might cause that to happen no matter how many people it might save.  That is literally the definition of playing politics with our lives.