Ethics Alarms has consistently taken the position that as disastrous as the measures taken under the Trump Administration to deal with the unprecedented Wuhan virus pandemic were, Trump as President had no politically viable options but to follow the advice of the CDC and Ethics Villain Dr. Anthony Fauci—not with the mortality figured being exaggerated and hyped by the news media, not with unscrupulous critics like Joe Biden telling the public that he had “blood on his hands.” Within the range of decisions within his power to execute, Trump handled the situation as well as it could have been handled, and criticism of his performance now constitutes the worst kind of hindsight bias and consequentialism.
However 2023 Presidential candidate Trump (I’m holding out hope that he will not be one in 2024) is ethically estopped from grandstanding now about “Covid tyrants” and refusing to comply with whatever measures the Democrats attempt to inflict as progressive maskophilia resumes. The Platform Formally Known as Twitter’s inconvenient context is fair and apt. Trump was for the draconian measures before he was against them. Again, I don’t blame him for his conduct then, but he can’t credibly pose as a defender of personal liberty now when he did not push back against the Democratic governors and mayors who were inflicting absurdly extreme restrictions on Americans based on bad science and totalitarian aspirations.
Hence Georgia governor Brian Kemp is spot on for tweeting (“Xing?):
Oh, he remembers.
Ethics Alarms 
I am not sure he has no right to grandstand now. If I recall correctly Trump supported a 15 day shutdown which then morphed into the long-term shutdowns. Day after day he was pilloried for every death and hospitalization. He was labeled a racist for calling it the Chinese virus or Kung Flu. Every nascent totalitarian and health official was demanding that he restrict society even more so if he carried the message of cautioning against openings in light of this we can also say that everyone who did not publicly call out the lockdowns should also be estopped from criticizing him now.
I want to know what pushback against the lockdowns Kemp was making in the lead up to his decision to relax his state’s lockdown. Governors started relaxing the rules when the political will for a lockdown in each state waned.
I’m with Chris on this one. As infuriating as Trump is most of the time, I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt in finally seeing the light concerning the Wuhan Plandemic. There are many, many Americans in the same boat. Many if not most of my friends who voluntarily sequestered themselves in their homes and readily took the jab and urged me to do likewise now broadcast their regret at doing so. I don’t feel it’s fair to denounce folks who were mislead by Dr. Science et al.
I know a multitude of people who concur with the “We will not comply” sentiment.
But Trump can’t play that part after being the original agent of the Wuhan excesses—not without acknowledging that the policies enacted under his administration were a mistake.
Seriously, how is Trump making this statement any less obnoxious than, say, Joe Biden accusing a successor of irresponsibly increasing the National Debt?
Actually, the situations would be markedly different. In the case of an epidemic the president defers to the “experts” on the appropriate medical course of action to take. The Dr. writes a prescription and the patient takes it and suffers a complication. With respect to running up huge debt this is equivalent to a person loading up on OTC medications that are within his or her control to acquire and getting sick from them.
Trump increased the national debt to offset the effects of states forcing businesses to close. Such an act was not necessarily irresponsible at the time but Biden spending trillions increasing aggregate demand during a time when aggregate supply had been decimated was irresponsible and resulted in massive inflation.
What no one seems to be concerned with is the loss off purchasing power families have experienced. Jerome Powell keeps hiking interest rates to choke off inflation but if the government supplants consumer spending because it effectively has virtually no cost of capital when the FED prints money (interest earned by the FED flows back to the treasury after expenses of the FED are covered) then any reduction in inflationary pressure is a result in more consumer spending falling than government spending increases.
The hikes in interest rates on consumer debt has reduced retirement savings and is putting more Americans further into debt.
Your better analogy would be the say that Biden cannot blame banks for high profits and consumer bankruptcies when he campaigned on spending big bucks.
In the case of an epidemic the president defers to the “experts” on the appropriate medical course of action to take.
He doesn’t have to, and in fact, shouldn’t. Medical experts only care about health. The President has to care about other matters, like the economy. The experts have input, but they should not be followed blindly—and this was a perfect example of why.
