Once more, Trump is wrong, right
A digital news outlet called Mediaite has counted them up and says President Trump has said 116 times on TV that he and his administration have done a whiz-bang job dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Ah, but then there was his announcement that he’d soon tell states when to end the lockdowns meant to contain the contagion. He has no such prerogative.
The surprise for some in the moment’s crisis is that he has mostly controlled authoritarian urges, working unpleasantly with the states sometimes but recognizing that they are on the front lines. I think he maybe gets it that each state is different; one size probably wouldn’t fit 49 of them. But on top of that, our federalist system protects state rights on this issue. Trump can and should issue guidelines as he has done. He is also obligated to help supply the states with their needs, something made harder by a predecessor named Obama.
Sadly, Trump’s style is a public relations nightmare, supplying opponents with advantages even when his instincts venture in right directions. Private enterprise has come mightily to the states’ rescue, something that makes progressives uneasy, and requests from a state one day will often change the next. The states are loath to look at their own preparatory deficiencies, and, if you can blame something on Trump, what headline is going to disagree with you?
While the states do not have to salute Trump on any specific date, he is right about hellish economic consequences if unlocking some of the lockdown doesn’t begin soon. Here is what he ought to do: work it out with the states, the best economic advisers at hand, business executives and health experts.
His own top health adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a splendid pick, says we still don’t have the testing and tracing methods needed to proceed safely. Some areas will be ready to move before others, he has told the press, adding that Trump’s suggestion about getting things started on May 1 would be dubious for at least parts of the nation.
The reason is that the lockdown is no small thing. It is questioned by at least a few informed skeptics thinking it went too far, fell short of what could have been done about the virus and could give us a second Great
Depression, in fact a greater depression. We already have unbelievable financial stress and unemployment and could have deaths from suicides, alcohol and drug overdoses far outnumbering the virus deaths. We could see poverty of a kind unknown here in modern times and the vanishing of all kinds of societal gifts as well. The politics could quickly be outrageous as Democrats argue for more spending producing more destitution. The misery could last a decade or more if we do too little too late. We could still have purple mountains majesties but no more fruited plains.
The blame will be on Trump whose late start did hurt almost as much as President Barack Obama’s negligence after the 2009 H1N1 flu and other health crises during his administration. The Strategic National Stockpile was stripped of most of its N95 respirator masks, and various officials insisted they be replaced. As a USA Today fact check concludes, the president never got all that serious about it.
As for Trump belittling the coronavirus, so did all kinds of TV commentators and other politicians. None of this is to say Trump has been an inspiration and should keep bragging about his terrific performance, but the point now is for leaders to work together as well as possible, understanding that only historians will have an opportunity to see something close to the whole picture.