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Because of His Response to the Coronavirus, Trump’s Prospects for Reelection Are Better Than You Think

Because of His Response to the Coronavirus, Trump’s Prospects for Reelection Are Better Than You Think

By John R Guardiano on April 22, 2020

The big high-stakes political battle that’s now playing out in the media, and in some early presidential campaign commercials, is this:

Did President Trump act quickly and vigorously enough to confront the growing coronavirus pandemic and thereby save American lives, or was his response belated, tardy, and lacking—and, therefore, responsible for unnecessary and needless American deaths?

Trump’s reelection obviously hinges on how this question is adjudicated in the minds of the voting public.

Here at ResCon1 we have been highly critical of the president’s response to the coronavirus, arguing that his failure to act early and decisively has “endangered American lives and forced the United States to take even more draconian measures than otherwise would have been necessary.”

This is true, but arguably too harsh: because there are other salient considerations that must be weighed:

First, is it fair to fault Trump for his belated and tardy response, given that no one else—including the mainstream media and all of the Democratic presidential candidates—sounded the alarm either?

Yes, it is fair: because the president is the president. He’s supposed to be attentive to threats to the safety and well-being of the American people. He’s supposed to know more than the media and more than the rest of us.

U.S. taxpayers, moreover, spend tens of billions of dollars annually on intelligence personnel and intelligence capabilities precisely to give the president and other policymakers early warning of impending threats.

And in fact, as we’ve noted here at ResCon1, parts of the Trump administration were trying to inform the president early on (back in January) about the coronavirus. Yet Trump seriously downplayed the risk of a pandemic—in large part because he was too credulous of the assurances given to him by his “friend,” China’s dictator, Xi Jinping.

On the other hand, Trump administration actions re: the coronavirus are far better than Trump’s statements about the coronavirus. Indeed, while the latter are often contemptible the former are usually laudatory.

The media (ResCon1 included) tend to fixate on Trump’s statements, which are usually impulsive, scattershot, and misguided. But Trump administration actions are usually more focused and on target.

Thus Trump established a presidential task force Jan. 29 to tackle the coronavirus; and, two days later, he declared COVID-19 a public health emergency. On Feb. 23, he requested a $2.5- billion supplemental specifically to combat the virus.

Then of course, there is Trump’s so-called China travel ban, implemented Jan. 31.

The word “ban” is really a misnomer: because many categories of people traveling to and from China are excluded from its strictures. Consequently, as the New York Times reported April 4, nearly 40,000 Americans and authorized travelers have come into the United States from China since the “ban” was enacted.

Still, by limiting and restricting the entry of Chinese nationals, and by advising Americans against traveling to China, Trump was acknowledging that a serious public health problem had originated there, and he was buying us time to prepare for the fight ahead.

‘Racism’ and ‘Xenophobia’. It’s also important to note that while Trump was responding to COVID-19, Democratic politicians, liberal journalists, and the mainstream media were criticizing him for being unduly alarmist and “racist.”

As we noted here at ResCon1, for instance, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the travel restrictions “just an excuse [for Trump] to further his ongoing war against immigrants.”

The 2020 Democratic Presidential nominee, Joe Xi, likewise, criticized the president’s “xenophobia” and “fear-mongering,” reports White House National Security Adviser Rober C. O’Brien in the Wall Street Journal. Biden “stressed that ‘diseases have no borders,’” O’Brien writes.

(But if diseases have no borders, then why, according to Pew Research, does 93 percent of the world’s population now live in countries or territories that limit or ban travel in part because of the coronavirus?)

O’Brien catalogues five other “fateful coronavirus decisions” that Trump made. These include:

  • stopping entry of foreign nationals from Europe;
  • initiating a national social distancing campaign to dramatically slow the spread of the virus;
  • pushing for innovative use of therapies (such as remdesivir) to fight the virus;
  • issuing CDC guidelines that recommend the personal use of cloth masks to stop the spread of the virus; and
  • initiating public-private partnerships to dramatically ramp-up production of ventilators and other personal protective equipment needed by patients and healthcare providers.

