I live and work in New England.\u00a0 Except for the crazies in the Northwest this is the home base of woke insanity for the country.\u00a0 Even the moderates in New England have drunk deeply of the Kool-Aid.\u00a0 Even the Republicans think like moon bats.\u00a0 Remember Mitt Romney was Governor of Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
So, the \u201cnormal\u201d people hate Donald Trump with a passion.\u00a0 Mostly they hate him because if they didn\u2019t hate him their neighbors would call them racists, sexists and homophobes.\u00a0 And there is nothing scarier to a New Englander than being called bad names.<\/p>\n
For that reason, I shouldn\u2019t have been surprised when a coworker came over to me last week and smirkingly told me that the coronavirus was going to tank the economy and thereby throw the election to Biden.\u00a0 This guy isn\u2019t a flaming liberal.\u00a0 He\u2019s what I\u2019d call an aspiring elitist.\u00a0 He comes from a middle-class background but would like to make the move up a couple of rungs to the outer periphery of the elect.\u00a0 And in order to fit in he has learned the party line and made their platform his.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t expecting this from him.\u00a0 After all, hoping the economy crashes doesn\u2019t scream patriotism and in the past he had never seemed unpatriotic.\u00a0 But you live and you learn.\u00a0 My only answer to him was, in a more or less bored manner, to inform him that my money is on Trump and if he wanted a wager, I was always looking to pick up some extra cash.<\/p>\n
After the impeachment vote by the House I announced that I no longer considered any other possible outcome from November\u2019s election than President Trump\u2019s re-election.\u00a0 And I continued in that belief up until this week.\u00a0 But my co-worker\u2019s taunt got me thinking.\u00a0 Could the coronavirus pandemic change the outcome of the presidential election?\u00a0 As a theoretical question, the answer is obviously yes.\u00a0 If millions of people died and if millions more were unemployed that could definitely affect the minds of the voters.\u00a0 So, I figured it was a good thing to consider what the reality of the pandemic meant for the election.<\/p>\n
Looking at what happened in China and what is happening in Italy it is plain to see that even with draconian measures being taken to limit its spread, globally, tens of thousands of people will die.\u00a0 The impact of those deaths is the political question that needs to be answered.\u00a0 And the answer is that as long as the government is seen to be actively using the best scientific information available to keep the public safe and wasn\u2019t negligent in allowing the introduction of the virus to the country, then there won\u2019t tend to be public anger at a relatively small number of deaths such as several thousand, as long as they do not overwhelm the emergency healthcare system.<\/p>\n
With respect to our present situation, there are something less than three thousand cases and about fifty deaths in the United States.\u00a0 These numbers will continue to increase for at least a couple of weeks.\u00a0 But, if at that point, they level off then public opinion on the pandemic won\u2019t cause excessive political trouble for the President.<\/p>\n
But what about the economic impact.\u00a0 Multiple industries are being severely impacted by the measures being used to prevent transmission of the disease.\u00a0 Airlines and other means of mass transportation are severely impacted.\u00a0 All forms of mass entertainment from sports games to movies to music concerts are being postponed or cancelled.\u00a0 It\u2019s certain that all restaurants will be at a virtual standstill.\u00a0 Daycare for pre-school age children will be a big problem.<\/p>\n
All of these disruptions are going to have a large affect on the economy and employment rates.\u00a0 And in addition, many companies are concerned that the virus may incapacitate or even kill key individuals in their workforce.\u00a0 For this reason, they are instituting fever screening, telecommuting and teleconferencing to limit exposure to the virus among employees.\u00a0 All of these control measures will have a negative effect on the economy.\u00a0 Without any intervention, layoffs and loss of revenue will cause a contraction in the economy that could be quite severe.\u00a0 And that could very easily have an effect on the election.<\/p>\n
So, is my co-worker right, will the pandemic necessarily throw the election to Biden?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 What needs to be done is for the President to provide incentives for business owners to hold onto their employees during the business interruptions and some kind of stimulus to offset the losses they are experiencing.\u00a0 And that is exactly what President Trump is attempting.\u00a0 Eliminating the payroll tax for employers and employees until the end of the year would be an enormous stimulus to the economy.\u00a0 Trying to get it through the House will be very difficult.\u00a0 But just trying to get it passed may be enough to shift the blame to the Democrats.\u00a0 And within a state of emergency possibly an executive action could accomplish what the Congress won\u2019t.\u00a0 And there are other measures that he can institute to target help to the particular industries hardest hit.\u00a0 The one that immediately comes to mind is the airline industry.\u00a0 With bans on travel to both Europe and Asia in place it isn\u2019t hard to imagine that the always vulnerable airlines could head into bankruptcy almost overnight.<\/p>\n
To sum it up, it will be necessary for President Trump to carefully oversee the federal and local disease control measures in place to ensure that health impact from COVID-19 is limited.\u00a0 And he will have to act decisively and effectively to limit the economic impact of the pandemic on the US economy.\u00a0 If he performs these two assignments competently, and based on his track record I anticipate he will, then he should be able to win re-election against the visibly decrepit and clearly demented Creepy Uncle Joe Biden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I live and work in New England.\u00a0 Except for the crazies in the Northwest this is the home base of woke insanity for the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[1799,2371,2372,1993],"class_list":["post-10240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-trump","tag-2020-election","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-handicapping-2020"],"yoast_head":"\n