If anyone in America is aware of the bump in voter approval that an American President can get from being President during a war, and how it can help that American President win an election, it is Donald Trump:
So, because Donald Trump is obviously aware of the advantages of being seen as a wartime President, this is probably one of the reasons why on March 18, 2020, he stated that he saw himself as a wartime president:
Q Do you consider America to be on a wartime footing, in terms of fighting this virus?
THE PRESIDENT: I do. I actually do. I’m looking at it that way because, you know, if — if it got out of control — the big thing we did was a very early stoppage of people coming in who could be very, very heavily infected. And that was a –that was a very good move.
And it was very early — very, very early — when most people, including a lot of professionals, they didn’t want us to do it. That really saved a lot of lives.
And, yeah, I look at it — I view it as a, in a sense, a wartime president. I mean, that’s what we’re fighting. I mean, it’s — it’s a very tough situation. You’re — you have to do things. You have to — you have to close parts of an economy that six weeks ago were the best they’ve ever been. We had the best economy we’ve ever had. And then, one day, you have to close it down in order to defeat this enemy. And — but we’re doing it, and we’re doing it well.
After Trump stated that he was a wartime President, CNN.com’s Chris Cillizza’s posted an article entitled, “Why Trump wants to be seen as a 'wartime' President”:
Donald Trump is trying to redefine coronavirus as a foreign threat ("the Chinese virus") and himself as a wartime president defending the nation against what amounts to an invasion.
As the crisis has deepened, Trump's language likening the outbreak to a war has grown more explicit. "We're at war, in a true sense we're at war, and we are fighting an invisible enemy," he declared in his opening statement at his press briefing Sunday. Trump's remarks even distantly echoed Abraham Lincoln's description of the Civil War as a "great fiery trial" when he declared: "We're enduring a great national trial and we will prove that we can meet the moment."
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It is pretty obvious to everyone that Donald Trump would like to be seen as a wartime President. The only thing is, to actually be seen as a wartime President, and get a nice and lasting approval bump, your Presidential administration has to act like a wartime Administration. That means that this wartime Administration needs to direct the Federal Government, including the U.S. military as needed, to both order and ship lots of the items necessary to fight this war, just like the U.S. Government, did for WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and the Iraq War. This is what American wartime governments do. It is their job, and it is the job of no one else. <p>Yet, what did this supposed wartime President say, the day after he referred to himself as a wartime President, in response to state governors begging for the Trump Administration and the Federal Government to make sure that the supplies that the states need to fight this war are manufactured and then shipped to these states? Here’s an excerpt from Politico:
President Donald Trump on Thursday put the onus on governors to obtain the critical equipment their states need to fight the coronavirus pandemic, telling reporters that the federal government is “not a shipping clerk” for the potentially life-saving supplies.
Appearing at the daily press briefing of the White House coronavirus task force, the president defended his decision to invoke the Defense Production Act — which would allow the administration to direct U.S. industry to ramp up production of emergency medical provisions — without actually triggering the statute.
“Governors are supposed to be doing a lot of this work, and they are doing a lot of this work,” Trump said. “The Federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. You know, we’re not a shipping clerk.”
The president’s remarks amounted to a rebuke of governors’ recent pleas for more robust federal intervention amid the rapidly spreading outbreak, which they warn will soon overwhelm local health care systems if hospital beds, face masks and other necessities are not soon furnished in significantly greater numbers.
So, Donald Trump, who obviously knows the importance of the wartime President voter approval bump seems to think that he can get the usual wartime President’s increase in voter approval without the Federal Government actually doing what it has done in every previous war—having manufacturers make a whole lot of things and then shipping them where they need to go. He also seems to think that somehow this war can actually be won, without a massive unnecessary loss of human life, without the Federal government making sure that the millions of items needed to win this war properly are both manufactured and shipped to the right places. Seemingly, he thinks that in order to actually be a real wartime President, he just has to call himself that—but not actually have the usual wartime things actually get done.
