Recalling A Wartime President and Our Lost War
If found, please return to the American People
We recently observed the 79th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. So the 9/ll attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the aborted strike on an unconfirmed target in Washington D.C. was actually the second time in modern history an enemy has attacked our homeland. Both strikes led to war.
I
But not since the Civil War has the United States been invaded. Until COVID19. We now have a foreign agent in our midst, killing 284-thousand and climbing rapidly. There are 15 million cases spread, and spreading faster, across all 50 states. This war’s destruction isn’t like any other. Unprecedented unemployment numbers, failing businesses, schools from K through colleges closed or disrupted, and our emergency and public health care system at breaking points; most of this is unseen, but none of it can ignored. Except by our commander-in-chief and half of Congress, acting like the Coronavirus disease is in the rear view mirror.
II
Early on, President Donald Trump seemed eager to define the pandemic as a war.
Wednesday, March 18, 2020 During a White House press briefing, Trump responding to a reporter’s question affirming his status as a wartime president.
“I’m looking at it that way… I view it as, in a sense, a wartime president.” Continuing with that imagery, Trump identified the enemy and the challenge. “It’s the invisible enemy. That’s always the toughest enemy, the invisible enemy…Every generation of Americans has been called to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation. And now it’s our time. We must sacrifice together because we are all in this together and we’ll come through together.” (Politico, March 18, 2020)
Trump was spot on. We were, still are, at war and he recognized it, at least briefly. I was comforted. He was taking the virus seriously. Surely the full weight and power of the federal government would follow, I told myself. To track the devolution of this effort, here’s a throughline of White House messaging.
Friday, March 13, 2020: “President Trump declared a National Emergency in response to the Coronavirus … freeing up more than $42 billion in resources for states and localities. The emergency declaration will give healthcare providers on the front lines of this pandemic the flexibility they need to respond. President Trump continues to cut through every piece of unnecessary Washington red tape that may hinder response efforts, and he is continuing to make every Federal resource available to those who need it.” (White House transcript)
Monday, March 16, 2020 “This afternoon, we’re announcing new guidelines for every American to follow over the next 15 days as we combat the virus. Each and every one of us has a critical role to play in stopping the spread and transmission of the virus…If everyone makes this change or these critical changes and sacrifices now, we will rally together as one nation and we will defeat the virus. And we’re going to have a big celebration all together. With several weeks of focused action, we can turn the corner and turn it quickly.” (White House transcript)
Friday, April 10, 2020 Mr. Trump declared that, in his role as something akin to a “wartime president,” it would be his decision about whether to reopen the country. “That’s my metrics,” he told reporters. “I would say without question it’s the biggest decision I’ve ever had to make.” (The New York Times, July 19)
Monday, April 13, 2020 “When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total and that’s the way it’s got to be,” Trump said. (The New York Times, July 19)
The next day, Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci presented Mr. Trump with a plan for issuing guidelines to start reopening the country at the end of the month. Developed largely by Dr. Birx and held closely by her until being presented to the president — most task force members did not see them beforehand — the guidelines laid out broad, voluntary standards for states considering how fast to come out of the lockdown In political terms, the document’s message was that responsibility for dealing with the pandemic was shifting from Mr. Trump to the states. (The New York Times, July 19)
Thursday, April 16, 2020 When President Trump publicly announced the guidelines, he made the message to the governors explicit. “You’re going to call your own shots,” he said. (The New York Times, July 19)
Thursday, April 23, 2020: In perhaps the most consequential task force briefing …Trump suggested — without evidence — treating the body outside or even inside with ultraviolet light or “injection” of disinfectant might kill the coronavirus. “So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just a very powerful light — and I think you said that hasn’t been checked because of the testing,” Trump said. “And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting.”
The president then turned to White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx and asked, “Deborah, have you ever heard of the heat and the light?” Birx responded “Relative to certain viruses, yes. But relative to this virus? Not as a treatment. I mean, certainly fever — is a good thing when you have a fever. It helps your body respond. But not as — I have not seen heat or light,” she said, appearing to squirm in her seat … Less than a week later, the public briefings went on a two-month hiatus. Some have called this interaction between Trump and Dr. Birx “Bleachgate.” Trump later said he was being “sarcastic.” (ABC News, July 21, 2020)
There may be several events marking Trump’s walkaway from his wartime Presidential responsibility. In the July 30 issue of Vanity Fair, Katherine Eban describes one of them, just four days after “Bleachgate.”
Monday, April 27, 2020 Trump stepped to a podium in the Rose Garden, flanked by members of his coronavirus task force and leaders of America’s big commercial testing laboratories, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, and finally announced a testing plan. It bore almost no resemblance to the one that had been forged in late March, and shifted the problem of diagnostic testing almost entirely to individual states.
Under the plan released that day, the federal government would act as a facilitator to help increase needed supplies and rapidly approve new versions of diagnostic-testing kits. But the bulk of the effort to operate testing sites and find available labs fell to the states.“I had this naive optimism: This is too important to be caught in a partisan filter of how we view truth and the world,” said Rick Klausner, a Rockefeller Foundation adviser and former director of the National Cancer Institute. “But the federal government has decided to abrogate responsibility, and basically throw 50 states onto their own.” (Vanity Fair, July 30, 2020)
In case you missed this in 8th grade civics, states cannot wage war.
III
The four planes slamming into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and into farmland in Somerset County, PA on 9/11 were the catalyst for our years-long War on Terror. Anyone remember what happened to that war? Forgotten before it was finished? Lost in the shuffle?
It shouldn’t be a big surprise that we no longer recognize a war, or it’s conclusion, even when the total death toll of the pandemic in the United States is equivalent to one 9/11 (nearly 3,000 deaths) every day for more than three months. Maybe we fail to see “this means war” because there’s no identifiable enemy, like an Osama bin Laden. Or as a strictly defensive war, we can only strike back at cautious Demoratic governors. Or we aggressively refuse to wear masks to just to make an offensive statement.
In only one of those four hijackings did the victims know their fate in time to take action. Four Al Qaeda hijackers took control of Flight 93 (Newark to San Francisco) and announced to the passengers “there was bomb on board.” By that time, two other hijacked planes had struck the World Trade Center. Several Flight 93 passengers made calls informing family members and officials on the ground of their plane’s hijacking and heard about the Trade Center strike. After a brief discussion, a vote was taken and the passengers decided to fight back.
Passenger Thomas Burnett Jr., told his wife over the phone, “I know we’re all going to die. There’s three of us who are going to do something about it. I love you, honey.” Passenger Todd Beamer was heard on an open line saying, “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.” Sandy Bradshaw, a flight attendant, called her husband and explained from the galley that she was filling pitchers with boiling water. Her last words to him were: “Everyone’s running to first class. I’ve got to go. Bye.”
According to the cockpit voice recorder the passengers began their assault at 9:57 A.M. By 10:03 the terrorists intentionally crashed Flight 93 into the ground, about 20 minutes flying time outside of Washington D.C.. All 44 people on board died, including the 4 hijackers.
That’s how the United Flight 93 passengers decided to save the lives of strangers on the ground. In the current “War on COVID,” we aren’t expected to sacrifice ourselves in a plane crash to protect the innocent people around us. We can only fight this war by protecting one another, as Trump said, “to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation.” Trump and his allies quickly forgot that pledge. But we know, after recently adding one million new cases in eight days, what that entails.
