Based on the thread elsewhere musing over how dictatorships might be better equipped on a practical level to handle the current issues.
Supposing there was a harsh method guaranteed to significantly reduce the spread, cases, and deaths associated with COVID nationwide. But to implement it, you must give the current federal government new, expanded, and wide ranging powers over states and civil liberties in general.
Would you be in favor? What if the method itself was less China and more New Zealand, but still required the same powers?
Probably not. I’m afraid he would use those powers to kill people in other ways. Like… I dunno, locking them in cages and exposing them to the elements…
Whether he might use his powers for good or evil is a secondary issue. Authoritarian powers are only of any conceivable benefit in a pandemic if he is competent. Since he obviously doesn’t even pass that hurdle, it would be absolutely detrimental to give him any more power.
Trump, specifically, no. I can’t possibly imagine how that would turn out well.
Sure, if we locked every single person in their house for a month, this whole thing would be under control a lot sooner, but Trump is going to have a lot of fun with his new found powers. Both for his own enjoyment and to make sure he and his friends make a lot of money somehow.
I guess the follow up question would be, if your answer is generally no, how much power WOULD you be willing to grant the current administration? Just enough to enact a New Zealand style lockdown? Just enough to close interstate borders?
Absolutely not. The current president is not using his present authority to combat the epidemic. He’s using his present authority to make things worse. Why would I want him to have more authority?
He has the power to prevent more deaths now. Why should we allow him more power just to do his damn job? Rewarding a dotard for ineptatude would set a bad precedince.
There being a method to reduce COVID deaths through heightened government authority doesn’t imply in the slightest that Trump would employ that method, because Trump has amply demonstrated that he doesn’t give a flying fuck if people who aren’t him die.
I can’t speak for the OP, but I’m guessing the OP’s hypothetical presumes that if you give Trump these dictator powers, he will use them to fight Covid effectively. The concern would be the unwanted ancillary side effects (Trump can now lock his critics in jail, funnel lots of public money into his family bank accounts, muzzle the press, etc.)
Sure, this would be a concern. But, short of a nuclear war, it’s hard to see what Trump could do as an unfettered dictator that would be worse than the 500,000 Covid deaths and many millions of organ-damaged Americans (plus many trillions of dollars of economic harm) we may see a year from now when it is finally all over. Giving him dictator power at the beginning of this year and let him nip Covid in the bud (assuming in this hypothetical that he actually were competent in fighting a pandemic?) Tough, tough trade-off to consider, but I could be OK with it.
Right - even in the absurdly unbelievable scenario where Trump actually does something to impede the pandemic, giving Trump more powers would doubtlessly result in more terrible outcomes down the road. It’s not worth it.
And not just because the only way I can picture Trump reducing COVID deaths would be if he killed the people of other things first.
This reminds me greatly of arguments made before Trump was elected. Come on, what’s the worst that could happen? It’s not like hundreds of thousands of Americans are going to die because he’s incompetent.
Of course, if hypothetical Trump were competent, he wouldn’t need dictatorial powers to stop covid.
This, tyrants never give that power back, ever. That’s why history is rife with revolution including our own 250 years ago.
As begbert2said:
Right - even in the absurdly unbelievable scenario where Trump actually does something to impede the pandemic, giving Trump more powers would doubtlessly result in more terrible outcomes down the road. It’s not worth it.
Here are some I can think of off the top of my head. Internet censorship like that in China. Concentration camps for immigrants. Not allowing demonstrations about anything. The loss of what little moral authority we have left in the world. Even more rampant corruption than there is now. President for life, which he already seems to think is his due.
As someone said, with great power comes great responsibility, and Trump is the president who says he isn’t responsible for anything.
Nope. Not even if I knew that I personally would die from COVID if I didn’t. I think Sir Thomas Wyatt said it best, back in 1536:
I am not he that can allow the state
Of high Caesar and damn Cato to die,
That with his death did 'scape out of the gate
From Caesar’s hands, if Livy do not lie,
And would not live where liberty was lost,
So did his heart the common weal apply.