In short, even though Trump’s rhetoric has been lacking, and even though he was slow to recognize the true depths of the problem, he has, nonetheless, acted forcefully and vigorously to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

What’s more, it is doubtful that Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, or any other Democratic presidential wannabe would have responded any earlier or more effectively, given what they said (and did not say) when the coronavirus first emerged as a public health concern here in the United States, and given their obsession with “racism,” “bigotry,” and “xenophobia.”

Indeed, this obsession likely would have prevented a Democratic president from acknowledging Chinese culpability early on and then confronting China. 

Ventilators. We also should note that one one crucial matter, the supply of ventilators, Trump has been proven right and his critics monstrously wrong.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, for instance, complained loudly and often that his state needed 30,000 ventilators; and that Trump and the federal government needed to step up and help.

Otherwise, he gravely warned, ventilators would have to be rationed, and patients who needed ventilators might not get them.

Well, as it turned out, New York did not need anywhere near 30,000 ventilators; and the Trump administration did a genuinely masterful job of managing the supply of ventilators to ensure that no patient nationwide who ever needed a ventilator was ever denied a ventilator.

National Review’s Rich Lowry reports this story in full, and it is well worth reading in its entirety. Suffice it to say: Trump has gotten a lot of bad and undeserving press over the ventilators when, in fact, he should be getting praise and plaudits.

Poor Spokesman. Of course, a big reason Trump doesn’t get the credit he sometimes deserves is because he is such a poor spokesman on his own behalf; yet, he feels compelled to hog the limelight.

Trump would be much better off if he said less and let his very able team—Vice President Pence, Drs. Fauci and Birx, CDC Director Robert Redfield, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin et al.—do more of the talking and explaining.

Also, Trump sometimes seems to be at war with his own administration; and this, too, contributes to an overall sense of policy incoherence and confusion.

If Trump were a more disciplined and organized administrator, he’d get better and more consistent policy results, realize greater media plaudits and recognition, and achieve higher poll ratings.

In short, while it is easy to criticize Trump, it is important to view him and his administration in a broader and more inclusive context, and to consider the plausible alternatives.

For starters, the Trump administration, thankfully, is much more than just Donald Trump. And even Donald Trump is more than just his Twitter feed and bombastic statements.

For these reasons, a fair-minded and holistic assessment must give our president (or at least his administration) higher marks than most think might be warranted.

However, the story of the Trump presidency is still unfolding; it will have many twists and turns; and the American people will decide its fate on election day, Nov. 3, 2020.

Stay tuned.

Feature photo credit: WisPolitics.com.

Bring Back the Party Bosses, and Bring on Tom Cotton and Andrew Cuomo

Bring Back the Party Bosses, and Bring on Tom Cotton and Andrew Cuomo

By John R Guardiano on April 13, 2020

In the good old days, political pros and party bosses would meet in smoke-filled rooms to identify political talent and select presidential candidates.

That’s how we ended up with relative titans as president, and as failed presidential nominees—men like Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon.

Today, by contrast, democracy rules and the people decide; and, as a result, we have… Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Trump is mentally ill and obviously incompetent, while Biden clearly shows signs of senility and dementia.

It gives me no joy to say this. I sincerely wish it were otherwise. But the truth is the truth. It should give all of us serious doubts about the wisdom of pure, unadulterated democracy. More filters, checks, and balances, please.

Party Bosses. Why, just imagine if the political parties were stronger than they are now, and if the party bosses were true bosses, and not figments of our historical memory. Who, then, would be our two major 2020 presidential candidates?

There are, I think two obvious choices: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, and Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican.

Why Cuomo and Cotton? First, unlike Trump and Biden, they both pass the threshold test of being physically and psychologically healthy—of sound body and mind.

Part of this is age: Cuomo is 62 and Cotton turns 43 in May. Trump and Biden, by contrast, are 73 and 77, respectively.

But age, in itself, is not the problem. While Trump is obese and may be a heart attack waiting to happen, he is, nonetheless, spry of mind.

