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The Coronavirus Shows That Free-Markets and the Profit Motive Are Required to Safeguard the Public Health

The Coronavirus Shows That Free-Markets and the Profit Motive Are Required to Safeguard the Public Health

By John R Guardiano on March 21, 2020

Democrats want to give the government more control over our healthcare system. Our experience with the coronavirus shows that this would be a big and costly mistake.

Does the coronavirus show that we need a bigger and more dominant government that assumes greater decision-making authority over “unfettered market processes”?

That’s what left-wing journalists, academics, and politicians argue. They say the coronavirus shows that free markets are incapable of addressing a public health crisis. Thus, in their view, to protect the health and well-being of the public, the federal government must play a more dominant role vis-à-vis the private sector.

As Columbia University political theory professor Jean Cohen told The Atlantic: “If you want to serve the public good instead of private profit making, you need government to come in and make sure that’s done.”

But the notion that “private profit making” and “the public good” are two separate and distinct things which necessarily are opposed to each other is ludicrous and in defiance of commonsense and all empirical evidence.

Profit Motive. In truth, the profit motive is precisely the means by which we incentivize people and businesses to serve the public good.

At least that’s how we do it in the United States of America and in countries that allow for free markets and private commercial exchange.

For example, we Americans enjoy a bountiful supply and an infinite variety of inexpensive and affordable food—not because the government has intervened and mandated it, but rather because private sector companies realize that there is money to be made by “serving the public good” and meeting this need.

Other countries, such as the former Soviet Union, have tried to “serve the public good” by empowering the government at the expense of the private sector, and the results have been disastrous. Freedom works; government control and coercion do not.

The iPhone and personal computer, likewise, were not produced by the government. They were produced by entrepreneurs who saw that there was money to be made by “serving the public good” and helping to fulfill our natural yearning for greater autonomy, control, creativity, and connectedness.

In fact, to the extent that we do suffer “market failure” (a favorite term of derision by left-wingers such as Professor Cohen), it is precisely because the government exerts too much control and power over decision-making processes that are best left to the private sector.

Government Failure. Indeed, what is typically called “market failure” is more accurately described as “government failure.” Case in point: the coronavirus.

The United States has been embarrassingly and shamefully tardy on testing for the coronavirus, lagging far behind other countries such as South Korea and Australia. Why? Because we relied upon the feds to administer and manage testing; and they, unsurprisingly, botched it

The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel explains:

The single biggest mistake so far came from the government. The feds maintained exclusive control over early test development—and blew it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s failure delayed an effective U.S. response, and the private sector is now riding to the rescue.

But don’t take Strassel’s word for it. Here is what the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony S. Fauci, M.D, told radio host (and Trump apologist) Hugh Hewitt:

The regulatory constraints, which under certain circumstances are helpful and protective of the American people were not suited to the emergence of this particular outbreak…

I believe now that the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] (CDC), and the [Food and Drug Administration] (FDA), and the Department [of Health and Human Services]—that we’ve got it right now:

Because we’re handing much of it over to the private sector [and] to heavy hitter companies that do this for a living. And I think what you’re going to be seeing looking forward is a major, major improvement in the availability of testing.

“The government’s failures affected every step of the testing process, from the initial throat swab to the genetic sequencing,” report Dan Vergano and Ben King in BuzzFeed News .

“Even now,” they note, “state and local health departments have a confusing patchwork of requirements for testing.”

“Federal officials,” moreover, “waited until early March to invite large private labs, which can run thousands of tests a day, to begin coronavirus testing, leaving the U.S. with a backlog of swab samples even as case numbers double every two days.”

Unfortunately, failure in government is endemic because there are no competitive market mechanisms that force public-sector agencies to adapt and innovate as in the private sector.

Private-sector companies fear going out of business and adapt accordingly. Not so in the government or public sector, where agencies live on indefinitely no matter how badly they might fail.

“The botched rollout of COVID-19 tests,” observes Reason magazine’s Ronald Bailey, “is largely the fault of America’s medical regulatory bureaucracy—specifically, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the FDA.

“As recently as Feb. 26,” he writes, “the CDC told state and local officials that its own testing capabilities were ‘more than adequate,’ the Wall Street Journal reports.”

However, according to Bailey,

A Utah molecular diagnostics company is all set to produce 50,000 coronavirus tests per day, though its having trouble obtaining “reagent chemicals” that are necessary for a latter stage of the procedure, according to Desert News.

Co-Diagnostics’ COVID-19 test, which costs just $10 per patient and produces results in only 90 minutes, is already in use in Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Greece, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Israel, South Africa and Canada.

But in the U.S. it had only been available for certain entities and research institutions, per guidance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

It was not until Tuesday night, [Mar. 17, 2020], that the FDA gave Co-Diagnostics emergency approval to distribute the test more generally to U.S. hospitals. Deseret News’ [Art Raymond] reports:

"The company said U.S. shipments to date have been in accordance with the FDA's policy change on Feb. 29 that allows certified U.S. laboratories to use the Co-Diagnostics' test under certain conditions.

"As a result of the change announced Tuesday night by the FDA, the company's test kit will soon be available for use by a wide array of U.S. laboratories, without first requiring emergency use authorization.

Co-Diagnostics CEO Dwight Egan said the rule change puts his company in a position to have positive impacts on the critical need for COVID-19 testing capacity in Utah, the U.S. and around the world."

The ramifications of this new FDA policy are significant for our company," Egan said in a statement.

"This change will quickly afford Co-Diagnostics even more opportunities to serve the needs of laboratories nationwide, as we play an even larger role in responding to this pandemic.

"We applaud the FDA's decision to recognize the dire need for increased access to high-quality COVID-19 tests, and to adapt as the situation demands in light of a public health emergency."

It’s smart for the biomedical company CEO to publicly thank the powerful agency that holds the keys to its fate. But no one else should be thanking the FDA…

People are quite literally going to die because the regulatory state was insufficiently adaptive to a crisis.

Democratic Smears. Yet, too often in this country, Democratic politicians such as Bernie Sanders vilify CEOs and entrepreneurs such as Dwight Egan as “crooks” and “thieves” motivated by avarice and “greed.”