That is fair position in theory but I doubt that any politician would buck the experts when the news was running a death count 24/7. Trump allowed the CDC and NIH to make the call and he lost because the media said he did not handle the pandemic properly which caused more deaths. He was damned no matter what he did. There is an adage that says fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me.
well, as you know, I’ve said all along that Trump had no choice politically. But having to do something you didn’t want to do and shouldn’t have had to do still doesn’t mean you can act as if you didn’t do it.
Addendum:
If Kemp was so against the lockdowns, why does he feel it necessary to push back against this statement that does not single out Kemp or any other Governor who simply followed Fauci’s and the CDC’s edicts. He is not spot on if he did not himself push back against the CDC and Fauci then and it appears he is just trying to offload his own guilt in the matter.
Why can’t Trump be allowed to realize he was conned by Fauci, et al into allowing such drastic actions and only governors had the power to close businesses, schools and public meeting facilities. I would agree that he can’t argue now for the opposite of what he himself decided was best against the advice of all those medical experts but that is not the case. It was the medical experts that demanded he “follow the science”. Anything Trump said was immediately contorted by the media with them suggesting we should drink bleach, or he wants us to take horse dewormer – Ivermectin.
Nowhere does Trump attack anyone except those who are trying to reimpose restrictions on individual liberty. I can support that.
Ironically it was the CDC which in concert with the NEA and advised governors to keep schools closed is in Atlanta. Where was Kemp then?
Am I so brainwashed that I am now fabricating fake news in my own mind that there something about Trump publicly stating that he was leaving restrictions to the state governments?
He did. He had to, really. Doing otherwise would exceed his power—but he had the bully pulpit, and used it only inconsistently and ineffectively on this issue.
>> Why can’t Trump be allowed to realize he was conned by Fauci, et al into allowing such drastic actions and only governors had the power to close businesses, schools and public meeting facilities.
Jack did reply after your post that that Trump could acknowledge his policies were a mistake and apologize. I think we can agree the chances of that happening are zero.
Less than zero…
Trump definitely cannot be faulted for approving and authorizing the initial lockdown measures, and it made sense that he’d listen and follow the advice and recommendations of the experts—it’s worth noting that he quickly pushed for reopening when these initial lockdowns (15 days to flatten the curve) didn’t do what they were promised to do (those of us honest enough to admit will easily remember that).
HOWEVER, what he can be faulted for is trying to crap on, and try to discredit governors and politicians who actually pushed for and did reopen their states (like Kemp and DeSantis) who actually did what he pushed for after the initial lockdown.
What’s even worse, and what’s even more at fault for is trying to smear someone like DeSantis by suggesting that he did worse job managing COVID in his state than Governor McLoving (Cuomo). That was just pathetic.
“HOWEVER, what he can be faulted for is trying to crap on, and try to discredit governors and politicians who actually pushed for and did reopen their states (like Kemp and DeSantis) who actually did what he pushed for after the initial lockdown.
What’s even worse, and what’s even more at fault for is trying to smear someone like DeSantis by suggesting that he did worse job managing COVID in his state than Governor McLoving (Cuomo). That was just pathetic.”
Agree 100% with this. That’s the side of Trump I loathe and I give him a lot more leeway than most.
As for the lockdowns, Jeffrey Tucker at the Brownstone Institute makes a compelling case that Trump got played by Fauci, Birx, Gottleib, et.al., playing to his greatest weakness (flattery) and sold him on the idea that he’d be the nation’s savior and be re-elected in a walk. The vaccines were ready to go…until Moderna (and Pfizer, I think) held them until after the election. To be clear, I think it’s now beyond dispute that the vaccines were a massive failure but they would have been electoral gold for Trump.
Here’s his piece from March 2023 (but he also has a new fictionalized take from August which is also worth reading).
https://brownstone.org/articles/how-they-convinced-trump-to-lock-down/
Ron
This I agree with whole heartedly