Moreover, Anthony Fauci, M.D., who heads up the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is 79 years old, and no one would ever accuse him of being too old for that or any other job.

Biden and Trump. However, people age in different ways and at different paces. Joe Biden today is clearly and obviously not the same man he was 12 years ago when Barack Obama selected him as his running mate.

Age has taken its toll. Biden often loses his train of thought and sometimes has conspicuous difficulty articulating full sentences and coherent thoughts.

Trump, meanwhile, is a narcissist with the maturity of an insecure and needy adolescent. He has shown no interest in mastering the difficult art of governance, nor in applying himself as a student of public policy. He is beyond his depth in a big way, and it shows each and every time he tweets or opens his mouth.

Cotton and Cuomo, by contrast, are capable and competent in ways that Trump and Biden simply are not. Indeed, agree or disagree with them, no one can deny that Cotton and Cuomo are on top of their game and can effectively wield political power.

Cuomo has spent his entire life in politics and government, learning at the knee of his father, the late great Mario Cuomo, the former governor of New York.

Cotton is younger but whip-smart and a combat veteran to boot, with tours as an infantry platoon leader in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in just three years before earning a law degree from Harvard as well.

As important, both Cotton and Cuomo have proven themselves equal to this moment in history.

Cuomo has distinguished himself through his steady and sure-handed management of the coronavirus. His daily press briefings have been informative and uplifting—reassuring not just New Yorkers, but all Americans during this time of doubt, darkness, fear, and confusion.

Cuomo’s leadership stands in marked contrast to Trump’s dismal and dismaying lack of leadership during this crisis. For Trump, it’s always about him. For Cuomo, it’s always about us. 

Cotton, meanwhile, was arguably the only political leaders who saw the coronavirus coming, and who tried valiantly, back in January, to alert the Trump administration and the nation to the impending danger.

Of course, for doing so, Cotton was mocked and ridiculed by the media, which was willfully blind to the virus emanating from Wuhan, China.

Still, Cotton was right—and his prescience and wisdom become increasingly apparent each and every day as we learn more about the origins of the coronavirus and China’s duplicity and deceit regarding its spread and transmission.

History. In an earlier era in American politics, the two major political parties, and the so-called party bosses, would have realized that Cotton and Cuomo should be running for president. They, not Trump and Biden, should be competing on the national stage for America’s biggest and most coveted political prize.

Cotton and Cuomo, after all, are natural political leaders, who have stepped up in a big way at this moment of national crisis. Thus they are deserving; Trump and Biden are not.

And while the vox populi may not fully understand or appreciate this, the political parties and the party bosses do. We need them back—and we need less pure, unadulterated democracy, and more filters, checks, and balances. And we need this precisely to save American democracy from itself.

Feature photo credit: Tom Cotton (Mark Wilson/Gett Images via Slate) and Andrew Cuomo (Pat Arnow via Wikipedia).

Don’t Blame ‘Racism’ and ‘Inequality’ For Alleged Racial Disparities In the Coronavirus

Don’t Blame ‘Racism’ and ‘Inequality’ For Alleged Racial Disparities In the Coronavirus

By John R Guardiano on April 11, 2020

Does racism and a lack of access to healthcare explain why African Americans are allegedly suffering disproportionately from the coronavirus?

Or instead, do lifestyle choices—including diet, exercise, and obesity—explain this alleged disparity? What about the fact that certain disease (sickle cell anemia, for instance) affect blacks more than whites, and for reasons that have nothing to do with racism?

And does race even matter? Is it a good way or prism through which to understand and address COVID-19?

Sadly, there is no shortage of media reporting, editorializing, and political pontificating purporting to blame “racism” and “inequality” for alleged differences in how the coronavirus is affecting black and white communities.

Political Agendas. So-called progressives and other leftists in the media and Democratic Party are eager to use and exploit whatever crisis they can to advance their left-wing agenda, and this pandemic offers an especially appealing vehicle right now.

“Progressives” and leftists are eager to blame racism for all manner of problems: because then they can use said racism as an excuse or justification to push for racial reparations and government wealth redistribution programs that they claim will benefit African Americans, but which really will give the government more power and control over our lives.