The Journal’s Strassel rightly has little patience for this populist smear. The “crooks” at drug company Roche,” she writes,

had started on their own high-volume test in January, and were finally able to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Google is up with a website advising people on symptoms; retailers like Walmart and CVS are converting parking lots for drive-through tests; private labs are standing by to process them.

As for other “moneyed interests,” no fewer than 30 Big Pharma and small biotech firms are racing for treatments and vaccines. Moderna turned around a vaccine batch in just 42 days.

Gilead Sciences is already in Phase 3 trials for its remdesivir treatment for Covid-19. Straight off President Trump’s announcement of FDA approval for antimalarial drugs to treat the disease, Bayer announced it would donate three million chloroquine tablets.

To be sure, government has an important role to play in protecting and safeguarding the public health. Securing the borders, for instance, is an important federal governmental function, and is necessary to keeping public health threats out of the country to the greatest extent practicable.

The government also can set national goals and priorities, while marshaling public-sector resources and coordinating public-private partnerships.

But having an energetic and effective government is very different from having a big and dominant government that preempts the private sector and tries to do things that are best done by commercial companies driven by the profit motive and responding to market signals and market incentives.

We need an energetic and effective government, not a big and dominant government. In fact, a big and dominant government typically is anything but energetic and effective, which is precisely the problem.

Critical Debate. This matters in a big and fundamental way because policymakers and the public will draw lessons and conclusions from the coronavirus: what worked, what didn’t, and what must change as a result. And it is critically important that they—we—not draw the wrong conclusions.

The problem was not that the private-sector failed; it was that the private-sector was bypassed and short-circuited.

And what must change is not our reliance upon private-sector companies, markets, and the profit motive. What must change is our deprecation of entrepreneurship and commercial interests in medicine and public health.

In fact, we need to make more effective use of incentives and competition in medicine, precisely to protect and safeguard the public health. Expecting the government to shoulder this burden exclusively is a surefire recipe for further disaster.

2020 Election. These questions are especially pertinent now because a presidential election is rapidly approaching, and the Democratic Party has lurched far to the left and embraced increasing government control of our healthcare system.

They do so in the name of “fairness” and “compassion.” But there is nothing fair or compassionate about an inert and dysfunctional public-sector monopoly that fails the American people when they are most in need.

We can and must do better. But we can only do so by embracing the private sector, markets and the profit motive, which are good and praiseworthy things, indeed.

Feature photo credit: Co-Diagnostics CEO Dwight Egan as shown on YouTube.

Wit and Humor are Ron DeSantis’s Keys to the White House

Wit and Humor are Ron DeSantis’s Keys to the White House

By John R Guardiano on October 22, 2022

Just ask Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Antonin Scalia.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is widely seen as the Republican Party’s strongest presidential candidate in 2024.

As a highly successful governor who is cruising to reelection in America’s third-most populous state, DeSantis has executive experience and a proven record of accomplishment that none of his likely GOP rivals (speechifying senators, mostly) can match.

There is, however, one thing that might hold DeSantis back and keep him from ever reaching the Oval Office: his lack of wit and a sense of humor.

“It’s not apparent to me that DeSantis has a sense of humor,” Dexter Filkins told Andrew Sullivan on The Dishcast. “He’s not a very jokey guy, at least not in public.”

Filkins knows of what he speaks. In June, he published the most insightful reportorial piece to date on Florida’s governor.

Filkins told Sullivan that, based on his reporting, DeSantis would wipe the floor with most of the Democrats who would likely run against him in any general election matchup. However, he warns, DeSantis’ “entire persona is strident and angry,” and the governor does not excel at small talk.

This is a glaring red flag and a real problem for DeSantis. Wit and a sense of humor, after all, are integral to political success, especially for conservative Republicans. Why?

Because conservative Republicans are seen as more hard-edged and tough-minded. A sense of humor thus helps to soften their image and humanize them in the public mind.

Social conservatives in particular run the risk of being caricatured as harsh and judgmental, rigid and dogmatic. Wit and humor can compellingly show otherwise and put the lie to this caricature.

Ronald Reagan. It is no accident, after all, that the most successful conservative politician in American history, the man who won reelection as president in an historic 49-state landslide, was Ronald Reagan.

Reagan had a wonderful sense of humor that endeared him to the American people, even those who strongly disagreed with his conservative political philosophy and public policies.

Consider, for instance, how the 73-year-old Reagan handled concerns about his advanced age during a 1984 presidential debate with Walter Mondale:

I want you to know that, also, I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.

As Politico reports: “Many members of the audience, gathered in the cavernous Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Mo., applauded and laughed. So did Mondale.”

And, as a result, Reagan won more than the debate. He won, by an overwhelming margin, a second term in the White House.

Buckley and Scalia. After Reagan, the next two greatest conservative public figures in recent decades are author and columnist William F. Buckley, Jr. and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. And what distinguishes these two men aside from their towering intellects?

Their wit and sense of humor, which showcased a humanity and a warmth of personality that made them impossible to demonize.

When asked, for instance, what would be the first thing he would do “if he actually won his rollicking, long-shot campaign for mayor of New York City in 1965,” Buckley responded: “Demand a recount!”

As for Scalia, “he had a great sense of humor,” admits left-wing comedian Stephen Colbert:

People have actually broken down the transcripts for [Supreme Court] oral arguments and he told more jokes and got more laughs than any of the other justices.”

“In a big family,” quipped Scalia, the father of nine children, “the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it’s not perfect, that’s okay. There are a lot more coming along.”

“We should start calling this law SCOTUScare,” he amusingly wrote in a dissent from a Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

That quip even drew a chuckle from Chief Justice John Roberts, who had written the Court’s decision that aroused Scalia’s ire.

Ron DeSantis. If DeSantis wants to succeed at the highest level of American politics, if he wants to win the presidency and move America in a socially conservative and economically dynamic, free-market direction, then he has no more urgent task than to emulate Reagan, Buckley, and Scalia.

He needs to understand that for a conservative Republican especially, having and demonstrating wit and a sense of humor are of paramount importance.

Wit and Humor. To be sure, wit and humor are not things that can be instantly conjured up and created. They take time, effort, and practice. They are a reflection of life and personality, playfulness and camaraderie, joy, triumph, anguish, and even pain.

