Title : The current hysteria will hurt the Dems
link : The current hysteria will hurt the Dems
The current hysteria will hurt the Dems
The coronavirus scare looks bad for Trump right now because he really has mishandled things. But things will turn around for him. Maybe not next week, but perhaps a month from now. Two months. Three.Soon.
The important thing to understand is this: Most people are not rational. They use their powers of ratiocination to justify narratives to which they feel emotionally wedded.
When the economy truly aches -- when the layoffs mount up and eviction notices decorate doors -- the public will turn against those who all the well-meaning liberals who argued that we needed to destroy the economy in order to combat this virus.
At this writing, the virus has taken fewer than 75 lives in the United States and roughly seven thousand lives worldwide. Yet everyone has gone mad.
Compare the current numbers to the Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1968-89: That outbreak took a million lives, including 100,000 victims here in the United States. At the time -- and I can attest to the personally -- few people talked about the disease. They discussed the war, the hippies, the protest marches, the presidential race, but they didn't talk about the Hong Kong flu, at least not often.
I was in grade school then. Any mention of the words "Hong Kong flu" caused kids on the playground to break into an imitation of Bruce Lee as Kato. (The attempts at humor were even more racist than that, to be honest.) Nobody seriously considered shutting down movie theaters or sports arenas or restaurants. By the end of 1969, most people had forgotten that the flu existed. At least, such was the case in our household, even though we were acquainted with an old vaudevillian who had been good friends with Tallulah Bankhead, the most famous victim of that flu.
By the way: If there was a shortage of hospital beds in 1968-69, nobody mentioned that fact on the news. Nobody was talking triage.
When I think back to the way our society reacted then, the current situation seems utterly confounding. The frenzy seems ridiculous.
I think that many people are overreacting to the current problem because we've all seen too many horror/disaster/science fiction movies, and we secretly want to live in one. We are addicted to melodrama.
But when this hysteria exacts a terrible economic toll -- when the disaster becomes real -- the public will turn around 180 degrees. People will direct their rage and fury against the hysteria-marketers.
Will Trump benefit from that? Of course.
He's a master of populist rhetoric and conspiracy theories. Eventually, he and his far-right confreres will find the right verbal formulation to blame liberalism (and perhaps democracy itself?) for our economic woes. Through trial and error, they will find the correct admixture of fact and falsity to make a "Blame the Dems" narrative seem plausible to millions.
That prediction may seem outlandish right now, because the administration is flailing.
Stop thinking like a chess player who can't see beyond the next move. You have to think at least five moves ahead.
Within hours, the state of Maryland will shut down all restaurants. For a couple of days, the fast food joints have been pushing out all the old farts who like to sit and read while sipping coffee -- as if that policy will have any impact on the coronavirus statistics. As if the stats justified extreme measures.
Will your local Mickey D's continue to issue paychecks to all of their current employees? I don't see how.
Extreme economic times always benefit the political extremes -- usually the extreme right.
History offers no clearer lesson.
Biden is riding high now, but that situation won't last. A politician of his sort -- rational, decent, middle-of-the-road -- cannot appeal to a fearful citizenry facing privation and loss. Mad times elevate mad leaders.
That's why I believe that Trump -- or perhaps someone even worse than Trump? -- will benefit from the coronavirus scare. The current critiques of his administration will fade from memory when the job losses mount. The public will turn.
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