Posted on 04/03/2020 7:47:26 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully," said Samuel Johnson.
And as it is with men, so it is with nations.
Monday, Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, projected some 100,000 to 200,000 U.S. deaths from the pandemic, "if we do things almost perfectly." She agreed with Dr. Anthony Fauci's estimate that, if we do "nothing," the American dead could reach 2.2 million.
That 2 million figure would be twice as many dead as have perished in all our wars from the American Revolution to the Civil War, World War I and II, and Korea and Vietnam.
This does indeed concentrate the mind wonderfully.
Now add to this slaughter of our countrymen a market plunge steeper than the 1929 Crash and a 1930s-style Depression. Wall Street analysts are talking of a wipeout of 30% of our GDP and unemployment reaching 35%.
What a difference a month can make.
On March 3, Super Tuesday, we were caught up in the 14 primary contests after Joe Biden's stunning victory in South Carolina, which broke the momentum of Sen. Bernie Sanders' wins in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
What March 2020 produced and what it appears to portend is a sea change in U.S. history, an inflection point, an event after which things never return to what they were.
The coronavirus crisis seems to be one of those epochal events that alter the character of the country and the course of the republic.
Consider what has happened in three weeks.
The Republican Party, the party of small government and balanced budgets, approved with but a single dissent a $2 trillion emergency bill. There is talk now of a second $2 trillion bill, this one for infrastructure.
In a single month then, a Republican Senate and president grew the federal budget by 50% and are looking to double that.
For years, Democrats raised alarms about Trump's poaching of the powers of the other branches. Now Democrats are demanding to know why Trump has not shut down the economy by presidential decree and not used his latent dictatorial powers to order U.S. companies to produce what the nation's hospitals demand.
Democrats who long accused Trump of xenophobia and racism for seeking to close the borders to migrants entering the country illegally are now silent as Trump closes America to the world.
First Amendment free press champions are calling for Trump's White House briefings not to be carried on TV because the president is spouting propaganda and lies. The problem: The people are watching and approving of what the media think the people ought not see.
If people in a crisis will jettison lifelong beliefs like this readily, how enduring will their professed belief in democracy itself prove?
The president thinks this will be a V-shaped recession, that once the economy hits bottom and turns up, it will soar, as in 1946 when pent-up demand from World War II was unleashed and America began to churn out cars and consumer good as rapidly as it had weapons of war.
Perhaps. But put me down as a skeptic. You can't go home again. The shattering events of March, followed by what is coming in April and May, will have lasting impacts on the hearts and minds of this generation.
That once-insatiable appetite for Chinese-made goods at the mall -- will it really return? Will Americans, after having "socially distanced" for months from family and friends, be reassured of their safety and pack into restaurants in July?
Observing the carrier Theodore Roosevelt in Guam offloading scores of sailors infected with coronavirus, will Americans be up for a clash with a China that is even today asserting its claims to the South China Sea?
Will Americans who survive this crisis care whether Iranian-backed Shiites dominate Iraq or Saudi-backed Sunni prevail in Yemen?
If March shocked this nation as severely as 9/11, what is coming may be even more sobering.
Are millions of unemployed workers without the cash to pay for or to find medicine and groceries likely to stay indoors for weeks or months?
All those criminals being given early release from virus-infested jails and prisons without the means to provide for themselves and their families, how will they react to weeks of mandatory sheltering in place?
Will MS-13 and its thousands of members, and its rival gangs that live off narcotics sales, comply?
Americans have done well in staying home in March. Will they do so through April, May and perhaps June? Or will the system gradually break down just as the second wave of the virus in the fall appears?
In times of crisis in America, there is a tradition of self-sacrifice.
But there have also almost always been not a few whose mindset is that of the Fort Lauderdale spring-breakers.
No..we are Over.
Not if Nanzi’s nephew Gavin Nuisance has anything to say about it.
Yes and no because what is not Constitutional will be sterilized and there are no exceptions!
I just realized this was Pat Buchanan. Color me unconvinced.
“No..we are Over.”
Oh give me a $%@%@$ break, you flipping drama queens.
And this is the site that has the nerve to mock “special snowflake” millennials and wrap themselves in the legacy of the WW2 generation?
Over? What’s that about?
...........
Now that the world’s bad guys know how to get us on our knees and kill tens of thousands of us, without getting their hands dirty.........why would Iran and N Korea bankrupt themselves building nukes to threaten and attack us with?
..............
Now, an enemy of, (probably American educated) virologists can attack us and Israel and UK in ways we no longer have to imagine.
...............
Some years ago, we snuffed out a cluster of labs, organized by Al Qaeda in N Africa. Think of what Iran and NK could do.
..............
This is a new threat and we need a response. The horse is out of the barn.
NY's Cuomo says pretty much the same thing; "there will be a new "Normal".
Ever notice that the negativity come for the politicization from the same party,
the same party that says "Orange man bad",
and the same one that seems to only want to destroy America, America exceptionalism, and the American dream.
Hopefully, we’ll be a kinder America. But, given the state of Washington, DC ... I have my doubts.
Call me paranoid, but I fear that a new attempt at a gun grab is on the horizon. Gut feeling.
“never let a crisis go to waste”
Yes, only better.
+
-—Call me paranoid, but I fear that a new attempt at a gun grab is on the horizon-—
Yep some loon will go out and shoot up a concert, oh wait, I mean a sport event, oh wait, a disco club, oh wait...
Not even close. It’s a whole new world.
No, it is NOT a "new threat". The possibilities of biowarfare have been known for decades, and research has been ongoing in both civilian and military sectors to develop responses. I worked in the early 2000's with LLNL on automated instrumentation to detect biowarfare agents, which were deployed and were/are used nationwide. So I KNOW it was ongoing.
With that background, I say that Trump's administration has done wonders. Thank God he is president!
The horse left the barn LONG ago.
Change is constant no matter the circumstances. As for predictions, which everyone is intent on doing now, I agree with Yogi Berra.
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Predictions are always inaccurate, ditto for planning. That is why government planning is so disastrous. It never happens the way planners, or any of us, think it will happen.
“Man makes plans, God laughs”
No
And we’ll all be accessorizing with masks when we’re back to work ! We’re gonna look like China !!!
A pox on those here that believe Fauci and Birx are the smartest people after Trump in the room.
We’re gonna look like China !!!
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Let’s say Taiwan instead of China.
Thanks!
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