“Humor: a difficult concept to learn,” Spock tells Admiral Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. “It is not logical.”

True, but wit and humor can be developed. Jokes can be incorporated into political stump speeches. Witty remarks can be crafted and used out on the campaign trail. A politician can consciously cultivate a more joyful public persona that wins converts even as it disarms critics.

And make no mistake: this matters, politically. Why? Because, as one website helpfully explains:

Humor is a great leveler. It is almost impossible to remain angry with someone who is making you laugh.

Donald Trump. Exactly, and yet, this is precisely what Donald Trump did not do. Trump did not disarm his critics. He did not make people laugh in recognition of his humanity.

To the contrary: Trump angered and repelled too many voters by his insistence on being “tough” (read: nasty and unpresidential) and refusing to show “weakness” (read: humanity). Consequently, a record number of voters turned out to vote in 2020 precisely so they could vote against Trump.

Ditto the 2018 election cycle, which flipped the House of Representatives from Republican to Democratic control. A critical mass of voters turned out to vote Democrat for Congress because Trump so angered and repelled them.

DeSantis needs to avoid Trump’s mistake or politically fatal character flaw. He needs to show voters that he cares; that he has a heart; that he’s human; and that he is worthy of leading this great nation. And the best way, the most effective way, to achieve this is through wit and humor.

Is there a political market for this? Absolutely.

Consider, for instance, the astounding success of the The Babylon Bee, a conservative Christian satirical website, as well as the sky-high ratings of Fox News’ Greg Gutfield, whose late-night show is tops in the nation.

Gutfield! is “beating CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live—with FNC outpacing the broadcast networks even through their fall premieres,” Forbes reports.

As for The Babylon Bee, it is the most popular satirical site on the Internet, with more than 20 million page views per month, reports Ben Shapiro. “Fake news you can trust,” is the site’s witty tagline.

Conclusion. Politics and culture increasingly intersect. The political marketplace is waiting for a conservative Republican politician who can do politically what The Babylon Bee is doing journalistically and Greg Gutfield is doing for late-night television or streaming.

DeSantis has crucial executive experience and a highly successful track record as governor. These make him a compelling Republican presidential candidate.

But he is wants to be a winner and not just a contender, DeSantis will have to demonstrate that he can make people smile and laugh, even as he himself smiles and laughs. He will have to showcase a sense of humor that, thus far, has been conspicuously absent in his public appearances.

Can he do it? Yes, but only if he works at it. Only if he consciously makes liberal use of humor to achieve conservative political ends.

Only if recognizes that a politician elevates himself through self-deprecation, not self-promotion; and that while successful public figures take ideas seriously, they do not take themselves too seriously. Just ask Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Antonin Scalia.

Feature photo credit: (L-R): Author and columnist William F. Buckley, Jr., President Ronald Reagan, and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, courtesy of National Review, FramedArt.com, and YouTube, respectively.

‘New’ Information About How George W. Bush Prepared America for a Pandemic Will Raise His Historical Standing

‘New’ Information About How George W. Bush Prepared America for a Pandemic Will Raise His Historical Standing

By John R Guardiano on April 5, 2020

History doesn’t change, of course, but how we understand or view history most definitely does change in light of new circumstances and new perspectives.

Things that we might have considered unimportant and of little significance a generation ago can take on increased importance and become much more significant with the passage of time.

That’s why historians always say it is impossible to ascertain how history will view or judge a president while he is still president. You need perspective, and you need time.

You need to see how a president’s current decisions and policies affect the future—how they affect future administrations and subsequent presidential decision-making.

You need to see what issues or concerns that journalists and policymakers downplayed at the time have since risen to the forefront and must, therefore, be given greater weight and consideration today.

George W. Bush. These thoughts come to mind in light of new information about President George W. Bush and his remarkable and hitherto unremarked upon prescience about a pandemic—and his insistence as president that his administration and the nation prepare for such an eventuality.

I say new information, but it is not really new. Bush gave a very public speech about the importance of pandemic preparation in November 2005 at the National Institutes of Health. But of course, no one paid much attention then or now because a pandemic seemed so unlikely and remote.

ABC News’ Matthew Mosk reports:

In a November 2005 speech at the National Institutes of Health, Bush laid out proposals inn granular detail—describing with stunning prescience how a pandemic in the United States would unfold.

Among those in the audience was Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leader of the current crisis response, who was then and still is now the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“A pandemic is a lot like a forest fire,” Bush said at the time. “If caught early it might be extinguished with limited damage. If allowed to smolder, undetected, it can grow to an inferno that can spread quickly beyond our ability to control it.”

The president recognized that an outbreak was a different kind of disaster than the ones the federal government had been designed to address.

“To respond to a pandemic, we need medical personnel and adequate supplies of equipment,” Bush said. “In a pandemic, everything from syringes to hospital beds, respirators masks and protective equipment would be in short supply.”

Bush told the gathered scientists that they would need to develop a vaccine in record time.

“If a pandemic strikes, our country must have a surge capacity in place that will allow us to bring a new vaccine on line quickly and manufacture enough to immunize every American against the pandemic strain,” he said.

Bush set out to spend $7 billion building out his plan. His cabinet secretaries urged their staffs to take preparations seriously. The government launched a website, www.pandemicflu.gov, that is still in use today.

But as time passed, it became increasingly difficult to justify the continued funding, staffing and attention, Bossert said.

Now, though, as America and the world cope with a coronavirus pandemic that few saw coming until it was on our doorstep, Bush’s speech, and the actions that led to his speech, seem remarkably wise and prescient.

Consequently, any and all subsequent historical analyses and assessments of the Bush 43 presidency will have to consider Bush’s leadership in preparing the nation for a pandemic.

This was not something that anyone had considered especially important before the coronavirus. However, it now obviously matters a lot more when we consider the successes and failures of Bush as president.

Historical Standing. Bush’s leadership here certainly will raise his historical marks and relative standing vis-à-vis other presidents; and it will lower, surely, Trump’s historical marks and relative standing. Bush showed prescience and foresight. Trump, by contrast, has shown myopia and shortsightedness.

Again, the facts of history have not changed; but how we view or understand those facts in light of new or modern-day circumstances does change. It is an historical truism: time will tell. It always does.