But as Zaid Jilani observes at National Review:

We are still in the early stages of this pandemic, and the research on this topic is as novel as the virus itself. [So] it’s difficult to draw hard conclusions about the causal factors that explain who gets the virus and who succumbs from it.

Exactly. Relatively few Americans, in fact, have even been tested for the coronavirus. The United States has administered fewer coronavirus tests per million people than Germany, Italy, Canada, and South Korea, Vox reports.

Yet, the New York Times published an article Tues., Apr. 7, 2020, arguing that “Black Americans Face Alarming Rates of Coronavirus Infection in Some States.” But as Jilani points out, 

Ironically, on the same day the New York Times published [this] article… New York City revealed age-adjusted numbers showing that Latinos, not African Americans, had the highest age-adjusted coronavirus death rate.

Perhaps this will bring about calls that the Times have should have reframed its article around Latino death rates rather than black ones. Maybe another newspaper op-ed will call the virus a “Latino plague,” at least in New York City.

The city’s data also showed that, despite claims from New York City’s Public Advocate that “New Yorkers of more color” are disproportionately at higher risk, the Asian-American death rate is actually lower than that of whites.

One way to look at this data would be to scramble the racial hierarchy being assembled by liberal activists and the news media—Latinos actually have it “worst,” and Asians, another ethnic minority—have it “best.” But that would simply replace one form of distorted thinking for another.

Moreover, even assuming that racial disparities exist—which, again, is a premature conclusion, given that we don’t yet know enough about the prevalence of the coronavirus nor its effects within different demographic groups—it is far from clear that such disparities are caused by “racism” and “inequality.”

Correlation, after all, is not causation. Consider, for instance, sickle cell anemia. As M. Laurence Noisette, M.D. writes:

Sickle cell disease, an inherited disorder of the red blood cells, is more common in African Americans in the U.S. compared to other ethnicities—occurring in approximately 1 in 365 African Americans… 

“Sickle cell trait,” likewise, “is an inherited blood disorder that affects approximately 8 percent of African-Americans,” notes the American Society of Hematology.

Unlike sickle cell disease, in which patients have two genes that cause the production of abnormal hemoglobin, individuals with sickle cell trait carry only one defective gene and typically live normal lives without health problems related to sickle cell.

Granted, COVID-19 is caused by a respiratory virus, the coronavirus; it is not an inherited blood disorder. So it seems very unlikely that genetic or biological factors would explain any racial disparities in either its incidence or effects.

But the point is that correlation can be explained any number of factors—including but by no means limited to the fact that different diseases sometimes affect various racial and ethnic groups differently.

Thus, seizing upon “racism” and “inequality” as explanations for alleged disparities is bad, sloppy, simplistic, and politicized thinking. And this is especially true when there are other legitimate and plausible explanations.

For example, as we reported here at ResCon1, and as the Washington Examiner’s Tina Lowe observed, “new data seems to indicate that obesity is itself a risk factor” for dying from the coronavirus.

Why does this matter? Because, according to the U.S .Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health:

  • African American women have the highest rates of obesity or being overweight compared to other groups in the United States. About 4 out of 5 African American women are overweight or obese.
  • In 2018, non-Hispanic blacks were 1.3 times more likely to be obese as compared to non-Hispanic whites.
  • In 2018, African American women were 50 percent more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic white women.
  • From 2013-2016, non-Hispanic black females were 2.3 times more likely to be overweight as compared to non-Hispanic white females.
  • People who are overweight are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, high levels of blood fats, diabetes and LDL cholesterol—all risk factors for heart disease and stroke.
  • In 2018, African Americans were 20 percent less likely to engage in active physical activity as compared to non-Hispanic whites.

Underlying health conditions that make the coronavirus more dangerous and more fatal—hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease, for instance—also are more prevalent within the African American community; and these, too, are caused in large part by obesity.

Does “racism” and “inequality” explain these disparities? I suppose to the racially obsessed, the answer is always yes.

