One of the Republicans' astonishing political achievements this election cycle has been their ability, at least so far, to consign Donald Trump's final year in office to the memory hole.
Voters are supposed to remember the good economy of January 2020, with its combination of low unemployment and low inflation, and forget the plague year that followed.
However, since Trump's victory in the Super Tuesday primaries, the former president and his vicars have attempted to carry out an even more incredible exercise in revisionism: presenting his entire presidency—even 2020, that horrible first year of the pandemic—as pure splendor.
Last Wednesday, Rep. Elise Stefanik, president of the House Republican Conference, tried to emulate Ronald Reagan: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”
And Trump himself, in his victory speech Tuesday night, reflected wistfully on his time in office as a time when “our country was beginning to converge.”
So let's set the record straight: 2020—the fourth quarter, if you will, of the Trump presidency—was a nightmare.
And part of what made it a nightmare was the fact that America was led by a man who responded to a deadly crisis with denialism, magical thinking, and, above all, complete selfishness, focused at all times not on the needs of others. the nation, but in what he believed would give a good image of him.
Before we get there, a quick note for Stefanik: When Reagan uttered his famous line, the United States was suffering from an annoying mix of high unemployment and high inflation.
March 2024 looks very different.
Although the United States, like other large economies, experienced a bout of inflation during the post-pandemic recovery, most workers have received wage increases considerably higher than the price increases.
And President Joe Biden is currently leading an extraordinary period of “immaculate disinflation”: rapidly falling inflation with unemployment near its lowest level in 50 years.
And while focusing on the first few months of 2020 doesn't tell the story Republicans think it does, what we should really be debating is what happened to America when the coronavirus hit.
Once we knew that a deadly virus was on the loose—we now know that several officials warned Trump of the threat in January 2020—the appropriate policy response was clear: do everything possible to slow the pace of the virus's spread.
Even though large numbers of Americans would inevitably catch Covid at some point, “flattening the curve” had two enormous advantages.
First, it would help avoid the very real possibility of a tsunami of infections overwhelming our healthcare system.
Secondly, time was gained for the development of effective vaccines: since vaccines could greatly reduce mortality from Covid-19, deaths delayed thanks to public health measures would, in many cases, be deaths avoided.
What kind of public measures were necessary?
In the early stages of the pandemic, when scientists were scrambling to figure out exactly how the virus was spreading, strong measures needed to be taken: social distancing to be enforced, to avoid high-risk interactions as much as possible.
These measures were expensive: in April 2020, unemployment soared to 14.8%.
But the United States is a rich country that could mitigate economic suffering with financial aid to the hardest-hit workers and businesses, and for the most part it did.
And once researchers and medical officials realized that the virus was transmitted through the air, it was possible to limit infections by forcing people to wear masks, which was annoying, but in no case caused enormous suffering. .
And the logic of flattening the curve said that speed was essential.
Every day we spent wondering whether strong action should be taken to protect public health meant more Americans died needlessly.
Unfortunately, at the time, the man in charge engaged in denial, hesitating, and postponing virtually every step of the way.
It is worth reading a chronology of Trump's statements at the height of the pandemic, which by some estimates had already caused around half a million extra deaths by the time he left office. On January 22, Trump stated: “We totally have it under control.
He is a person who comes from China.”
On February 27, he assured: “he is going to disappear.
One day—it's like a miracle—it will disappear.”
On April 3, he noted: “The masks thing is going to be something completely voluntary.
Can be done.
It's not mandatory.
I have decided not to do it.”
At that time, the main purpose of masks was not to protect the wearer, but to protect those around them;
Why would exposing others to the risk of contracting a deadly disease be a voluntary choice?
And why wouldn't the president lead by example by putting on a mask?
On May 21, he responded to that question, admitting that he had put on a mask while visiting a Ford plant, but that he took it off when leaving because he “didn't want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it.”
And there is much, much more.
There is no doubt that thousands of Americans died unnecessarily due to Trump's resignation from COVID-19.
He responded to the only major crisis of his presidency with self-serving rantings that denoted a total indifference to the lives of other Americans in an attempt to improve his image.
Are we really supposed to be nostalgic for 2020?
Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize winner in Economics
© The New York Times, 2024
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