Here is the ABC News clip: it is well worth watching.

Feature photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images via ABC News.

Why Deploying the Active-Duty Military to America’s Cities Is a Reasonable Idea

Why Deploying the Active-Duty Military to America’s Cities Is a Reasonable Idea

By John R Guardiano on June 7, 2020

The critics—including former Defense Secretary James Mattis—have it precisely backward: Deploying the U.S. military for domestic security missions is all about protecting our Constitutional rights and liberties.

There has been a lot of elite Sturm und Drang over President Trump’s announcement last week that he would deploy the active-duty military forces to restore “law and order” in American cities torn asunder by violent rioting and looting.

Eighty-nine former defense officials, for instance, have published a piece in the Washington Post saying they “are alarmed at how the president is betraying [his] oath [of office] by threatening to order members of the U.S. military to violate the rights of their fellow Americans.”

“President Trump has given governors a stark choice,” they insist: “either end the protests that continue to demand equal justice under our laws, or expect that he will send active-duty military units into their states.”

Of course, Trump does not express himself well. He is a poor communicator who often uses awkward terminology and cringe-inducing rhetoric.

But the idea that he wishes to employ the military to violate the Constitutional rights of peaceably assembling, law-abiding Americans is ludicrous. You have to be a blinkered anti-Trump zealot to believe that the president is somehow conspiring to use the military to squelch dissent.

There is absolutely no evidence for this fervid, far-fetched proposition. It reflects the lurid imaginations of anti-Trump partisans, not objective, empirical reality.

Averting Violence. The truth, in fact, is quite the opposite: the rationale for deploying active-duty military forces is precisely to protect the Constitutional rights of peaceably assembling Americans from what Sen. Tom Cotton has righty called “nihilist criminals and cadres of left-wing radicals like Antifa.”

These criminals and radicals, Cotton explains, have marred the protests with an “orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic.”

This orgy of violence seems to have abated somewhat in the past couple of days; however, rioting and looting is still a real and omnipresent problem. Indeed, as the New York Post reports:

“Violence has been used multiple times during what could have been and what should have been peaceful protests,” [NYPD Commissioner Dermot] Shea said at a live-streamed press conference Thursday evening

[…]

There have been 292 members of the force who suffered injuries as some of the demonstrations have seen violent clashes, cops said.

As of June 3, according to the Forbes, at least 12 people have been killed and hundreds of others injured in the protests, including a black federal police officer in Oakland, California; a retired black police captain in St. Louis; and a former Indiana University football player and local business owner who is also black.

“Four police officers were shot in downtown St. Louis early Tuesday, [June 2, 2020], as a day of peaceful protests turned into a violent and destructive night in the city,” reports the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

In Las Vegas, reports the Daily Beast,

an officer responding to a looting incident was reportedly shot in the head early Tuesday, [June 2, 2020], after exchanging gunfire with an angry mob, according to several Nevada news sources.

County Sheriff Joe Lombardo told the Las Vegas Review Journal that the officer survived. “He is in extremely critical condition on life support,” Lombardo said “This is a sad night for our LVMPD family and a tragic night for our community.”

Mad Dog Mattis. Yet, in the face of these facts—this incontrovertible empirical evidence—the former Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, declared:

We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.

With all due respect to Secretary Mattis, this is ludicrous and nonsensical. Of course we have to be “distracted” or concerned about the reportedly small number of lawbreakers wreaking havoc in our nation’s cities.

Why? Precisely because they threaten the safety and well-being of the “thousands of people of conscience” Mattis rightly says we need to protect.

Moreover, as Pat Buchanan observes:

In Mattis’ statement, one finds not a word of sympathy or support for the police bearing the brunt of mob brutality for defending the communities they serve, while defending the constitutional right of the protesters to curse them as racist and rogue cops.

Trump Derangement Syndrome. I understand why Mattis doesn’t like Trump. His disdain for the president he once served is completely legitimate and understandable.

But Mattis’ failure to understand that violent thugs who threaten to kill the innocent need to be identified and stopped—and by deadly force if necessary—is wrong, inexcusable and unconscionable. Just because Trump proposes something doesn’t make it wrong, dangerous, and unconstitutional.

Too many people—including Mattis and the aforementioned 89 former defense officials—have allowed their disdain for Trump to cloud their judgment and analysis.

In truth, as Ross Douthat has explained, while Trump may well have authoritarian instincts,

real political authority, the power to rule and not just to survive, is something that Donald Trump conspicuously does not seem to want.

Executive Protection. Trump’s critics can and do point to one instance where it can be argued Trump may have tried to infringe upon the Constitutional rights of the protesters.

But that instance—outside of the White House, June 1, as Trump and his team walked to the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church, which had been attacked and burned the night before—is the exception that proves the rule.

Trump’s decision to walk to the church apparently was not well communicated to the Secret Service, U.S. Park Service, and other federal law enforcement agencies. These agencies had to act quickly, therefore, to ensure the president’s safety. And ensuring the president’s safety, remember, is their job.

As the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney points out:

If Trump knew he was going to do this [walk from the White House to the church], he could have had the Secret Service set up the barricade further out before the evening protests got crowded. Then, there would have been no shoving or smoke grenades needed.

Instead, as WUSA 9 reports, “pepper balls and smoke canisters, which irritate the eyes and throat and cause coughing, [were used] to disperse the protesters.”

This is unfortunate. But given the circumstances—the need to ensure the president’s safety at a time when violent riots and looting were taking place nationwide, and police and innocent bystanders were being killed as a result—these actions are understandable and hardly constitute a gratuitous assault on First Amendment rights.

Indeed, the incident resulted from a lack of planning and coordination, and not because of any Machiavellian plot to betray the Constitution.

Historical Precedent. In truth, as even the 89 aforementioned defense officials acknowledge: “several past presidents have called on our armed services to provide additional aid to law enforcement in times of national crisis—among them Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson.”

Eisenhower, Cotton notes, federalized the the Arkansas National Guard and called in the 101st Airborne Division to protect the civil rights of black school children during a time of integration.