But assuming that this overly simplistic explanation is even partially true, the reality is that, whatever racism exists, all of us—black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, et al.—make daily choices in diet and lifestyle that dramatically affect our likelihood of being obese and of contracting high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease.

Disempowerment. And that is the biggest problem with obsessing over “racism” and “inequality” as politically convenient excuses for bad health outcomes: Doing so disempowers each of us and denies us agency over our own lives.

The truth is that all of us are in this together. We all face a pandemic that is truly international in scope, and which seriously threatens our very lives and economic well-being.

Dividing us up along racial lines to score cheap and unwarranted political points, while advancing a bad political agenda, is shameful and wrong. And it’s unsupported by the weight of the scientific evidence and data.

The coronavirus doesn’t discriminate; but all of us, certainly, should be more thoughtful and discriminating when it comes to blaming “racism” and “inequality” for the prevalence and effects of COVID-19 within different racial and demographic groups.

Feature photo credit: Data for Chinese COVID-19 deaths as of Feb. 11, 2020, Ruobing Su/Business Insider.

Obesity Explains Why Alarming Numbers of Young Americans Are Dying from the Coronavirus

Obesity Explains Why Alarming Numbers of Young Americans Are Dying from the Coronavirus

By John R Guardiano on April 9, 2020

I wrote a piece March 10 in which I argued that “obesity is a much more dangerous public health problem than the coronavirus.”

Four days later, I apologized for that piece because it wrongly “downplayed the risk of the coronavirus and criticized the resultant ‘public panic (or at least [the] media panic)” over COVID-19. 

”I was not entirely wrong,” I wrote. “For the vast majority of us, obesity is a much more dangerous public health problem than the coronavirus.”

Well, as it turns out, instead of looking at obesity and the coronavirus as two separate and distinct problems or causes of death, we should consider them as complementary partners in crime—as joint and interrelated causes of mortality: because, as the Washington Examiner’s Tina Lowe points out:

“New data seems to indicate that obesity is itself a risk factor” for dying from the coronavirus. “In France,” she notes,

more than 4 in 5 coronavirus patients in intensive care are overweight; and in Shenzhen, China, researchers found that obesity “significantly increases the risk of developing severe pneumonia” for coronavirus patients…

We also know that preexisting conditions—including hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease—contribute. Being overweight or obese are risk factors for all of those conditions…

This helps to explain why, relatively speaking, many more young Americans are dying from the coronavirus than are young people in other countries. As Lowe reports:

Stanford University researchers found that whereas those under 65 comprised 5% to 9% of all coronavirus deaths in eight major European epicenters, those younger than 65 have accounted for a staggering 30% of all coronavirus deaths in major U.S. hotbeds.

For those in New York City, the absolute risk for people under 65 of dying from the coronavirus has been nearly three times greater than those in Italy, seven times greater than those in Belgium, and 46 times greater than those in Germany…

It should come as no surprise, [then], that younger populations in the United States are being hit so hard. More than 1 in 3 Americans is obese compared to roughly 1 in 5 Italians, Belgians, and Germans.

It’s no big mystery. We’re just fat, and right now it’s a big problem.

Indeed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), roughly 2.8 million Americans die annually; and, as Medscape reports:

Overweight and obesity were associated with nearly 1 in 5 deaths (18.2%) among adults in the United States from 1986 through 2006, according to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health. Previous research has likely underestimated obesity’s impact on US mortality.

Mathematically, this means that roughly 500,000 Americans die every year because of obesity (2.8 million x 18 percent = 504,000).

By contrast, the worst projections for the coronavirus initially said it would lead to as many as 200,000 American deaths, or less than half the number of deaths caused by obesity. 

National Public Radio, moreover, reports that, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “the final toll currently ‘looks more like 60,000 than the 100,000 to 200,000’ that U.S. officials previously estimated.”

But again, my point here is not to minimize the coronavirus, which is far more insidious, sudden, and unpredictable than obesity. Instead, it is to point out that the prevalence of obesity in the United States makes the coronavirus a much more dangerous and potentially fatal problem, especially for young people.

