Trump finally has an effective coronavirus campaign message

“This is America,” he said. “This is the United States. This is the greatest country in the world. This is the most powerful country in the world. I can’t be locked up in a room upstairs and totally safe and just say hey, whatever happens, happens. I can’t do that. We have to confront problems. As a leader, you have to confront problems.”

That, really, has always been the point behind his insistence that states reopen their economies and that people safely return to routine activity. The only way to work through the pandemic is to literally work through it. We had no choice but to accept that there would be infections (the vast, overwhelming majority of which would resolve themselves without incident) and, sadly, deaths. But the country could not freeze in time with everyone cloistered in their homes waiting for a cure that will never come, nor a vaccine that won’t eliminate the problem.

The idea that Democrats have an answer or a realistic plan for us to eradicate the virus is a lie. They know it. What they have put forward might have worked to further slow down the spread, but it would have irreparably shattered the economy. Joe Biden has said he’s still willing to do it.

True, Trump getting sick works against him for a number of reasons, including that it enforces the media narrative that he was irresponsible about the virus. But, if he’s smart, he can turn it around by repeating over and over that even if he got infected, as president, he took the risks he had to take. He said it in his video.

“I had no choice because I just didn’t want to stay in the White House,” he said. “I was given that alternative. ‘Stay in the White House, lock yourself in, don’t ever leave.’ … I can’t do that. I had to be out front. … I can’t be locked up in a room upstairs and totally safe and just say, ‘Hey, whatever happens, happens.’ I can’t do that.”

He’s right.