The Greatest Cure on Earth!
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. Step right up, and don’t be shy. You will not believe your eyes. Have you been cooped up at home? Are you unable to resume life as it used to be? Would you like your life returned to the great American life that it once was? Well, do I have a deal for you? That’s what I do. I make deals. This deal will be my greatest deal of a lifetime. The greatest deal of any lifetime. No one has ever seen such a deal. What do you get? You get whatever you want. You get your life back. More specifically, I developed a cure for Covid-19. I alone can fix it. I have all the best epidemiologists working for me. I have great pharmaceuticals. The best. All it will cost you is your vote. Vote for Trump, and all of your troubles will be solved. I offer you the unique, once in a lifetime opportunity to remove this virus from the planet. If you vote for Sleepy Joe, your life will continue exactly as it is…forever.
That’s it. Mark my words. That is how the Presidential election of 2020 will be framed. Right now, as we speak, a national conversation is going on about whether, when, and how to “re-open” the US to normal activity. At one point, Trump said he would do it himself, and that he had the absolute authority to do so. As you’re probably aware, he was roundly rebuked for the unconstitutional stance. In the span of about a day or two, Trump had backtracked. If you’re like me, you thought this was an embarrassing defeat for Trump. I bought the face plant as genuine.
Then it occurred to me. I’m going to give Trump credit for strategic thinking for the first time that I can recall here. This current discussion about re-opening is just a set up. The discussion points to Trump’s failure with regard to testing availability, and on the scientific question, it is a pure loss for Trump. The Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, is offering the only rational approach to dealing with the virus. That is how it dawned on me. It is hard to sell spinach and liver. Unless he can turn more “social distancing” vitamins into a ‘gummy’, even adults will have a hard time swallowing it.
In 2016, Trump offered no policy prescriptions. Trump only offered a choice, saying, I am not Hillary Clinton. Trump lacks the capacity for discussing policy. In 2020, the distinction that Trump offers will be similar, but the offer will be life as it once was. The re-open discussion currently is just bait. Currently we lack the technical capacity to re-open without a massive reoccurrence of the virus. Now, he could go ahead and re-open before the election, but he’d receive negative results which would not favorably recommend him for rehire. I shock myself by this view, but I think even Donald is not that dumb. He is just getting the American public to want it. Most importantly, he just needs to areas of the country that gave him victory in 2016 to want it. Those vast areas of land without many people on it do not represent enough economic activity to make a difference by re-opening it. He can’t sell his pandemic response as competent. It has been an abysmal failure. That will be more evident day by day as the number of deaths mount. He can only try to sell that only he can “make America”…yada yada yada. Don’t buy it.
