These are terrible times. The stock market has tanked into recession territory. The longest bull market in history is dead. (I take absolutely no joy in reminding my regular readers that I predicted this in a previous blog article, “There Is a Recession Coming” ) My retirement account has taken a major hit even though I sold more than half of my equity positions before this crisis began. However, I am still in good shape. The stock market will eventually regain its footing. Though it make take many months or even years, I can weather the storm and I am buying on the downswings so sooner or later I will be better off financially than I was before. But it isn’t me and my family that I am concerned money wise.
What I worry about people that who are losing their jobs. Also of great concern are those can’t work from home, but their work locations are closing. What about the retirees who use a percentage of their retirement savings on a regular basis to just get by? Now, they will have to withdraw less because otherwise they won’t have enough to live on for the rest of their lives And God help those who panic and sell their stock investments at these low prices. And remember a large percentage of Americans don’t have paid family leave. Who is going to take care of the kids when their schools close if their parent(s) can’t work from home? Who is going to bring in an income when whole families are quarantined in their homes because a member their households test positive for the virus?
Financial matters aside, for all Americans our lives being seriously disrupted in major ways. Our citizens are concerned, even scared, if not for themselves, then for their elderly and immune compromised relatives and friends. There are serious concerns that our medical facilities will be overloaded and health professionals will have to make the impossible decisions like who gets to use a ventilator and lives, and who doesn’t. Essentials necessary for hunkering down at home for a long period of time are flying off of store shelves. Schools and universities are shutting down. Here in Alabama, one of the few states that sill has only a few confirmed cases, our major universities are shutting down out of an abundance of caution. Entertainment venues as well as college and professional sporting events are being cancelled or postponed, depriving people of much needed diversions during this time anxiety.
Once a crisis becomes more controllable the public’s thoughts will inevitably turn to trying to understand what mistakes were made in order to ensure something like that it doesn’t happen again, or at least that it won’t be as severe if it does. As part of this process it is a normal human tendency to assign blame. In this case it will be irrational blame to the virus itself; mindless primitive organisms simply do what nature designed them to do, in this case to spread and infect more hosts. Attention will therefore center on what made the crisis more widespread than it needed to be in this country. When that happens the cross hairs will center on the Trump administration, and rightfully so.
To say that the administration’s handling of this outbreak has been less than adequate is an understatement. The best way to deal an outbreak in a particular area is quickly identify who is infected and those with whom they have been close contact and then isolate them in order to prevent the infection of others. That requires effective tests be available immediately to detect the pathogen.
Yet despite months of warning as the coronavirus spread in China and other parts of Asia, when outbreaks began occurring here testing kits were in extremely short supply. As result the virus was allowed to spread widely in affected areas and ultimately to the rest of the country. Even today when South Korea is testing 10,000 people a day, we are testing only a few hundred in a much larger country because the testing kits are still being rationed. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who leads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and who is a member of Trump’s task force testified before Congress that the testing process in this country has been a failure. Of course according to Trump it’s magnificent success.
Meanwhile Trump was using his bully pulpit to try to convince Americans that that this coronavirus outbreak was nothing but a Democratic hoax, that it would be quickly contained, that warm weather would destroy it, that everyone who wanted to be tested could be tested immediately. All of this while the medical personal and scientists in his own administration were painting an entirely different picture. The mixed messaging confused and even panicked the American public because ordinary people didn’t know what to believe.
The Center for Disease Control (the CDC) which previously had a reputation as the best in the world, has now come under intense criticism from front line doctors struggling to deal with the pandemic. The complaints are not only the result of the lack of testing kits. There are also serious concerns about the mixed and even dishonest messaging coming out of the CDC and failure of the organization to capture and propagate the experiences of doctors and facilities directly treating coronavirus patients to the rest of the medical community around the country so future patients in other areas can be treated more effectively.
Ultimately, these failures will be laid at the feet of the director of the CDC and logically at the feet of the president who appointed him will be held responsible. Like so many of Trump’s appointments, Trump’s choice of Dr. Robert Redfield, a virologist, to head the CDC probably had less to do with his abilities than his conformance with Trump’s philosophies. In the past Redfield was known for his controversial views on handling the spread of infectious diseases such HIV/AIDS and for his alliance with conservative politicians and conservative Christian groups. The failures of the CDC will ultimately be viewed Trump’s failures.
However, Trump’s administration set the scene for failure even before this virus first appeared in China. In 2018 The Trump Administration cut 80% of the CDC funding used to fight global pandemics. That same year John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Adviser, disbanded the National Security Council’s Global Pandemic Team. Established in 2016 based the lessons learned from the 2014 Ebola epidemic, the team’s mission was to prepare for and, if possible, prevent the next outbreak from becoming an epidemic or pandemic. Last October, the Trump Administration discontinued a Bush-era program called “Predict’ which monitored the threat of animal-born diseases to humans. The 2021 Trump budget proposed cuts that would reduce CDC funding by 16 percent and slash $3 billion for its global health programs including those aimed at dealing with virus outbreaks.
When something of this magnitude happens there are always be repercussions. Americans who will endure the severe financial hardships, who will grow sick and/or have loved ones die, and whose lives are being are being disrupted like never before are going to want to know why this happened. In particular they are going to want to know why the virus was allowed to spread as it did. During world-wide health crisis like this one, our citizens have always looked first to the competence of the federal government as their first line of defense. They will be more than disappointed with the incompetence of the Trump administration when they determine the answers to their questions.
Trump is already an accidental president. He lost the popular vote by 3 million votes and his victory the Electoral College was made possible winning the three key states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by grand total of 77,000 votes. He has violated countless presidential and democratic norms. His foreign policy has been a disaster. He has on multiple occasions offended suburban women who helped put him in office with his vulgar language and attacks on women. He caters only to his base often irritating everyone else in the process. As a consequence this job approval numbers have hovered around 42% and never have broken the 50% mark while he has been in office. His disapproval ratings have remained in the 52% range for some time now. And up until now he has never had to manage a national crisis.
This is his biggest test and he is failing dramatically. He chances of being reelected were already in a deep hole and I see no way he can recover from this debacle in time for the November election. Those who live in the Fox News bubble may remain blissfully ignorant, but anyone with any access to the truth will come to understand that Trump never had the knowledge, competence, or personality traits to even adequately lead this country of ours in difficult times and they will be extremely unlikely to trust him with another term.
Cajun 3/14/2020