As I write this, President Donald Trump is at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after testing positive for COVID-19 and, we are told, experiencing “very concerning” symptoms.  I wish the president a full and speedy recovery, but like many Americans I’m also interested in how this development affects the upcoming presidential election.

The consensus seems to be that it’s bad for Trump — he’s off the campaign trail for at least two weeks, his medical condition is the center of attention, and any kind of illness tends to make a president look “weak” (not good less than a month ahead of an election).

But Trump could use his unfortunate affliction to his own political advantage, by invoking the 25th Amendment.

Yes, I’m talking about the same 25th Amendment which some figures in the “Russiagate” investigation had apparently hoped to use to remove him from office early on. That amendment has two sides.

One side of the 25th involves the vice president and a majority of the cabinet deciding (and informing the Senate and the House) that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. The other side involves the president himself notifying the Senate and the House of the same conclusion. In either case, the vice president becomes acting president until and unless the president recovers.

Two significant issues in this election involve the transfer of presidential power.

One concerns the ages and apparent infirmities of the two “major party” candidates. Donald Trump and Joe Biden are both in their 70s. Both seemingly suffer from health problems including but not limited to incipient or actual dementia. Whether either of them, if elected, would survive the next four years in a physically vigorous and mentally competent state is a reasonable concern.

The other involves a seeming unwillingness on Donald Trump’s part to voluntarily relinquish personal power under any circumstances — maybe not even after losing the election next month.

Trump could reassure the public on both of those matters by invoking the 25th Amendment himself. That would communicate to the electorate that he cares more about continuity of government than about personal power. It would also would give Vice President Mike Pence a chance to prove himself ready to serve as president when and as needed. Both would likely play well with any remaining undecided voters.

On the practical side, COVID-19 can move very quickly. In August, my mother went from an apparent turn for the better, sitting up in bed, talking and eating, to dead in about two hours. A president hospitalized with that kind of condition is inherently incapacitated. President Trump should focus on his own recovery, not on appearing strong ahead of an election.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “How the 25th Amendment Could Help Trump Win Re-Election,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 10/04/20

If Daddy hadn’t made and left him a fortune on sweetheart government housing contracts,  Donald Trump would probably be bragging about  how cold the AC runs on the old Ford Escort he’s trying to get off his lot (“BUY HERE! PAY HERE! BAD CREDIT? NO PROBLEM!”) and hoping you don’t notice the transmission slipping when you take it out for a test drive.

If Joe Biden had stuck with law, he’d probably be chasing ambulances to emergency rooms, loud plaid sport coat and chartreuse tie thrown across the passenger seat, visions of easy whiplash settlements dancing in his head.

Instead, they both became “reality TV” stars — Trump across franchises ranging from professional wrestling to his trademark “you’re fired,” Biden in Washington’s long-running mashup of Meet The Press with MTV’s The Real World (Trump’s a late addition to that show’s cast).

On September 29, in their first supposed “debate,” America saw the two of them Naked and Afraid, hurling insults and shouting over each other instead of engaging in the usual “cordial but with tense moments” beauty contest/joint campaign ad. Their corporate sponsors were probably disappointed with the comparative absence of promotion and product placement, even if the entertainment value rose above the usual slapstick.

A real debate — between, say, the Green Party’s Howie Hawkins and Libertarian presidential nominee Jo Jorgensen — would have likely featured genuine policy proposals and real arguments over the merits of those proposals. Hawkins would have offered programs to hopefully benefit, and Jorgensen would have offered policies to hopefully free, the American people. I have strong personal preferences between the two candidates, but at least both of them could be expected to offer thoughtful answers to real questions.

Alas, that’s not how politics is done in the age of Real Purse Snatchers of Washington, DC. The “debates” aren’t about pitching what’s best for America. They’re about keeping the attention and adoration of the actors’ existing fans, energizing those fans to get out and vote, and ultimately delivering the goods to “defense” contractors (Trump), Big Pharma (Biden), and the candidates’ other special interest sponsors.

Unfortunately, among those who bother to watch the show and mash those voting buttons, more than 90% reliably line up to pay through the nose for the shoddy Trump and Biden “AS SEEN ON REALITY (sic) TV!” offerings.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We can, and should, vote both of these clowns off the island.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Trump v. Biden: Keeping up with Toddlers and Tiaras,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Richmond, North Carolina Observer, 10/01/20
• “Trump vs. Biden: Keeping Up With Toddlers and Tiaras,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 10/02/20

The TL;DR on COVID-19: Panic, not science, continues to drive the public policy discussion.

Here, such as it is, is the current science:

If 100,000 Americans  age 19 or younger contract COVID-19, three of them will die.

If 10,000 Americans between 20 and 49 years old contract COVID-19, two of them will die.

If a thousand Americans between 50 and 69 years old contract COVID-19, five of them will die.

But if you’re 70 years or older and contract COVID-19, your chances of dying skyrocket to about 1 in 20.

Those are the “best estimates” of COVID-19 Infection Fatality Ratios published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

If the CDC’s estimates are correct — and if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard “listen to the experts!” I’d need a bigger house to store my nickels in — a COVID-19 infection is less likely than a seasonal flu infection to kill anyone under 70.

There’s a caveat, of course: CDC estimates COVID-19’s “R0” (the average number of people an infected person infects in turn) at 2.5, while seasonal flu’s R0 runs about half that. COVID-19 spreads more quickly and easily than flu. More cases equals more deaths.

And there’s an excuse: These are the numbers we have NOW, not the numbers we had when the pandemic hit. What we had THEN was uncertainty.

But uncertainty isn’t a very good excuse for shutting down significant portions of the US economy, driving unemployment up from one in 25 American workers to one in seven (it’s still nearly one in ten), and placing much of the population under house arrest.

When we didn’t know what was going on, panic wasn’t the correct answer.

Now that we have a better idea of what’s happening, holding onto the visible vestiges of panic isn’t the correct answer either. It’s just a new, state-imposed religion.

As late as a few months ago, the US regime condemned governments which require women to cover their faces in public.

Now, American politicians command men and women alike to do so, and most Americans meekly submit — not because masks prevent the spread of COVID-19 (evidence for that claim is sketchy at best), but because politicians and the “scientific” bureaucratic priesthood live to issue orders and obeying those orders lets us feel like we’re “doing something” about COVID-19.

Thus the masks, and the special magic “social distancing” formulae, and the ubiquitous “Stay Home, Stay Safe” signage. The Cult of the Omnipotent State is enjoying a periodic revival unlike any since 9/11.

If the CDC’s numbers are correct, they offer two lessons:

First, protecting the elderly from COVID-19 as best we can makes sense.

Second, the rest of us need to abandon the state-imposed superstitions and get back to living in the real world.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY