The COVID pandemic has boosted Joe Biden’s chances of beating President Trump this November in almost every way. Despite always being a hapless campaigner, and despite now clearly having lost the plot, Biden has widened his poll lead steadily since April.
Why? There are several related answers.
Infections and deaths are surging, so the public hunkering at home for months, and the massive sacrifice of a severe recession, seem to have been for naught. Despite recent gains, unemployment is 4 times what it was in February. Optimism stoked by prosperity due to Trump’s tax cuts and deregulation melted like an ice cube on July blacktop. Unwanted idleness is debilitating, and I suspect its malign effects will ripple outward for months and years, splashing up in places we haven’t yet considered.
Six weeks of street mayhem, unchecked crime, and massive vandalism make it harder for people to think the country is headed in the right direction — that’s a key belief in reelecting presidents — so they consider change over continuity. The intensity and geographic range of violence were, it seems to me, exacerbated by boiling frustration over being cooped up during the shutdown. Summer’s riot weather arrived amid tighter social restrictions than anyone can remember. It blew the lid off. Then, sweaty public gatherings reignited infection and cranked the handle on another revolution.
The presidential campaign was a side-by-side comparison of Trump and Biden back in February when wages were rising, employment growing, and the election year looked fairly normal. Trump liked his odds in a race against “Sleepy Joe.” But disease, recession, and riots turned this November into a referendum on the incumbent. Biden tottered down into his basement and stayed out of sight, evading public appearances in which he inspires voter confidence about as much as a chimpanzee juggling fragile china.
Speaking of China, our cover story this week is a profile of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as “The Interpreter” of Trump for the rest of the world, especially in shifting allies to a more confrontational posture toward Beijing. Pompeo has cracked the Trump code that other heavyweight members of the president’s foreign policy circle could not break. First as CIA director, then at State, Pompeo managed to stay close to his boss but at the same time reassure allies that Trumpian doctrine doesn’t mean wholesale abandonment of previous policies.
Jim Antle makes plain that Democrats sowed the wind with ceaseless accusations of “racism” against Republicans, and now, the nation is reaping the whirlwind. Profs. Clay Routledge and John Bitzan catch the temper of the times, arguing that a belief in meaningful life and work helps America thrive, and enforced listlessness doesn’t. We write about the death of cities in our editorial, of malls in Business, and of Ennio Morricone in our obituary. But it’s not all gloom. Among several uplifting offerings in Life & Arts, Washington Examiner editors make their picks for summer reading.
