With the country still mostly closed due to Coronavirus. In a move that may have severe repercussions one way or another for the upcoming US Presidential Election. How so? Well, President Trump has made two bold statements today. Beginning by calling on states to re-open Churches, mosques, synagogues and houses from other religious communities.
As the US continues to stutter through re-opening and passes 100,000 corona virus deaths, the President is urging governors to allow places of worship to open. He stated in a brief press conference the following:
1. These are ”essential” community services
2. “These are places that hold our society together and keep our people united”
3. “In America we need more prayer, not less,”
Can the President actually do anything about the individual states plans?
The practical impact of calling for this to happen is not clear. For instance, it comes a day after the President verbally slammed governors (who are mostly Democrats) for moving too slowly to bring worshipers back to their congregations.
As it is decided at the local and state level who decides which businesses are essential nothing may happen at all in states with serious resistance to the idea at a local government level. How the President thinks he’s going to change this is anyone’s guess.
If people are sensible then this shouldn’t mean hot spots of further outbreaks if it goes ahead. And it is great news for some people. Those suffering from the lack of contact and emotional and mental support with their community for instance.
Sadly, we preppers know that common sense isn’t exactly common and, their is a very real risk of causing clusters if this is badly handled. Which would cause extra problems for Trump going into Novembers election. This also put’s the elderly most at risk of infection. When they are also the most at risk of fatality.
How does this pan out in the long term?
If this works well, it may cause resentment against the Democratic governors and local officials. Who are, predominantly, the faction blocking or stalling re-opening across the nation. This is a gamble of the highest stakes on President Trumps part. This is further to the day before when he made another statement that, may be even harder to follow through on.
“People say that’s a very distinct possibility. It’s standard. And we’re going to put out the fires. We’re not going to close the country. We’re going to put out the fires,”
The President made his feelings very clear during his recent Ford factory visit that he fully accepts an autumn outbreak to be likely (Which would follow historical patterns from the Spanish flu). And that he intends to ‘fire fight’ his way through it. How he can do this without democratic support of course, remains to be seen.
With the economy approaching worse performance than the slide into the great depression, Trump is making the decision everyone else wants to avoid because it’s potentially political suicide. Keep the country open no matter what and try to stop a complete social and economic meltdown which may last a generation.
The price may be hundreds of thousands of more deaths.
However this plays out is more than likely to decide the outcome of the election in November. Some polls believe no matter what the existing economic performance will lead the incumbent President to lose by a landslide. This crisis has left governments with triage decisions to make that are almost impossible to comprehend.
No matter what, there will be critique, America has never been more divided and everything is political. Forget any idea that a public health crisis would bring the country together, if anything it’s deepened the divide as each side virtue signals and attempts to point score.
A loss in the November election will hurt Trumps ego. Thousands of deaths will hurt the nations soul. A generation of lives ruined through economic fallout may cause irreparable damage to the very fabric of America.
I can’t believe how overly dramatic this ends up sounding. But, it’s hard to ignore what’s going on right now and the average person is relatively powerless against the tides.
Stay Safe, Stay Resilient, Be Prepared.
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