Were the active-duty military to be deployed domestically to American cities torn asunder by violent rioting and looting, they would, likewise, be protecting basic civil rights—namely, the Constitutionally protected right to peaceably assemble without fear of bodily harm, injury or death.

That is a wholly legitimate use of the Armed Forces of the United States.

It won’t happen. Trump already has ordered the National Guard to leave Washington, D.C.; the states and mayors don’t want active-duty military units; and the protests seem to have turned more peaceful and less violent in recent days.

Plus: there may well be prudential and political arguments against using active-duty military units to restore peace, safety and the rule of law to America’s cities. However, the notion that doing so is an unprecedented attack on Constitutional liberties is simply absurd and completely untrue.

Active-Duty Military. Some critics, such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), complain that the active-duty military is untrained and unprepared for law enforcement work; but this, too, is untrue.

In fact, we have military police units that are specifically trained to perform law enforcement functions, including riot and crowd control. The idea that U.S military personnel are trained only to shoot and kill is not something that anyone familiar with the U.S. military would ever say or suggest.

It’s certainly not something that anyone familiar with the U.S. military mission in Kosovo (1990’s), Iraq or Afghanistan (2000’s) would every say or suggest, since these missions involved peacekeeping, stability and law enforcement operations to a very considerable extent.

The bottom line: use of the U.S. military to safeguard important Constitutional rights is not some lunatic-fringe idea that poses an inherent threat to American democracy.

To the contrary: there is ample historical precedent for this idea, and it can be wise public policy. The U.S. military is trained, ready and prepared for such a mission regardless of who is president.

Donald Trump has nothing to do with it.

Feature photo credit: Police Chief magazine.

History Will Remember that Captain Crozier, Like Colonel Roosevelt, Did the Right Thing By and For His Men

History Will Remember that Captain Crozier, Like Colonel Roosevelt, Did the Right Thing By and For His Men

By John R Guardiano on April 4, 2020

A commanding officer out on the front lines, far from home, pleads with his superiors in Washington, D.C., to take action. His men are sick and dying and need to be evacuated to a safe harbor immediately. But the brass at headquarters are slow to act. They drag their feet and mull what to do.

Throwing caution—as well as his career—to the wind, the commanding officer fires off a crisply worded memorandum, notable for its clarity and precision, explaining the dire situation, and earnestly requesting that prompt action be taken to save lives that otherwise will be needlessly lost.

The action is belatedly forthcoming. The troops are evacuated and their lives are saved, but the high command is angry and incensed. They have been publicly shamed and humiliated by widespread publication of the CO’s letter. Heads—or at least one head, the commanding officer’s—will roll.

Captain Crozier. Readers will recognize that this is an apt description (minus the lives lost) of what has just transpired on the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

Sailors and Marines there have become infected with the coronavirus, prompting the ship’s commanding officer, Captain Brett Crozier, to write a letter detailing their dire situation and pleading with the Navy to remove his men from the ship.

“We are not at war,” Crozier wrote. “Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset—our Sailors.”

For writing such heresy and allowing his words to find their way to the public prints—namely the San Francisco Chronicle—Crozier was summarily dismissed and relieved of his command by Acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly.

But as two astute observers—Tweed Roosevelt (a great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt) and Ward Carroll—point out, what Crozier did and was fired for has historical antecedents in a similar action taken by then Colonel (Theodore) Roosevelt at the end of the Spanish American War.

Well before he became President of the United States, writes Tweed Roosevelt, and before even

his rise to national politics, Roosevelt commanded the Rough Riders, a volunteer cavalry regiment, in the invasion of Cuba during the Spanish-American War.

The Battle of San Juan Hill had been fought and won, and the war was basically over. However, the soldiers, still deployed in Cuba, faced a far worse enemy: yellow fever and malaria.

As was usual in the days before modern medicine, far more soldiers died of disease than of enemy action. The battlefield commanders, including Roosevelt, wanted to bring the soldiers home.

But the leadership in Washington—in particular Russell Alger, the secretary of war—refused, fearing a political backlash. A standoff ensued.

The career Army officers, who did not want to risk their jobs by being too outspoken, were stymied. Roosevelt, as a short-term volunteer, had less to lose.

So, with the tacit approval of his fellow commanders, he wrote a fiery open letter and released it to the press.

The letter, known as the “round robin,” was printed in virtually every newspaper in the country, creating an uproar demanding that the soldiers be brought home immediately. Alger relented, and the troops were sent to quarantine on the end of Long Island, at Montauk Point.

Though hundreds of men died of disease in Cuba, Roosevelt’s actions probably saved countless more.

He did, however, pay a price. Alger was furious with him. When Roosevelt’s nomination came up for a Medal of Honor, the secretary shot it down (Roosevelt eventually received the medal, posthumously, in 2001).

Of course, Roosevelt came out the winner. Who today remembers Russell Alger?

In this era when so many seem to place expediency over honor, it is heartening that so many others are showing great courage, some even risking their lives.

Theodore Roosevelt, in his time, chose the honorable course. Captain Crozier has done the same.

Certainly, the sailors and Marines whom Crozier led on the USS Roosevelt understand this. They gave their captain a raucous salute as he departed the ship after being summarily dismissed and relieved of his command.

“That’s how you send out one of the greatest captains you ever had,” someone says in the video—then using an acronym for greatest of all time, adds: “The GOAT, the man for the people.”

https://www.facebook.com/michael.washington.5458/videos/10216506735516262/?t=10

Crozier’s career as a naval officer is, sadly, finished. But, like Roosevelt, he will live on in the hearts and minds of his countrymen as a man of uncompromising integrity and moral courage. And history will not long forget what he did nor why he did it.

Feature photo credit: Medal of Honor Society (Theodore Roosevelt) and Navy photo via Navy Times.

Why America Is Right to Honor Christopher Columbus

Why America Is Right to Honor Christopher Columbus

By John R Guardiano on October 10, 2022

Leftist lies to the contrary notwithstanding, Columbus was a great explorer who heralded the Age of Discovery, the rise of Western Civilization, and the birth of America.

Columbus Day (today) is still a federal holiday. Yet, few Americans understand why we honor Christopher Columbus.

