The coronavirus is not just an existential threat to the global economy, if not humanity, it has potentially put President Donald Trump's re-election in peril, according to GOP strategists.
"He's not running against Joe Biden, he's running against a virus and the collateral damage from that," former White House strategist Steve Bannon told the Post.
"You could have a financial crash, economic great depression, and a war against a bug all simultaneously," Bannon projected as if "today is November," adding Trump "is going to be weighed and measured by the American people by how [he handles] the crisis."
Trump response to the global pandemic has been derided by the anti-Trump media, but it will be the American voters who decide his fate in November, and the economic stimulus packages might dictate the latter, according to another strategist to the Post.
"If he f**ks up the economic stimulus around the coronavirus, he loses," the source told the paper.
"Donald Trump's biggest hurdle to winning re-election has always been the economy. If the economy is going well and cruising along, he could have sailed to a re-election. If we hit that 20% unemployment mark as the Treasury is projecting, it's going to be hard to say that the economy is doing well."
Polling is mixed on the administration's response, much like Trump's presidential approval rating, but everything will come down to how the U.S. comes out of the woods with respect to the coronavirus.
What is not ambiguous are the stock market declines, as businesses shutter, people self-quarantine to avoid infection, and voters get the perception from the media the president is more of the problem than the solution.
"Everyone takes this extremely seriously," a Trump campaign adviser told the Post. "This is a one-off act of God event. The question is what sort of long-term damage that it does. There are so many unknowns, we’ve never been here before. We haven't had a total shutdown of the U.S. economy before."
For his part, Trump has been trying to fight the media coverage of the coronavirus as much as the pandemic itself.
"This will undeniably be the biggest issue in the election," GOP strategist Luke Thompson told the Post. "His presidency sinks or sails now on his handling of this."
But, if good does result by the time the campaign of Joe Biden versus Trump resumes in the summer – if it does – Trump might have a case to restate for his re-election.
"FDR won re-election in 1936 when unemployment was 17% because people thought he was fighting for them," GOP political consultant Ryan Girdusky told the Post.
Former aide Sam Nunberg says the race, and pandemic response, are still too early to call.
"His argument will be is it's me vs. the fake news, obstructionists Democrats and the China virus," Nunberg told the Post. "Eventually people around him will start saying the Chinese did this to try and sink him. He's got a great boogeyman out of this. Trump loves foils.
"Just in general, never count out Donald Trump."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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