With Coronavirus and the 2020 Election, Will History be Repeated?
God willing, this day after Easter and week after Passover will witness the beginning of the denouement’ of coronavirus COVID-19. Thanks to the president’s urgent and prompt response to its late January arrival, and the draconian, albeit wise and considered recommendations for its containment from his task force, the early fears of “modeled” estimates, in terms of contagion and mortality, have drastically fallen to a fraction of what were originally forecast, which had been based on the sketchy and unreliable numbers coming from the place of its creation- China. Had President Trump not so acted on these recommendations, millions would have been infected and hundreds of thousands would have perished, so for all those who think he over-reacted, based on the advice he was getting from his task force, better the cautious to lead down such an uncertain path, than to willfully ignore the threat of a new and dangerous pandemic.
Now, by his own admission, the president is indeed beset with the most difficult and crucial decision he has ever faced- one that has the potential of far-reaching consequence in the months and years ahead. On Tuesday, he will be formally announcing the creation of a second task force- one tasked with making recommendations on who, when, where and how this national shutdown will be unwound. Theirs will be the easy part… the hard part is on President Donald Trump, and on him alone. Too early, and the president risks a dangerous and more widespread resurgence of the pandemic virus. Too late, and the economy will be wrecked far beyond repair, and far beyond the election, this fall. Either way, he will face second-guessing and “Monday morning quarterbacking” from the media and his political adversaries, alike, but that’s largely beside the point. Indeed, it is the safety and the overall welfare of the American people, which is at stake- political considerations be damned.
A brief look back into history portends a lesson from the not-so-distant past, about leadership in times of crisis, as it relates to an electorate. It is recalled that Winston Churchill was swept into becoming Great Britain’s Prime Minister, following the failure of Neville Chamberlain in dealing with the emerging threat of Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain, who had been placed into the position of negotiating “peace for our time,” was ultimately played by the Nazi “Fuhrer,” who had no such intentions in the first place. When war came, Chamberlain was tossed from office, and it was “Winnie” on whom it befell to shepherd that nation through a horrific bombing campaign known as the “London Blitz,” (which killed many thousand civilians), then during the Battle of Britain taking place over the skies of that country, and ultimately to victory in World War II. The ink on the German surrender, in the spring of 1945, wasn’t hardly dry when his countrymen turned on him two months later and voted his party out from holding a majority of the House of Commons. Churchill would return to lead his country six years later, but not before Clement Atlee and his Labour Party almost wrecked the postwar economy of Great Britain.
Consider Trump coming into the presidency, following thirty years of failed globalist/ internationalist presidencies- including the single term of the elder Bush, and three consecutive, two-termed presidencies (Clinton, the younger Bush and Obama). Taken together, their failed and disastrous policies cost this nation trillions of dollars, and thousands of American lives, wasted in overseas wars without any tangible accomplishment. Worse, these failed presidents watched, facilitated and enabled the emergence of the People’s Republic of China, as a threat to America’s preeminence in its own military and financial hegemony on the world stage. Still worse, is the fact that we “offshored” to China the vast majority of critical pharmaceuticals, as well as steel, making our nation vulnerable to hostilities from that country. Trump brought back the steel, rebuilt the military and led the nation’s economy to heights never before imagined (prior to the coronavirus pandemic), but bringing back the pharmaceuticals was a far more complex problem, which could not have been done prior to the arrival of coronavirus.
Just as Churchill was early in detecting and warning his country about the growing threat of Nazi Germany, so Trump was very early in detecting and warning our country about the growing threat from China. Both men would end up being put into office when the very things they had long warned about came to full fruition, though no one saw what was coming from China, in the form of this pandemic, until after Trump had been in office for three years.
So, with God’s good grace, let’s assume that the worst is mostly behind us with regards to this pandemic, and that we are able to unlock and reopen the critical gates and doors to our economy, before it’s too late to repair the damage that’s been done.
If this re-opening begins in May, the economy should have bounced back, come Election Day in November. In such a scenario, it would be hard to imagine anything but a landslide victory for Donald Trump, not to mention the fact that his opponent will be the bumbling Joe Biden, whose biggest burden is stringing together a cogent and coherent thought in the form of a single sentence. Thanks to the behavior we have seen from Democrats in the House and Senate, since his election in 2016, the sitting president would just as surely cruise to re-election victory while retaining his Senate majority and winning back the House.
Conversely, Biden’s unlikely election would accompany a swing in the power of the Senate, and retention of the Democrat majority in the House. Just as assuredly, Biden’s vice-presidential running mate would soon take over his presidency- assuming that his administration will not have turned over the reins of all its power to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer- all nightmare scenarios we all must consider before we decide to change horses, at this juncture.
Will the American people, three decades following the beginning of those failed globalist/ internationalist presidencies, repeat the mistakes of their British counterparts, almost three decades into the beginning of their own naïve and isolationist governments (which enabled Hitler’s rise to power), and turn out the very man who led them out of the abyss?
That would only be possible if President Trump re-opens the economy too late to prevent a severe recession (recession defined as two consecutive quarters of slowing activity), or if the re-emergence of the viral threat is enabled as the result of doing so too early. Yes, it’s indeed a lonely place where Donald Trump finds himself but, after all, that is why we have elections, isn’t it?
We elect presidents to make decisions in times of national crisis, based largely on the advice coming from those surrounding him, just as we elect our legislators to enact laws which we don’t have the time or interest in studying up on, and enacting, ourselves. When our leaders make good decisions, and follow the dictates of their electorate, we reward them by returning them to office. When our leaders do not follow the dictates of the electorate (Paul Ryan, anyone?) we turn them out of office- it’s really just that simple.
While there is no shortage of advice, coming from within and from without any presidential cabinet, the final decisions presidents make, rest alone with the president we elect. In this particular crisis, only those who truly loathe this country, would hope that President Donald Trump fails in leading us through this particular crisis…
All that said, once the corona crisis finally leaves us, and once the Election of 2020 is behind us, we will ultimately know the verdict of our nation on the presidency of one Donald John Trump.
Given the fact that 2021, and beyond, will determine whether or not the Chinese government is held to account, financially and otherwise, for the biological war crimes against humanity it has perpetrated on the entire world, this fall’s presidential election has now taken on a whole new meaning. Assuming the president is successful in his management of the pandemic and its economic aftereffects- and, God help us, we hope that he is- crazier things with regards to national elections have happened in the past… just ask the Brits…
Here’s hoping that, in such regards, history doesn’t repeat itself.
-Drew Nickell, 13 April 2020
© 2020 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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