Trump’s Two Horrifying Plans for Dealing With the Coronavirus
At a tense moment in HBO’s Chernobyl, Soviet authorities discover that their robot technology is too primitive and faulty to clear ultra-radioactive rubble.
They could ask the Americans for help; the Americans have the machines they need. But such a request would further humiliate the Soviet state, already deeply shamed by the backwardness and incompetence revealed by the accident. Instead, the Soviets resort to “biorobots”—human beings. Teams of workers will hazard the radiation that disabled machines. To save itself, the regime will sacrifice its people.
I thought of that scene during President Donald Trump’s press conference Thursday about reopening the U.S. economy. The press conference lacked the drama of the HBO series. There was no single moment where the scheme was revealed in its enormity. Yet the intentions are becoming clear.
[Peter Wehner: The Trump presidency is over]
The administration has two plans for the next six months. It is implementing them at the same time. They reinforce each other, and each can replace the other if either fails.
Plan A is the Chernobyl plan: trading higher human casualties in hopes of a triumph for the central state.
By reopening some aspects of the U.S. economy in the next of the economy will matter more than the economy’s absolute level.