Moreover, to the extent people are familiar with the great Italian explorer, it is through the politically correct lens of modern-day progressivism, which sees Columbus as an avatar of colonialism, white supremacy, genocide, and Christian European privilege

None of this is true, of course. These are malicious lies fabricated by leftists to impugn and discredit Western Civilization, so that they can remake the West in their own radical, woke image.

Debunking Leftist Lies. In truth, as Jarrett Stepman observes, historians like Carol Delaney have debunked the leftists lies about Columbus:

Rather than cruel, Columbus was mostly benign in his interaction with native populations. While deprivations did occur, Columbus was quick to punish those under his command who committed unjust acts against local populations.

“Columbus strictly told the crew not to do things like maraud, or rape, and instead to treat the native people with respect,” Delaney said.

“There are many examples in his writings where he gave instructions to this effect. Most of the time when injustices occurred, Columbus wasn’t even there. There were terrible diseases that got communicated to the natives, but he can’t be blamed for that.”

The Age of Exploration. The truth is: we recognize and honor Columbus because he was a great explorer, who heralded what historians call the Age of Exploration or the Age of Discovery, which led, in turn, to the establishment of the new world, aka America.

As the late great historian Samuel Eliot Morison explained in one of his many magisterial works of history, Christopher Columbus: The Voyage of Discovery 1492:

Five hundred years ago an obscure Genoese mariner sailing in the service of Their Catholic Majesties, the Sovereigns of Spain, made the single greatest voyage of discovery the world has ever known.

The consequences of the First Voyage of Columbus were so momentous that even today they are difficult to grasp.

From that voyage stemmed not only a great Age of Exploration that would shortly transform other men’s understanding of the planet on which they lived, but indeed the entire history of the United States, of Canada and of all the nations of the Central and South America.

It is no wonder that October 12 is celebrated annually throughout the length and bread of the Western Hemisphere.

Samuel Eliot Morison. Morrison’s works of scholarship are highly impressive and dwarf those of any modern-day historian. The man won two Pulitzer Prizes: first for Admiral of the Ocean Sea, a 1942 biography of Columbus, and A Sailor’s Biography, a 1959 biography of John Paul Jones.

When World War II broke out, Morison, then a professor of history at Harvard, volunteered to serve for the express purpose of writing an operational history of the wartime Navy.

He was commissioned as a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy Reserve, called to active duty, and permitted to go where he wanted when he wanted to fulfill his mission.

Morison’s skill as a sailor who had retraced Columbus’s voyages made him conversant with ships and navigation. Consequently, he was welcomed by the operational Navy and saw combat multiple times on vessels large and small. He subsequently published a 15-volume History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II.

Clearly, if anyone is in a position to evaluate Columbus”s achievements as an explorer and a navigator—and and what these achievements mean for Western Civilization—it is Samuel Eliot Morison. Here is what he wrote about Columbus:

We are right in so honoring him, because no other sailor had the persistence, the knowledge, and the sheer guts to sail thousands of miles into the unknown ocean until he found land. This was the most spectacular and most far-reaching geographical discovery in recorded human history.

Moreover, apart from the magnitude of his achievement, Columbus was a highly interesting character. Born at the crossroads between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, he showed the qualities of both eras.

He had the firm religious faith, the a-priori reasoning and the close communion with the Unseen typical of the early Christian centuries.

Yet he also had the scientific curiosity, the zest for life, the feeling for beauty and the striving for novelty that we associate with the advancement of learning. And he was one of the greatest seamen of all time.

In short, we Americans owe a debt of gratitude to Christopher Columbus. His courage, derring-do, Christian faith, and commitment to progress and exploration gave rise to the new world and the pride of place we now call America.

Western civilization, moreover, grew, prospered and developed in large part because of his efforts and the efforts of other great explorers.

Let us hope and pray that we Americans never forget this; and that, generations from now, our posterity will continue to recognize and honor Christopher Columbus and the Age of Discovery.

Feature photo credit: Renowned historian Samuel Eliot Morison (L) and the great Italian explorer Christopher Columbus (R), courtesy of Harvard Magazine and the Knights of Columbus, respectively.

Balderdash! and Backlash! ‘Credentialed’ Is Not Synonymous with ‘Educated’ and ‘Wise’

Balderdash! and Backlash! ‘Credentialed’ Is Not Synonymous with ‘Educated’ and ‘Wise’

By John R Guardiano on October 29, 2020

Balderdash!

“More Americans are educated now than at any time in history.”

—Tom Nichols, Professor, Naval War College

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, “for the first time in history, 90 percent of Americans over 25 years of age have finished high school. In addition, more than one-third of Americans over the age of 25 have a college degree or higher.”

Backlash!

In truth, more Americans are credentialed than at any time in history. But don’t equate credentials with education and wisdom. Being credentialed is not the same thing as being educated and wise.

In fact, many people with impressive academic credentials are poorly educated, remarkably ignorant, and unwise.

“The American higher education system has fostered civic and historical illiteracy,” reports the Washington Times.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the Times notes “has issued survey after survey, all of which confirm that we have an epidemic of civic and historical illiteracy.

In 2000, ACTA released the results of a survey of the historical knowledge of college seniors at the 55 top-ranked colleges and universities in the country.

More than 80 percent of those surveyed would have received a “D” or “F” if it had been an exam.

A 2012 survey found that less than 20 percent of American college graduates knew the effect of the Emancipation Proclamation, and only 42 percent knew that the Battle of the Bulge occurred during World War II.

And in 2014, a survey found that more than a quarter of college graduates didn’t know Franklin D. Roosevelt was president during World War II, and one-third didn’t know he was the president who spearheaded the New Deal.

And all of these questions were multiple choice.

It is not without reason that William F. Buckley, Jr. famously said:

I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University.

The average non-credentialed American, Buckley observed, shows more wisdom than our credentialed political leaders and so-called intellectuals.

Next!

Feature photo credit: Two wise men: William F. Buckley, Jr. and Ronald Reagan (National Review).

What’s Happening: Thur., Nov. 26, 2020, Thanksgiving

What’s Happening: Thur., Nov. 26, 2020, Thanksgiving

By John R Guardiano on November 26, 2020

The Supreme Court upholds religious liberty against discriminatory COVID restrictions; Trump pardons Gen. Flynn; and new data shows masks are largely useless and the schools should be open.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1331837982433812480

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1331706255212228608

https://twitter.com/GenFlynn/status/1331934828812496898

https://twitter.com/KimStrassel/status/1331850236201897984

https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1331591177292943361

Studies, Data Show COVID Doesn’t Spread in Schools and Classrooms

The question about transmission is the primary question in schools.

