As Democrats Make Course Correction, Symptoms of Desperation Become Evident

Political analyst David Axelrod attends a Democratic presidential debate at Wynn Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nev., on Oct. 13, 2015. Axelrod has accused President Donald Trump of ruthlessness in wishing to reopen the country. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Commentary

Already and after the briefest of resistance, the Democrats are abandoning the trenches of their latest line of defense and fleeing to the rear.

Just as they were settling in to advocacy of a prolonged shutdown to ensure they had a great economic depression to hang around the neck of the president on Election Day, and the inimitable Paul Krugman of The New York Times, the first winner of President Donald Trump’s coveted Fake News Prize, was on May 21 asking, “How many people have to die for the Dow?” the ground began to shift again.

Somewhere in the upper echelons of that formerly and long-great party, a vision occurred of what an impossible argument the Democrats were making. They were placing all their bets on a sharp upward spike in the coronavirus to disrupt the economic reopening, a solid lock-step alliance with the pandemic in their enthusiasm to promote a Great Depression that would produce such a public revulsion that Joe Biden would levitate from his Delaware basement to the great White House of the people.

In general, people should be commended for pursuing lofty ambitions, however improbable. But in this case, the delusional nature of the Democratic campaign strategy caused a sharp course correction before that party became indissolubly identified with the opportunistic political virtues of economic disintegration and scores of millions of government-designated unemployed (even as that prospect receded).

An Economic Boom

The third quarter of this year, ending conveniently on Sept. 30, barely a month before Election Day, will probably be the greatest quarter of economic growth and reduction of unemployment in the history of reliable U.S. economic statistics.

All indications to date, although they are preliminary, are that reopening the economy doesn’t produce any uptick in coronavirus fatalities. Since the great majority of those fatalities are in a senior and immunity-challenged echelon of the population that’s now been identified, and is being much more carefully safeguarded throughout the country than before its particular vulnerability was identified, there is no reason for even the Democrats in their present state of morbidity (political and otherwise), to expect that the reopening of the economy won’t proceed satisfactorily.

The president has prudently confined himself so far to relatively gentle encouragements to the governors to reopen their states. It can be expected that if this process isn’t disturbed by any more unpleasant public health surprises, he will apply his undoubted hortatory talents to resuming his status as a war leader — this time grappling not with the invisible enemy but with the goal of economic revival, which can largely be attained simply by having employers call furloughed employees back to work.

It will soon be the patriotic duty of all Americans to pursue their natural desire to return to their rightful occupations and enhance their income and security. That isn’t a hard sell.

Media Campaign

The next line of defense, which the retreat-weary Democrats are now fetching up, is likely to consist of a new campaign by their imperishably faithful media, that instead of focusing on the swift recovery from the economic consequences of the pandemic, the country should focus sharply on the current state of unemployment.

This will almost certainly be around 10 percent by Election Day, a three-quarters reduction from the present highest level of pandemic unemployment, although still triple the percentage that existed when the pandemic arrived. It would be hazardous to predict too confidently what sort of reception this latest effort at Democratic mythmaking might enjoy, especially given the almost waterproof barrage of partisanship that all of the networks, except Fox, will present to frustrate the president’s reelection.

But it seems more likely now that the country will credit the president with dealing with the public health crisis, dealing with the resulting economic crisis, and restoring the recovery of prosperity of which he was the principal author, than that the country will be discountenanced by a transitory rate of swiftly descending unemployment.

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Source: Conrad Black | The Epoch Times