Cromwell

The leader did everything he could to minimize the impacts of the virus in its early stages. His people, however, understood perfectly that he was far more interested in protecting his own political position than in their well-being. His efforts to control the narrative consequently failed.

Later on, he completely changed course and portrayed himself as a fearless virus buster. When the crisis passed, he inevitably took the credit for the “victory,” even though he was not entitled to it, and the economic impacts of the virus continued to linger.

Is it Trump or Xi? You decide.

Lincoln-Douglas, that wasn’t.

Bernie Sanders is a man with one speech. Ask him a question about fighting the virus, and he will talk about billionaires and M4A. That’s who he is, and what he does. To criticize him for it at this point is a waste of breath.

Biden had two objectives coming into the debate. The first was to avoid looking like a blithering idiot; here, he succeeded quite nicely, so the impact of the debate on Tuesday’s primaries will be minimal. On the second one, to win over Sanders supporters, he was uneven at best. He missed several obvious opportunities to minimize differences between himself and Bernie, and actually picked fights on a few occasions for no apparently good reason. That was a mistake.

Anyone with Biden’s decades of experience in public life is going to have a record full of nuance. The two-man format offers him enough speaking time to explore the nuances. Instead, for the most part, he is making statements about his evolving positions that make him sound dishonest. He needs to fix that ASAP.

In the meantime, because the candidates did little to heal the chasm between fundis and realos, the real winner was Donald Trump. Fortunately for the Democrats, there is so much attention on the virus at this point that hardly anyone will care.

Essentially all sports shut down. Theaters, museums, and schools closed. Cafes shuttered in Paris. Gatherings of virtually any size banned. We’re in the no fun zone, for sure.

It’s only appropriate that this is happening during Lent. Let’s hope it’s over by Easter.

The panel decision in the McGahn subpoena case has been vacated, and the case will be heard en banc. The original decision would have left Congress without enforceable executive oversight powers. This is a big deal, for now and the future, although the Supreme Court will probably have the last say on the matter.

Bernie Sanders thinks the American dream leaves too many people behind. He wants America to look more like Denmark, with a far more robust welfare state, higher taxes, and a tiny army.

Denmark is a nice country; it always scores highly on indices of national happiness. So why isn’t the dream resonating here? The one word answer is fear, of the following:

1. That the government simply isn’t capable of managing such a large segment of the economy competently;
2. On the part of the millions of Americans who are comfortable, but not billionaires, that the value of the new public services they receive will not justify their higher tax burden;
3. That Xi, Putin, and other international bad guys can’t be kept under control by the Danish army;
4. That the US would turn into a haven for illegal immigrants looking for welfare benefits paid for by American workers; and
5. That an America that does not reward excellence will be less vibrant—the mediocre society.

With the possible exception of #4, these are all reasonable concerns. Hence the imminent demise of the Sanders campaign, which has done nothing to address any of them.

Anything that House Democrats do to ease the crisis will inevitably aid the Trump re-election campaign—not that he’ll give them any credit for it. The needs of the American people, however, take precedence over party politics. At least they do for a respectable adult party.

Would Mitch McConnell return the favor? Of course not. Remember 2009?

Bret Stephens says that even William F. Buckley would have supported increasing the size and power of the state to protect the public from dangerous diseases. He’s probably right; but what, you ask, distinguishes the virus from climate change? Why isn’t it also appropriate to expand the state to protect the public from fires, monster hurricanes, and the like?

I suspect the difference, in the eyes of so-called “conservatives,” is that the battle against climate change has no obvious end point, so the expansion of the state is more or less permanent. Do you find that line of reasoning persuasive? Me, neither.

If the crash of 2008 had occurred six months later, John McCain might well have won the election; if six months earlier, Hillary Clinton would have been viewed as a safer choice than Obama. In a similar vein, if the markets had crashed six months ago, and recovery was not in sight, socialism would have a lot more appeal than it does now. In the middle of a crisis, the experienced hand will prevail. That’s Biden.

We couldn’t bring ourselves to watch the speech live, but I caught it on YouTube, and it was everything I feared it would be. Reading from a TelePrompTer in his usual weird monotone, he boasted about his mostly nonexistent accomplishments, minimized the problems, took gratuitous shots at the EU, and misstated parts of his own travel ban. The markets are going to respond accordingly.

The fact is that Trump would be happy to see a million American deaths if they were all Democrats. Unfortunately for him, most of them will be his elderly supporters.

I was depressed, but never scared, after 9/11. Today, I’m both.

Donald Trump directly confronts the virus for the first time. As you would expect, he reaches into his usual bag of tricks.

T: Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Virus. What should I call you? Corona?