In a study of 35,000 kids in North Carolina, there’s not a single case of transmission from child to adult out of 100 infections.

Insight for Education studied 191 countries, looking at the countries that reopened, and found that it did not drive the pandemic or outbreaks any further.

And Utah, which has the best data on schools, found that any increases or outbreaks were attributed to teens, and that infection was on off-campus congregate settings—namely, the parties, not the classrooms.

So it’s pretty clear the classroom is extremely safe, and the transmission from kids to adults is minimal.

—Marty Makary, MD, MPH, Professor of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

The Story with Martha MacCallum, Fox News, Nov. 20, 2020

The Virtuous Meaning of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has been a time to stop and take stock of the blessings enjoyed by family and community.

As the English settlers overcame the trials they faced that first year in Plymouth, qualities that Americans have come to honor as integral to our national identity were on full display: courage, perseverance, diligence, piety.

These are the virtues that helped to shape the American character.

The Pilgrims displayed another virtue, one they practiced every day and which stood at the heart of the First Thanksgiving. Cicero called it the greatest of the virtues and the parent of all the rest: gratitude.

—Melanie Kirkpatrick, as cited by James Freeman, in the Wall Street Journal, Nov. 25, 2020

Feature Photo Credit: Mike White, Fine Art America.

Trump Lost, but the Republican Party Won Big in the 2020 Election

Trump Lost, but the Republican Party Won Big in the 2020 Election

By John R Guardiano on November 14, 2020

Even in deep blue states like California, the voters rejected one-party rule and sent Republicans to Congress to check President Biden.

Before the election, we warned that a Biden win almost certainly would mean Democratic control of the Senate and the consequent “progressive” or socialist remaking of America into a very different country than the one bequeathed to us by our founding fathers.

That is because, in these politically polarized times, split-ticket voting has become passé, and the Democratic Party has moved further and further to the left in the past decade.

Well, we are pleased to report that in 2020, the American people actually embraced split-ticket voting to a degree that no one anticipated. Consequently, although Trump lost the presidential election, the Republican Party otherwise did quite well. Consider:

Senate. The Republicans retained control of the Senate, pending the outcome of two runoff elections in Georgia, which they are expected to win.

Yet, in the months leading up to the election, Democrats spoke boldly about winning as many as six new Senate seats, eliminating the filibuster, making Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico new states, packing the courts, and sending the GOP into the dustbin of history.

Not anymore. Because of the GOP’s unexpected Senate wins in Maine, Iowa, North Carolina, and elsewhere, President Biden will be forced to compromise with Senate Republicans—and progressive plans to enact radical and irreversible changes to our very system of government are now dead on arrival.

https://twitter.com/GOP/status/1324062616898121729?s=20

House of Representatives. Republicans gained an astounding 10-15 seats in the House of Representatives. (Some House races have yet to be decided; hence the variability of these results.)

“Republicans in Congress won every incumbent seat and 28 out of 29 competitive seats identified by the New York Times’ Nate Silver,” reports Bethany Blankley in The Center Square.

https://twitter.com/henryolsenEPPC/status/1325254596252459008?s=20

As a result, the Democrats have their smallest majority in 60 years. Republicans, meanwhile, are well-positioned to retake control of the House in the 2022 mid-term elections.

Equally important for the GOP’s future in an increasingly diverse country: there will be a record number of Republican women in the House, 35, up from just 13 currently; and these new representatives include Asians, blacks, Hispanics, and Middle Easterners.

https://twitter.com/CarlosGimenezFL/status/1327665132395229185?s=20

Governorships. Republicans won one new governorship (in Montana) and thus control 27 gubernatorial mansions.

In New Hampshire, a blue state in the heart of deep blue New England, independent conservative Chris Sununu was reelected with a resounding 65 percent of the vote.

https://twitter.com/The_RGA/status/1324439721699954697?s=20

Sununu is young, whip-smart and a political winner. He has to be at the top of the list for 2024 GOP presidential hopefuls.

State Legislatures. Republicans retained their lock on most state legislatures: by capturing control of the New Hampshire state house and state senate, while preventing the Democrats from flipping a single state legislative body.

This even though the far left spent huge sums of money to wrest control of the states from the GOP.

The Republicans now control 30 state legislatures, with control of one state legislature split between the two parties and control of another state legislature yet to be determined.

The Democrats, by contrast, control just 18 state legislatures, albeit in three of the largest states in the union: California, New York, and Illinois.

Ballot Initiatives. Republicans won overwhelmingly in ballot initiatives nationwide, even in deep blue California and Illinois.

Californians, for instance, voted down an effort to repeal that state’s ban on racial preferences, and they retained their state’s cap on property taxes.

https://twitter.com/ECalifornians/status/1327017400848371712?s=20

They also decisively defeated a union-pushed ballot initiative that would have eliminated independent contractors, curtailed worker employment options, and stunted the gig economy.

Illinois voters rebuffed Democratic Governor, J.B. Pritzker, by voting down a graduated or progressive income tax measure that he had championed.

Coloradans, meanwhile, voted 57 percent to 43 percent for “a simple reduction in the state’s income tax, from 4.63 percent to 4.55 percent,” writes Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform.

However, he adds, voters in Arkansas and Arizona approved tax hikes—albeit through political deception and trickery in Arkansas and very narrowly and dubiously in Arizona.

Conclusion. As William A. Gallston sums it up, the 2020 election

was a defeat for Donald Trump but a victory for the Republican Party, which turned back most challenges to incumbent senators, fought off Democratic efforts to flip state legislatures, and made gains in the House.

The American people have voted for divided government and a less divisive tone in national politics.

Amen to that and God bless America. May our nation—and a viable two-party system committed to the Constitution and the rule of law—live long and prosper.

Feature photo credit: Rep.-Elect Michelle Steel (R-California), courtesy of her Facebook page.