The bottom line: while you’re at home sheltering in place under stay-at-home orders mandated by the government, be sure to limit your trips to the fridge and kitchen pantry, and be sure to get in a good home workout.

That way, if you do contract the coronavirus, you’ll have a much better chance of weathering the storm and coming out alive on the other side.

Feature photo credit: Daily Times.

Bernie Sanders Ends His Presidential Campaign, But His Bad, Statist Policy Ideas Live On

Bernie Sanders Ends His Presidential Campaign, But His Bad, Statist Policy Ideas Live On

By John R Guardiano on April 8, 2020

Bernie Sanders officially ended his presidential campaign today. But although Sanders is a 2020 electoral loser, he is nonetheless a political winner: because his extreme, left-wing ideas have come to dominate the political dialogue and debate.

“Medicare for all,” for instance, which is just a nice-sounding name for a “single-payer,” government-controlled healthcare system, has gone mainstream and, according to many polls, now commands majority support.

“Free” college for all also ranks high now in the public’s political consciousness, as does the call to “ban new fracking.” 

“It was not long ago,” Sanders said today “that people considered these ideas radical and fringe. Today they are mainstream ideas.”

Sadly, he’s right. As the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board observes:

For the evidence, see Joe Biden’s agenda.

Mr. Biden promises free community college, plus free four-year university for every family earning under $125,000 a year. He has resisted Medicare for All, but he wants to add a government “public option” to ObamaCare.

Even Barack Obama couldn’t get this through Congress in 2010, despite a Senate supermajority.

Mr. Biden’s proposed tax increases total $3.4 trillion over 10 years, twice what Hillary Clinton suggested in 2016. His climate plan runs to $1.7 trillion over a decade and calls for the construction of a transcontinental high-speed railway.

Don’t forget his pledge at the last debate of “no new fracking.” This is what a middle-of-the-road Democrat looks like in 2020.

Exactly. While there may well be “moderate” Democrats who don’t share Sanders “progressive” ideological zeal, the truth is that they, like Biden, are responsive to, and beholden to, Sanders’ far-left political agenda.

Even Biden admits that

Senator Sanders and his supporters have changed the dialogue in America.

Issues which had been given little attention—or little hope of ever passing—are now at the center of the political debate. Income inequality, universal health care, climate change, free college, relieving students from the crushing debt of student loans.

These are just a few of the issues Bernie and his supporters have given life to. And while Bernie and I may not agree on how we might get there, we agree on the ultimate goal for these issues and many more [emphasis added].

In other words, Biden and other “moderate” Democrats want to empower the government as much as Sanders and the “progressives” do. They just want to do so in a slower and more deliberative fashion.

The Democratic Party’s left-wing lurch, and America’s newfound flirtation with socialism, are frightening and disconcerting. But give the devil his due: At least the Sanders Democrats are brimming with ideas—bad, statist ideas, mind you, but ideas nonetheless.

The Trump Republicans, by contrast, are completely devoid of ideas.

Indeed, since taking over the GOP, the Trump Republicans have become a cult of personality devoted to “The Donald,” and policy ideas have taken a back seat.

There is, consequently, no free-market policy agenda that the GOP is pushing to replace Obamacare, reform and save entitlements, and promote more robust economic growth.

Sanders, though, offers a model for what can invigorate the Grand Old Party: a conservative insurrection candidate in 2024 brimming with outside-the-box (or at least outside the “mainstream”) policy ideas.

Like Sanders, such a candidate probably won’t win the party’s nomination; but she could shake up the party, move it to the right, and make it a more viable vehicle for much-needed political and policy reform based on federalism and entrepreneurial capitalism.

In short, Bernie was right to push for a “revolution.” The problem was he pushed for the wrong type of revolution, and our politics is suffering now as a result.

But we on the right can learn from Bernie’s example and follow his political model or playbook to right the ship of state in the years ahead. Let’s hope—and pray—that we do.

Feature photo credit: Associated Press via the New York Post.