Thursday evening, President Trump announced his administration’s guidelines for reopening the economy. Flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and other members of the coronavirus task force, Trump explained his administration’s three-phased plan for the country to return to work. The plan is comprehensive, science-based, and reasonable. It demonstrates the president’s focus on protecting the health and safety of our citizens and ensuring that the coronavirus doesn’t rebound when the economy reopens. The plan, and the country, will succeed unless we let politicians and the press pit us against each other.

The politicization of the crisis, coupled with the liberal media’s unwavering desire to pin any deaths from the coronavirus on Trump, provides the blueprint for failure. Over the last several weeks, two vocal camps have staked out incompatible views on the government’s response. The one extreme declares the government did too little, too late, causing countless deaths. This view maintains that the economy must remain closed for the foreseeable future — economic harm be damned. The contrary position holds that the pandemic models were wrong, the government overreacted in shutting down the country, and the economy cannot be held hostage for a small at-risk population threatened by the coronavirus.