Trump’s Failure to Act Early on the Coronavirus Has Endangered American Lives

Trump’s Failure to Act Early on the Coronavirus Has Endangered American Lives

By John R Guardiano on March 15, 2020

President Trump is obviously not responsible for the coronavirus. However, he is responsible for his administration’s weak and tardy response to the coronavirus— and for failing to anticipate the gravity of the problem, even as evidence mounted in other countries (such as Italy) that without early and decisive action tens of thousands of Americans, potentially, could die.

Trump, moreover, has repeatedly downplayed the problem; lied about the availability of testing to address the problem; shirked responsibility for confronting the problem; and, most pathetically and disgracefully, tried to blame others—mainly his predecessor, Barack Obama—for his own (Trump) administration’s belated and inadequate response to the problem.

Trump’s loyal base may not hold him accountable for his utter inability to lead during this crisis, but history surely will. Indeed, as Peter Wehner observes in The Atlantic:

The president and his administration are responsible for grave, costly errors—most especially the epic manufacturing failures in diagnostic testing, the decision to test too few people, the delay in expanding testing to labs outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and problems in the supply chain.

These mistakes have left us blind and badly behind the curve, and, for a few crucial weeks, they created a false sense of security.

What we now know is that the coronavirus silently spread for several weeks, without us being aware of it and while we were doing nothing to stop it.

Containment and mitigation efforts could have significantly slowed its spread at an early, critical point, but we frittered away that opportunity.

Leadership. Let’s be clear. Bureaucratic errors happen. No one blames Trump for bureaucratic errors that are beyond his control.

But that’s why we elect political leaders: to ensure that bureaucratic errors are quickly corrected and do not forestall the type of timely and decisive action needed to safeguard the American people during a crisis.

Yet, there is absolutely no evidence that Trump acted with dispatch even as the federal bureaucracy literally stopped or prevented early testing for the coronavirus.

To the contrary: Trump was more concerned with downplaying what he said was a minor problem that would soon disappear.

But we don’t elect presidents so that, in times of national crisis, they can throw up their hands and blame the bureaucracy (or their predecessor three years removed), which is what Trump has done. Instead, we elect presidents so that they can tame, manage, and rein in the bureaucracy.

The Republicans who foisted Trump upon us called this “draining the swamp” and “putting America first.” Yet, when it mattered most, Trump was asleep at the switch.

He didn’t drain the swamp; he bathed in it. And he didn’t put America first; he put his own twisted political priorities first.

Trump admitted, for instance, that he preferred to leave Americans stranded on a cruise ship off the coast of California after it was discovered that some of the passengers there were infected with the coronavirus.

Politico’s Dan Diamond reports that “health department officials and Vice President Mike Pence came up with a plan to evacuate thousands of passengers” as a way to stop the virus from spreading and infecting many more people as had happened on a similar cruise ship, the Diamond Princess.

“But President Donald Trump had a different idea,” Diamond writes: “Leave the infected passengers on board—which would help keep the number of U.S. coronavirus cases as low as possible.”

Wehner reports:

“I like the numbers,” Trump said. “I would rather have the numbers stay where they are. But if they want to take them off, they’ll take them off.

“But if that happens, all of a sudden your 240 [cases] is obviously going to be a much higher number, and probably the 11 [deaths] will be a higher number too.”

Cooler heads prevailed, and over the president’s objections, the Grand Princess [cruise ship] was allowed to dock at the Port of Oakland.

Travel Ban. Trump did one thing right. On Jan. 31, he banned most foreigners who had recently visited China from entering the United States. That bough us time and helped stop the spread of the virus.

But this was a relatively modest measure that, in itself, is woefully inadequate unless combined with rapid and comprehensive testing, which was never forthcoming.

Yet, Trump talks of his China travel ban as if it were a game changer, which it most definitely was not.

Trump’s subsequent actions have been uninspiring and largely beside the point.

Last week, he imposed more travel restrictions on Europe. But as his own former homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, has explained, additional travel restrictions now aren’t of much help since the virus is already widespread.

“We have nearly as much disease here in the U.S. as the countries in Europe,” Bossert tweeted. “We must focus on layered community mitigation measures. Now.”

Testing. For this same reason, even additional testing is, at this late point, of limited use. The time to test was six to weight weeks ago, when Trump was still in denial and insisting that everything was manageable and well contained.

Testing, after all, is most important early on before a virus has spread throughout a country or region. When relatively few people are infected, it is more feasible to limit or contain contact spread of the virus from person to person.

But we are long past that point with the coronavirus, which epidemiologists say is now widespread, albeit underreported, in the United States.

That doesn’t mean we should give up on testing; we shouldn’t and we aren’t. But at this point, extreme social distancing is our best and most effective preventative measure. Testing will have limited public health utility or benefit.

Meanwhile, in the absence of presidential leadership, leaders in state and local government, as well as the private sector, have stepped forward to fill the leadership void left by Trump. Indeed, as the New York Times Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman report:

Within the United States, as the coronavirus spreads from one community to another, he [Trump] has been more follower than leader.

While he presents himself as the nation’s commanding figure, Mr. Trump has essentially become a bystander as school superintendents, sports commissioners, college presidents, governors and business owners across the country take it upon themselves to shut down much of American life without clear guidance from the president…

Beyond travel limits and wash-your-hands reminders, Mr. Trump has left it to others to set the course in combating the pandemic and has indicated he was in no rush to take further action.

That was Thursday, March 12. On Friday, March 13, in an effort to regain the initiative and control the political and media narrative, Trump gave another, better-received address with business executives at the White House. But it was too little too late I’m afraid.

The die has been cast. Trump’s failures of leadership are too many too count, too grave, and too consequential.

Buck Passing. Harry Truman famously said that, as president, “the buck stops here,” with him. The president is responsible for what happens on his watch.

Truman was right then, and what he said then still applies today: The buck stops with the president.

Unfortunately and sadly, as president, Trump is more interested in buck passing than in assuming the responsibilities of the office to which he was elected.

We can only hope and pray that tens of thousands of American do not pay the ultimate price for Trump’s inability and unwillingness to lead, and his failure to act with dispatch when it mattered most.

Feature photo credit: Bastiaann Slabbers /Nurphoto /Getty via The Atlantic.