I have to begin with a disclaimer. I am not involved with the Biden campaign in any shape, form, or fashion. My parents even offered to get me a yard sign and I refused. I’ve never had a yard sign for any candidate. I’ve never put a bumper sticker on my car. That’s just not how I roll. I say this because what I’m about to say are my own thoughts and not affiliated with any campaign.
The common thought process from the left when the Trump news came down was that it was karma or poetic justice. It was neither of those things. It was simple mathematics and science. When you fail to follow CDC guidelines and suggestions it is only a matter of time before it will bite you in the back side.
The Tulsa rally was a super spreader event. With the exception of Herman Cain, it didn’t impact anyone we knew. I think there was an expectation in the administration that these things happen to other people. They were somehow immune. It appears that the events from Saturday’s press conference for the new nominee was the event in question.
It started with Hope Hicks and then spread to Donald and Melania. It followed to three senators, Chris Christie, Kellyanne Conway, and three White House journalists. That’s as of this writing at 2:00 central time on Saturday. By the time you read this it could end up being more. That’s how these things usually end up going.
Where the dilemma comes in how the Biden campaign chooses to handle this. He got off to a good start by annoucing that he and Jill would be praying for everyone involved. Usually when tragedy hits you have a certain period where those involved are immune from criticism. No one wants to be that guy. No one wants to be the guy that points out that maybe it was your fault that you would up in this situation. That’s even if the criticism is warranted.
This is the reason for the disclaimer in the first paragraph. I’m not speaking for Joe Biden. I’m speaking for me. If I am only speaking for me I would say that these events are horrible for the president politically. Obviously, we are focused on the human end of this deal. When we get beyond and see the dust settled we will have to come to three stark conclusions.
First, the president has always been more interested in what is good for him than what is good for anyone else. As long as nameless people tested positive at his events he could always claim that it was a hoax and that those that criticized his lack of masks and social distancing were alarmists. Well, these developments bkow that whole thing up.
Secondly, it demonstrates that the virus itself is a public health crisis and not an economic crisis. He has always pushed to reopen the economy now, now, now. Polls routinely show that he is not trusted in how he is dealing with the virus. He has been ahead in how he is handling the economy. His best chance to win the election fairly was to convince people the virus was in the rear view mirror. That’s obviously not happening.
Finally, these last few weeks are proof of the notion that he doesn’t have good judgment. Every presidency has a crisis or two they can’t plan for. COVID-19 obvious was Trump’s crisis. Sure, there are other crises that he created. When you create a crisis you can also navigate yourself out. He didn’t navigate himself out of this one. We are still in it.
Even if we go back to Tuesday night we can see that he tried to convince Americans that he handled the virus really well and that Biden would have been worse. I don’t see how anyone could possibly buy this. I couldn’t see it before, but the events of the past few days should cement this idea. He can’t handle a crisis. So, a vote for Trump is a vote with the hopes that we will not face another crisis in the next four years.
In terms of the next two weeks, my expectation is that he will emerge relatively healthy after two weeks. He will tout his strength, will downplay the virus due to his recovery, and will also trumpet a new miracle drug he coincidentally has invested money in. Some are fond of saying Trump participates in a game of three dimensional chess. The execution seem a lot like “Go fish”. Maybe we will get a Twitter reprieve over the next two weeks. We have to find any ray of light we can these days.
halloffameindex 