A disheartening report about how Trump was convinced to go along with lockdowns
For President Trump, the COVID lockdowns of 2020 have always been a touchy subject.
Like so many in America, Trump went along with what his advisors told him, and they told him "lockdowns"! That's how "fifteen days to slow the spread" became years to slow the spread, a blight lasting beyond Trump's presidency. This political plague wrecked all the good that he did earlier on the economy. Assuming no effective election fraud (a big 'if'), it probably cost him his re-election.
Jeffrey A. Tucker, founder and president of the Brownstone Institute, dug deeper into how such an impressive president like that could get so involved in that destructive idea, for which he has unfortunately has not apologized, nor confronted, but only tried to avoid as a subject in public. Trump's been lucky in one sense, because his leftist opponents have embraced lockdowns even more enthusiastically. But how could Trump get involved with that garbage?
Tucker did some digging, followed the timelines, and now lays out all the claims and scenarios from various memoirs of the players -- from the death of one of Trump's friends, to claims from a flattering advisor that lockdowns would enhance his respect among his staff.
But he went further.
Actually, to cut to the chase, he found that it was probably the doing of the National Security Council, which took control of the matter based on the belief that it was dealing with a Chicom-produced bioweapon, and then an even more hostile Homeland Security Department, which hated Trump with a passion and pushed for its perma-lockdowns to crush the economy. Remember the 'anonymous' book about hating Trump? It was written by one of its disloyal denizens.
They persuaded Trump that the bioweapon scenario was true, necessitating all-encompassing and extended lockdowns -- schools, churches, small shops, little businesses, the works -- trashing the economy and lighting the fire for the inflation that would follow as government checks went out, and industrial scale fraud followed.
Subsequent studies, put together as a meta-analysis or study of studies, by Johns Hopkins University economist Steve Hanke and two European colleagues, found that lockdowns worked only to a negligible extent, but did untold damage.
Tucker points out that Trump caught on fairly quickly to the bee ess and his medical advisor, Dr. Scott Atlas, explained it all out for him. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the report asserts, was playing a double game in the midst of this as sort of a sideline.
But by then, Trump had lost control of the government, and his calls to end lockdowns went ignored.
What a sad story, given all the damage that was done, including the beginnings of inflation.
Tucker argues that Trump doesn't want to talk about it, not wanting to admit that he was fooled perhaps, but he needs to ensure this crap doesn't happen again.
The saddest thing is that the public, which understood that he was acting on the best information out there that he had, would probably forgive him for the error. If he did, it would assure the public as election time gets going that it wouldn't happen a second time. Better still, his Democrat opponent would have to do the same even as he would inevitably try to blame Republicans, so it's doubtful this will get sorted out. Trump doesn't want to go there. Some say that amounts to an unfortunate black mark on his otherwise stellar record as president.
Read the whole thing here.
Image: Orator, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED