It’s November 2020. Here’s dreaming about what COVID-19 might have done to U.S. politics | Opinion
NOVEMBER 4, 2020 – It was their own fault, most Americans agreed. If only they’d worn a mask.
But Donald Trump and Mike Pence consistently refused to don the protective face coverings that most Americans took for granted in mid-May and that even White House staff had donned when the virus began infecting those serving the president and vice president.
Health officials never determined for certain how President Trump got the COVID-19 virus. It could have been from the valet who had tested positive in early May. Or he could have picked it up on May 14, when he visited a medical equipment manufacturer in Allentown, Pa., again unmasked.
In any event, Mr. Trump had come down with the virus not long after that goodwill/campaign rally trip and soon had to be placed on a ventilator. At that point Vice President Pence assumed the duties of acting president, and the nation held its breath. Mr. Trump held on for three days but, considering his age (73) and less-than-perfect physical condition, he succumbed to the virus which by that point had already claimed in excess of 90,000 American lives.
As the nation mourned, President Pence tried to reassure worried Americans that he would redirect the White House Coronavirus Task Force and put major resources behind the testing and tracing effort. But even before he could be officially inaugurated in a respectfully subdued ceremony, Mr. Pence too became ill. Reporters recalled that his communications director had tested positive about the same time as Mr. Trump’s valet, so that was a possible source. But since he was regularly in close contact with President Trump, both unmasked, there was also the distinct possibility that Mr. Trump himself could have transmitted the virus to his successor.
Like President Trump just days earlier, President Pence was rushed to Walter Reed Medical Center where doctors did everything they could to stabilize his condition and bring down his spiking fevers. By day four of his crisis, he, too, had to be intubated and placed on a ventilator. That again triggered the presidential succession process. To Republicans’ horror, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi assumed the role of acting president while the nation again held its collective breath and prayed for Mr. Pence’s recovery.
Alas, Mr. Pence could not be saved. Doctors turned off his ventilator after four days of intubation, saying the virus had done so much damage to his lungs that his internal organs has simply shut down, one by one, the typical progression of the disease in its worst-case scenario. Though in otherwise good physical health, at age 60 Mr. Pence fell into the demographic that health officials had been warning for months was most vulnerable to the virus.
President Pelosi?
President Pelosi declared June as a month of mourning, with flags lowered to half-staff throughout the country. Near the end of the month, a joint memorial service for both deceased presidents was held in the rotunda of the Capitol. President Pelosi, the first woman to hold that title, spoke respectfully of her two predecessors, making no references to the bitter political battles they had waged against her party’s policies or to the disastrous response to the virus.
But she did make a promise to the millions of Americans listening to the live-streamed ceremony. “We will make America healthy again, in both body and soul,” she vowed, adapting Mr. Trump’s signature slogan from the 2016 campaign in a double-entendre form that Republicans hated. It would become the Democrats’ 2020 campaign slogan.
Now, on the day after election, as President Pelosi prepared for the transition period, she took a moment to reflect on the events of the pasts six months that had brought her to this historic milestone. One of her first acts as president had been to appoint Andrew Cuomo, former governor of New York, to head the White House Corona Virus Task Force. As the nation’s “Pandemic Czar,” Cuomo had lost no time in recruiting the best minds in the scientific community to draft a comprehensive plan for testing, tracing and quarantining positive cases. He had also organized the numerous researchers seeking an effective vaccine into symptom-specific teams, each focusing on just one possible antidote to the virus, thereby cutting down wasteful duplication of efforts.
The infection rate had steadily declined, and with 75 percent of the population testing as negative by Aug. 1, President Pelosi, in consultation with the Task Force, had decided that schools and colleges could open for the fall semester. Movie and stage theaters had been cleared to operate at 50 percent capacity, which gave hope to Broadway and community theaters across the country for at least a partial fall-winter season. Most stores and restaurants also had been able to reopen at 75 percent capacity. College football hoped for a near-normal season, as did the National Football League.
A ‘dream’ ticket
Mrs. Pelosi’s decisive actions and early successes as president was reflected in a surging stock market, which in three months had regained most of the ground lost in the pandemic-generated bear market. And it had thrown the Democratic nomination for president into an unprecedented crisis. Although Joe Biden, the former vice president, had been the presumptive nominee when the pandemic hit, many party leaders as well as rank-and-file members felt Mrs. Pelosi absolutely should replace him as the Democratic nominee. In a tumultuous convention in mid-August, the Democrats had made her the nominee and, in a gesture that allowed Biden to save face, picked him as her running mate. Most agreed that it was a great ticket.
Given the deaths of its two most prominent figures, the GOP scrambled to come up with a ticket that might have a chance against the surging Democrats. Lacking leaders with sufficient name recognition and charisma, they had settled on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, who chose as his running mate Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa, who had achieved some fame among the GOP base for her reluctance to close down her state at the height of the pandemic.
The election produced a Democratic landslide, the biggest in history. Democrats carried every state, regaining the Senate with a 60 percent majority and increasing their majority in the House by 15 percent. Down to defeat went some of the most ardent Trump backers, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
In the months since being thrust into the presidency Mrs. Pelosi had focused almost entirely on combating the virus and helping jobless Americans regain some financial stability. The Workers Produce Administration (WPA, a deliberate link to FDR’s New Deal) had put many of them to work helping farmers harvest crops in year-round growing-season states of Florida, California and Texas and transporting them to the food banks and soup kitchens of the urban-core cities. She had tripled the number of employees handling payouts for the Paycheck Protection Program, swiftly clearing up the backlog that had prevented unemployed workers from accessing their benefits.
She had, of course, immediately replaced Attorney General William Barr, tapping California Sen. Kamala Harris for that job but admonishing her not to pursue any corruption investigations related to Trump or his minions until after the election. She had also restored James Comey to head the FBI, and he had been working to rebuild morale among the politicized bureau staff while preparing to reopen the long-stalled investigations into Russian interference into U.S. elections.
Now, as she prepared for her second inauguration, President Pelosi put her mind to building a solid Cabinet and team of advisers who would help her achieve the ambitious agenda she had laid out for the first 100 days. One of the first calls she made was to Condoleeza Rice, asking her to consider stepping in as secretary of State. Mrs. Pelosi admired Rice’s calm and confident demeanor under fire, plus adding an African American female to her Cabinet would boost her credibility among black women.
Since her elevation in May Democrats had elected Congressman Adam Schiff as Acting Speaker of the House. Now President Pelosi called on party leaders to do away with the Acting title and make him Speaker for the coming term. To lead the Senate she pushed for Sen. Cory Booker, the African American senator from New Jersey who had made such a favorable impression in the early days of the campaign.
Building her team of economic advisers, she placed a call to Andrew Yang, the brilliant entrepreneur who had also made a bid for the 2020 nomination, to become chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. To lead the Treasury Department she called on Tom Stier, the billionaire former hedge fund manager and philanthropist who had a brief, unsuccessful bid for the nomination in early 2020.
President Pelosi was not sure about Education Secretary. She might go with Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who had done well in the debates leading up to the first primaries, or maybe dip into the millennial pool to choose Rep. Alexandria Octavio Cortez, the fiery Hispanic-American congresswoman from the Bronx who had created ripples in her first term. Or maybe Klobuchar for Commerce Secretary and . . .
Bzzzt-Bzzzt. The alarm clock persisted until a hand reached from beneath the covers and hit the stop button. The sleeper opened his eyes, yawned widely as he swung his legs out of bed, and stepped into his slippers. Just another day in lockdown, Joe Sixpack thought glumly. But oh, what a dream!
David E. Klement is for former editorial page editor of the Bradenton Herald who lives in East Manatee. He does not wish the COVID-19 disease on anyone; only imagines what impact it could have if not contained.