President Donald J. Trump listens and responds to questions from members of the press Tuesday, April 7, 2020, in the James S. Brady White House Press Briefing Room. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)
Pat Buchanan explains on his blog, Buchanan.org, that President Trump’s initial instincts regarding COVID-19 were correct. He writes (abridged):
For declaring in March that the U.S. economy might be reopened by Easter, President Donald Trump was roundly mocked.
Yet, it appears his political instincts were correct. He was more in tune with his country than were his critics.
By early Easter week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the governors of six states in the New York-New Jersey region had formed a consortium to synchronize the opening of their economies.
The governors may disagree on the timing, May 1 or May 15, but most agree with Trump. America cannot remain shut down for months without lasting damage.
The U.S. did not record its first coronavirus fatality until Feb. 29. It took 38 days after that to reach 10,000. However, it took only nine days to vault from 10,000 fatalities to more than 30,000.
What makes COVID-19 worse than the flu?
The coronavirus is more easily transmissible. It is more savage in how it maims immune systems. It is more lethal, killing far more of the infected than the regular flu.
Nor we do know whether having survived COVID-19 renders one immune to a new infection. Since the medical experts are predicting a second wave of the virus in late summer or fall, this is no small matter.
Will this pandemic prove the decisive factor in America’s retreat from global hegemony?
With the U.S. budget deficit for 2020 originally set at $1 trillion, now triple that, there is going to be a hard reckoning for the allocation of our diminished resources after the nation reopens.
And policing the planet is likely to be seen as yesterday’s priority, and a primary candidate for discard.