V: Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m a man of wealth and taste.

T: Hey, I love that song, too! Where did you hear it?

V: Everywhere. You know the rest of it.

T: Well, let me just say you’re the biggest, baddest virus on the planet. You’re way bigger than SARS or Ebola. They’re saying you’re even bigger than the Spanish flu. You remind me of myself.

V: I appreciate the compliment, but your flattery doesn’t even work on Kim. It sure won’t work on me.

T: The bottom line is that it’s time for you to go.

V: Why? I just got here.

T: You’re messing up my campaign. I can’t allow that. Surely you understand.

V: I couldn’t care less about your campaign.

T: You know I’m a very stable genius. You can’t compete with my awesomeness.

V: I’ll take that chance. The markets aren’t too impressed with you so far.

T: I’ll take you as a hostage. Your friends will have to give up to save you. Nothing personal, of course.

V: There are zillions of germs like me out there. Like you, I’m dispensable.

T: I can pay you off. Wouldn’t you rather hang out in some African country? I could arrange it, and the weather would be warmer.

V: Not a chance. I like it right here.

T: Isn’t there something I can do to make you go away?

V: Why don’t you just leave me alone and pretend you’ve solved your problem? That’s what you usually do.

T: Hey, great idea! I should have thought of that before!

Trump leaves in triumph.

Apparently determined to avoid a repetition of the Clinton e-mail pseudo-scandal, the MSM have given Biden a free pass on Ukraine to date. They rarely say anything about it, and when they do, it always comes with a big disclaimer about the lack of any evidence of wrongdoing. Can Biden continue to rely on their restraint?

He would be wise not to take it for granted. The GOP Senate and the administration will do their best to fabricate news stories out of Ukraine that will be difficult for the MSM to ignore. Simply approaching the issue as something that is beneath his contempt is not going to be a winning strategy.

Given the difficulties of his upbringing, it should be easy to portray Hunter as a completely sympathetic figure who has periodically lost his way. Biden needs to work on that in the next few months. It could well be the difference between winning and losing in November.

Sanders is left with one path to victory; he has to completely destroy Biden, without the help of an audience, during Sunday’s debate. If he had Warren at his side, you could imagine it, but he’s just a guy with one speech and no finesse, so it won’t happen.

Next week will be the St. Patrick’s Day Massacre, and then it will be over. The Democrats can focus on unseating the man on golf cart. Not a minute too soon.

The president’s response to the virus to date has been quintessentially Trumpian: ignoring experts; sending mixed messages; boasting about his own performance; engaging in a salesman’s happy talk; and blaming Obama and the press for all of the problems. As an NYT columnist said, however, you can’t gaslight a virus. The stock market, Trump’s favorite gauge of public approval, has tumbled. What now?

With a few more days like yesterday, he will be screaming for stimulus. The GOP Senate, which believes in austerity for Democrats and stimulus for Republicans, will undoubtedly go along. So what would an appropriate stimulus package look like, and how should the Democrats respond?

It isn’t easy to devise a package when conditions are still evolving. What is clear is that the usual GOP toolkit of regressive tax cuts and low interest rates won’t solve a public health problem. A temporary payroll tax cut would make some sense, but it probably wouldn’t be enough to avoid layoffs in highly affected industries. Targeted bailouts would also help, but there would be no guarantee that they would reach enough businesses, or that the public funds would end up in the hands of workers, as opposed to investors.

So what should the Democrats do? I would suggest laying down principles and leaving the formulation of policy to the administration. The principles should emphasize the need for speed, narrow targeting, and support for workers, not investors. Would the GOP be willing to live with a plan that favors workers over capital? Probably not, which would be the point during an election campaign.

I think it was Lefty Gomez who said he would rather be lucky than good. It is an observation that certainly applies to Donald Trump, who is finally facing the first crisis of his administration that was not self-created. Does the virus represent the end of his streak?

It depends on how long it lasts and how severe it is. If the virus causes a recession that lasts for several months, yes. If not, no. Right now, we have no way of knowing. The only thing you can say for sure is that if the recovery is swift, it will have nothing to do with him, because, as usual, he is doing his best to confuse the public and make things worse.

The Coronavirus is now China’s most noteworthy export, because: Chinese culture includes the consumption of wildlife; the political system effectively encourages local governments to suppress bad news; and transparency is antithetical to the system at its highest levels. The entire world is paying the price as a result.

When you add the effects of the virus to the trade wars, you have to imagine that multi-national companies will be considering diversifying their supply chains. Are the Chinese willing to make the reforms that are necessary to keep them from moving their production to other countries? The Chinese government thinks it is too big and powerful to accept dictation from foreigners, so the answer is almost certainly no.