Watch out, Democrats, Part One

The Coronavirus looks bad for Trump.

It could backfire on Democrats if they try to blame it on Trump.

The stock market is down, the COVID-19 virus appears to be spreading. If times are good, an incumbent president gets political credit. 

If times turn bad, shouldn't the president bear the cost?  He will, unless the Democrats screw this up, and they easily could.

Guest Post author Thad Guyer warns that it won't work to blame Trump for the spread of the virus to America. The virus originated in China, where it had infected tens of thousands of people. The virus spread has been defined in the public mind as an invasion, a spread from there to here. In that sense it mimics the immigration issue as Trump defines it: a good safe healthy America at risk from infestation from abroad, protected by isolation, by border security, by exclusion.

Democrats are poorly positioned to criticize Trump. Democrats have criticized walls and exclusions based on anything except felonious criminality, and have specifically opposed it based on ethnicity and national origin. Yet even within China itself, the isolation of Wunan from the rest of China was the mechanism used--with partial success--to stop the spread of the disease. 

Isolation and exclusion are the Trump's tools, fought every step of the way by Democrats and their friends in the courts. Democrats have the open door message.

The virus has come to America.  Democrats will bear the brunt of the blame if they make the issue its arrival in the USA. Whatever its actual mechanism for being here, if Americans start thinking of it as a matter of exclusions and border security, then Trump will look like the hero who was ahead of the curve all along. 

Guyer is an attorney specializing in representing whistleblower employees.

[A second blog post, Part Two, looks at the way Trump is already blaming Democrats from a different direction, saying Democrats had a "sickening" plan to cheer and welcome a pandemic catastrophe in order to take down Trump.]

A Guest Post by Thad Guyer


"The Trumpvirus Gambit Will Benefit Trump, not Democrats"

Trying to blame politicians for a worldwide pandemic is absurd, and Democrats who are now on the "Trumpvirus" bandwagon will themselves become targets. What did Sanders, Klobachar and Warren do to respond to the virus? What have the Governors of New York, California and Oregon done? The CDC and World Health Organization are adamant that trying to lock down national borders and stop inbound flights is not just ineffective but is perceived as racist and xenophobic. No credible Cemocrat is going to campaign that Trump should have shut out the world.

The politicization of the pandemic will backfire on Democrats as voters increasingly accept that there is nothing we can do to prevent the epidemic. Trump-- just like Democratic governors-- will be judged one and all on their effectiveness in providing medical care to the infected. So will big blue city mayors. Should Kate Brown and Gavin Newsome close the public schools as Japan just has, and if they don't and kids die will those Democrats be blamed for not having closed the schools? If they close the schools and the pandemic is not as catastrophic as feared, what price will Brown and Newsome pay by voters whose lives were turned upside down by closed schools and childcare nightmares.

Other than the Democratic candidates (whose voices are by definition the least credible of government officials), we will see few if any Democratic governors or mayors attempt any serious Trumpvirus political gambit. They know that will come back to bite them, and their safest position is that the virus is an act of God that no politician can be expected to control.

Corona virus politics is a dangerous game and politicians with survival instinct are going to steer clear of it.

Watch out, Democrats. Part Two

"For them to take a pandemic and seemingly hope it comes here and kills millions of people so they can hope to kill Donald Trump's streak of winning is a new level of sickness."             Donald Trump, Junior The Trump formula: Deny. Then accuse. Trump reverses course on the virus. Now it is big deal. When times are good, incumbent Presidents tend to get the credit. Trump went out on a limb and said the high stock market was due to him and that the virus in China was no big deal. It was really just a typical cold or flu. It put him at risk. The stock market and the spread of the virus are largely not in his control. He can say things are great, but reality intervenes. The virus spread. The stock market noticed. There is huge potential for disruption of supply chains, travel, and commerce generally. Assemblies are being cancelled. Businesses are cutting back and announcing reduced earnings expectations. It could trigger a recession. Denial. It's a Democratic hoax. Trump's first response was denial. He was reported to be furious at Nancy Messonnier, the Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. She expected it to begin spreading in the US and that the potential for "disruption to everyday life may be severe." Trump and his communication allies said it was all just media hype. Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said the virus was a media invention. "The press was covering their hoax of the day because they thought it would bring down the president. . . . That's what this is all about." “It’s going to disappear,” Trump said. "One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” Trump now directed that all public comments regarding the virus be coordinated by the office of Mike Pence, with the work done by Pence's Press Secretary Katie Waldman, the new wife of senior White House aide Stephen Miller. No more spontaneous comments from career officials. Course change. Attack and Accuse. Don Junior is making that case, accusing Democrats of actively cheering and welcoming the death of millions. Donald Junior's comments caused a predictable uproar. A Democratic congressman John Garamendi from California took the bait and said "Don Junior better not get close to me" which serves to republish and amplify the charge. Oh, boy, a fight!! A Trump campaign spokesperson echos that story on Laura Ingraham's show on Fox. "Of course you are seeing this outrageous demagoguery from the left. It's what they do. They are infected with 'Trump Derangement Syndrome Virus'.  I thought I'd never see the day the left including the media was cheering for a disease to take over America." CNBC story That is a question and focus that serves Trump: are Democrats actuallyunhappy that millions of Americans die, or only pretending to be unhappy.  Are they cheering or only celebrating? Make Democrats the subject. Facts on the ground. The virus appears to be spreading. Between 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time and 8:40 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday night Fox News updated its landing page. Earlier visitors landed on a page showing Ingraham scoffing at the media fears of a spread, with a tiny story about that single case in California. They updated it with word of a second case. Oh. By this morning Fox has accommodated to the new reality with a landing page describing an "abundance of caution." The disease isn't a hoax after all. Meanwhile business news sites describe both a growing crisis. The two different approaches to the events of the week are evident here. CNBC describes (CNBC) describes a stock market crisis amid a possible pandemic. Worry. Meanwhile, at Fox Business, Trump acknowledges and engages the problem, picturing a heroic Trump fighting the virus with fists raised, "prepared for the very worst." Resolve. Either way, Trump has his media narrative in place. Those Democrats will do anything to take Trump down, but Trump is ready to confront the enemy, those Democrats.