Vice President Joe Biden, April 7, 2015. Photo courtesy of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Pat Buchanan writes on his blog, Buchanan.org (abridged):
After Pearl Harbor, FDR declared that his role of “Dr. New Deal” had been superseded, replaced by his new role, “Dr. Win the War.”
Tuesday, President Donald Trump signaled that, in the war on the coronavirus pandemic, he, too, is executing a strategic pivot.
Where the medical crisis had been the central front, pulling the U.S. economy out of its coma is now his principal objective.
Trump is not unaware of the consequences of this decision.
“Will some people be affected badly? Yes,” said the president, “but we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon.”
The medical crisis is essentially out of the president’s control; its future will be largely dictated by the coronavirus pandemic itself.
With this pivot, Trump is wagering his presidency on a belief that, by mid-June, the first large wave of deaths from the pandemic will have passed, the numbers will be diminishing, and almost all of America will be ready to get back to work.
What will be Joe Biden’s argument to lead America, after having sat out the worst crisis since World War II in his basement?By midsummer, the country will have caught up with Trump. That is the idea that animates the pivot.
And it is not a bad wager. Does anyone believe it will be possible to keep hundreds of millions of Americans in their homes in June, July and August?
Wholesale civil disobedience may face governors still conducting a strict lockdown in July.
Europe is already ahead of us. Italy, which has now been passed by Britain as the nation in Europe with the most deaths, is already starting to open. So, too, is Germany, the largest European nation with the fewest deaths.
Trump’s strategic pivot puts Biden in a box.
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