Trump’s calling himself a wartime President on March 18, and then telling the U.S. Governors that they were on their own on March 19, did not go unnoticed. Here’s an excerpt from Senator Tammy Duckworth’s USAToday.com April 6, 2020 article entitled, “If Trump wants to be seen as a 'wartime president,' he should start acting like one”:
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Recently, Donald Trump crowned himself a “wartime president.” If that’s the metaphor he wants to use, then his actions have been tantamount to sending his own troops into battle without body armor or a single weapon.
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So I was pleasantly surprised when it finally seemed as if he was taking the situation seriously in mid-March when he announced he was invoking the Defense Production Act (DPA), giving him the authority to better organize the supply chain and use American manufacturing capacity to speed up production of the lifesaving, coronavirus-fighting medical equipment our hospitals desperately need.
But since then, he’s pivoted so many times, it’s a wonder the whole country doesn’t have whiplash. Not even a day later he reversed course, saying that states were on their own to figure out how to get the resources necessary to slow the outbreak. Then, in a 24-hour span at the end of March, he went from (inaccurately, dangerously) telling Sean Hannity that governors were exaggerating the need for more ventilators to bickering with General Motors (GM) on Twitter to declaring that he was finally authorizing the use of the DPA to require GM to produce ventilators — something the company had already committed to doing hours prior.
But late last week, USA TODAY reported that the administration has still refused to actually order a single machine to be manufactured under the DPA. Instead of placing the order, Trump has chosen to spend the past week bragging about his TV ratings and the number of people who follow him on Facebook, while Trump aide Peter Navarro says they’re still banking on voluntary updates from GM.
Enough. Lives are on the line. The number of Americans — the number of parents, the number of children — falling gravely ill is only growing while hospital capacity to treat them is diminishing, as there just aren’t enough hospital beds or respirators to care for those in need. Last Friday, there were more than 30,000 new cases on American soil alone, while that same day nurses were forced to use plastic bags as protective gowns and doctors nationwide were preparing to have to make one of the most horrible decisions imaginable: who to treat and who to turn away, with simply too few resources to go around.
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I encourage everyone to read Senator Duckworth’s article. Senator Duckworth understands war, and she understands both what a wartime President and what an American wartime Government are supposed to do. It is not about calling yourself a wartime President, Donald Trump. It is about doing what wartime Presidents and wartime governments are supposed to do. During a time of war, saying the following…
“The Federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. You know, we’re not a shipping clerk.”
...is completely and totally wrong. The Federal government buying vast amounts of items and then shipping them is *exactly* what is supposed to happen during a wartime Administration. Here’s an April 6 article by David Gergen and James Piltch on CNN.com:
(CNN) — Since declaring war against the coronavirus, President Donald Trump and his team have struggled to exercise effective, consistent leadership against an invisible enemy. On some days, Trump seems to listen to his health experts and understand the gravity of the situation. On other days, he reverts to narcissism, erratic decisions and petty fights.
To steady the ship, the President should look to his predecessors and apply the lessons of leadership from American history. Surely, there is no better source of wisdom than former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who oversaw the US's mobilization during World War II.
Roosevelt turned to the American private sector and found others to lead the charge with him. William Knudsen, the president of General Motors at the time, was well versed in mass production and turned his expertise toward manufacturing armaments. Soon, with FDR's blessing, Knudsen went to other companies and began to pull in those that wanted to work with the government. It didn't take long before more than 900 companies came on board in the war effort.
USAToday posted an article today entitled, “10 times presidents led on national crises instead of blaming the states as Trump is doing” which goes over just some of the times that America’s past Presidents took action instead of just blaming the states and telling them at they are on their own.
A whole lot of Americans realize that for Trump to declare himself a “wartime President” and then tell the states that they are mostly on their own and that the federal government is just a “backup” is beyond absurd. It completely defies American history, and it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Donald Trump’s assertions that he is a wartime President, but that it is not the job of the Federal government to both order and ship the supplies that our nation needs to fight this war are in complete conflict with one another. The fact that Donald Trump has operated for weeks as if he believes both of these things makes him, so far, America's worst wartime President ever.