Trump’s Narrow Comeback Hope: Make America Free Again

“You know that you fight harder for the lost causes.” — Jefferson Smith

“It’s a 40-foot dive into a tub of water, but I think you can do it.” — Clarissa Saunders
“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington“

Yes, indeed. As previously reported in this space, coronavirus has done what passels of pussy hats, continuous collusion hype, invented investigations, scurrilous scandal-mongering and perpetual personal invective failed to bring about.

The Resistance has won. Left-wing domination of the levers of power is a present reality. Future Democratic control of the federal government is a foregone conclusion.

And the president’s reelection and a continued Republican Senate majority are a lost cause.

But all that lost cause really means is this: It’s time for President Donald Trump and his forces to fight harder.

It’s time for a true crisis plan – not just a 40-foot dive into a tub of water but rather, with everything stacked in The Resistance’s favor, a 100-foot swan dive into a glass of H₂0.

You rang? Here it is: To resume and continue his mission to Make America Great Again, Donald J. Trump and Co. need to Make America Free Again.

And we think this chief executive can do it, if any could. Because that plan starts with, as true-bluers would say in the Gipper’s day, Letting Trump Be Trump: following his own instincts and reclaiming his rightful place as the vanguard of The Resistance to The Resistance.

We previously shared an axiom of public relations – if you’re explaining, you’re losing. So here are two core principles of crisis communications.

First, explain how you acted contrary to your own values – and fix it.

The Prez’s goof: ceding authority to Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx – a pair of Card-Carrying Experts from the Public Health Division of the Know-it-Alls Running-the-World Establishment/Elitist Network (KAREN). Swamp-dwelling bureaucrats that the @RealDonaldTrump normally wouldn’t have let within a safe social distance, much less yielded near-totalitarian power over the entire U.S. of A.

But The Donald was uncharacteristically unnerved by apocalyptic predictions of millions of deaths, tailor-made and precision timed by KAREN’s designated, and repeatedly discredited, Prophet of Doom: Dr. Neil (What? Me-and-My-Babe-Social-Distance?) Ferguson.

Now, the president must admit he gave into fear-mongering – and handed the keys to his economic Lamborghini to power-drunk-driving pencil-pushers.

The second, Wag-the-Doggish principle: change the subject – and thereby, the narrative. In this case, from fear – to freedom.

Once and for all, America needs a distinctively Trumpian common-sense disavowal of the kind of KAREN State hectoring reflected in the latest over-the-top Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines, which POTUS should immediately retract and reboot. After all, just how much social distancing, mask-wearing and toy-isolating can one expect from kindergarteners? (Not much.) How much hermetic sealing can one reasonably expect bars and restaurants to perform for younger patrons at low risk of serious illness? (Way less than CDC overlords command.)

Instead, in the best American tradition, the president should liberate captive businesses, churches, schools, families and individuals to determine their own solutions and acceptable level of risk.

In this effort, the facts would be firmly on his side: new data from JP Morgan Chase & Co. indicate that infection rates have fallen – not exploded as the KAREN clique fretted – in states and foreign countries where lockdowns have ended. (Calling into question whether they were ever needed.)

The Make America Free Again Action Plan:

•    Thank Fauci and Birx for their contributions, excuse them from the task force, and put people in charge committed to unleashing American ingenuity cum personal responsibility.

•   Fully unleash the Justice Department – which has already warned states for restrictions unduly discriminating against religious observance – on harsh-lockdown governors violating fundamental constitutional rights through harebrained, overbroad, inconsistent decrees not reasonably related to public safety. These rights, as described by progressive hero Justice William O. Douglas, include not only economic activities but even “freedom to walk, stroll, or loaf.” As in, on the beach.

•    Favor economic freedom – knowing that reducing regulations and taxes emancipates Americans, whereas more loans, subsidies and benefits only further enslave them.

Specifically, the president should ditch the concept of “essential” businesses. All businesses are essential to owners and workers. He should charge his task force with rigorously enforcing his executive order to permanently slash regulations.

And he should counter Madame Speaker’s latest $3-trillion boondoggle with a supply-side stimulus. Lawrence Kudlow has mooted a 50% corporate tax break for repatriating production from China, which the Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman (perfect name for the times) suggests applying to all businesses. An even better option: both, only more so, via the 9-9-9-0 plan previously unveiled here, supercharging growth while punishing decades of Chinese misdeeds culminating in the Corona Coverup.

NEWS FLASH: Even as this sage advice was undergoing polishing in the virtual typewriter, in a stunning case of mind-melding, the president announced that he would direct the CDC to declare churches “essential” businesses (as initially mandated by Christ some two millennia back). So he’s off to a running start.

Now it’s time for The Repeatedly Political Death-Defying Donald to complete his running start with that 100-foot leap of faith – in Americans – and potentially, turn around his seemingly lost cause.