If the incumbent president loses reelection in Nov., we will have one person to blame: Donald J. Trump.
For several days now, congressional Democrats led by Sen. Chuck Schumer have been asking the President to declare a national emergency in response to coronavirus. Up until this point, the administration has been reluctant to do so.
And who could blame him? Conventional wisdom suggests that a president presiding over a recession when he goes up for reelection is basically a death sentence for his campaign. The potential economic fallout of the coronavirus could be even worse than the “stagflation” economy that Jimmy Carter was presiding over when he lost spectacularly to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election.
This is why we have seen Trump consistently downplaying the outbreak. His insistence that COVID-19 was basically the flu and that the pandemic was no reason to tank the stock market was basically ignored as the death toll and number of cases began to rise.
Today, the President officially declared a national emergency during a White House press conference. He announced that he would be freeing up $50 billion in emergency spending, expanding testing supplies by the millions over the next month, and empower the Secretary of Health and Human Services to curb regulations and expand the discretionary powers of doctors and hospitals to fight the disease.
Several representatives of companies like Wal-Mart and Target were also invited to speak at the conference, underscoring the cooperation between public and private sectors.
Probably the most jarring moment from that press conference came after a reporter asked Trump whether or not he took responsibility for the lack of testing kits available up to this point. The President flatly responded, “No, I don’t take responsibility.”
You can watch that press conference here, if you can stand the ego-stroking.
Whatever happens, it seems the coronavirus outbreak in America was a missed opportunity for Trump to really set himself up well for November. After all, the Trump of 2016 would likely have pointed out how “globalism” and an “open-borders mentality” contributed to the spread of the disease. He could have used the pandemic as an opportunity to get ahead of the disease early and project power and strength.
Instead, he hid behind convenient falsehoods for as long as he could and didn’t take action until he had to. That is reactive, not proactive, leadership, no matter what the President’s supporters say, and it’s that kind of poor showing that will cost him.
It is still early in the pandemic, and Trump could easily turn things around and be remembered as the president that delivered the country from the coronavirus instead of fretting about his reelection. He and Vice President Pence talked a big talk during today’s press conference. We will see if he walks a big walk.
The American people may be angry if the economy tanks, but if Trump does the best he can to protect them from a deadly pathogen, voters will remember that at the polls even if their pocketbooks take a hit.
If he can’t maintain that focus and instead spends an outsized amount of time trying to keep the Dow from falling another 1,000 points, the American people will remember that come election day.
Photo Credit / Associated Press
