First, I may be fighting the hypothetical, but I can’t imagine giving this president more power will result in fewer deaths.
Also -
This.
And - one of the things that the Trump presidency has exposed is that there is currently way too much power in the executive branch. I wouldn’t want to give any president more powers. I want them to use the huge powers they have at their disposal more effectively.
None of them would do well with more power. This one would be worse than the average.
I would grant him the power to recommend the use of masks and the power to test the citizens for the virus, easily. Imagine a world like that!
Oh, hell, no.
No…because, while this time the reason is a good one, the NEXT time, for some other guy, maybe thirty years from now, won’t be a good one.
Same reason I want to keep the Filibuster. It’s been used against my side, and that’s bad…but my side has used it too, and that’s good. I don’t want to give up that protection.
Some conservatives have said, “The constitution is not a suicide pact.” All that says to me is that they’re willing to surrender constitutional law when things get scary or dangerous – which are often matters of opinion.
Hell, I want Congress to re-write some of the “emergency” laws that the President has been using to invoke tariffs at a whim and to divert money from legitimate military construction to his border wall. The President is ALREADY abusing his power. Fuck no to giving him more!
Fuck no fuck no not even in the general direction of a possible yeah. I would give COVID-19 wider powers if it would bring down Donald Trump. I’ll volunteer to get sick, if it woud help. Absolutely anything that can go wrong on his watch that makes it less likely that he’ll get re-elected. He’s far more dangerous than any mere pandemic. He’s a threat to all life on this planet.
I think a better question is.
Would you have Trump masterfully handle the COVID pandemic and making it so there’s not even a single COVID death, if that would mean he gets reelected in a landslide (both popularity and electoral college legitimately) because of it?
I gotta say no to this Asuka, for all of the reasons already stated above.
Your hypothetical is too far out of sync with reality as we have experienced it so far in regards to trump
Asuka: That’s a much more piercing and insightful question…and I’m damned if I know the right answer. I think I would favor 150,000 virus deaths (and counting) over Trump’s re-election, because I believe he is a real threat to this nation’s constitutional democracy, the democracy that millions have fought and died for.
But I’m not at all sure. That’s a lot of lives, and they aren’t voluntarily sacrificing themselves for democracy.
Here’s a question:
…as he had the opportunity to do in the spring, but chose not to?
Now that’s a good question. Thing is, if he’d handled it well he’d be a different person, and maybe he’d deserve to get reelected. Or would a competent Trump be even worse?
No, Trump is not for the US, Trump is for Trump at the cost of the US, and when one must chose between 2 deadly poisons they chose the one that has the greatest chance of preserving life for others.
I can think of plenty of things Trump could do that would cause more damage than 500,000 COVID deaths. Like, for instance, shutting down all interstate commerce, nationwide lockdown, and quarantine. That’d kill probably somewhere in the tens of millions, or at least it would if it weren’t for the fact that it’d result in civil war before it got that far.
This. For all the talk after Watergate, the Congress has done damn near nothing to chip away at the Imperial Presidency. Hell, if anything they’ve strengthened it. Not every important thing is something that you must empower the sitting POTUS to declare an emergency and act unilaterally.
But to do so would require Congress to put back on their long pants and actually do the work of negotiating and compromising, rather than of posturing for the cheap seats.
And it would require some of us to bite down and swallow that some things about which we would say “but, but… it’s not the same! THIS is GOOD and FAIR, and it can’t wait!” would not get done.
Regardless of who is in charge of the Presidency, I take a jaundiced eye to any “emergency powers” the government takes.
Slippery slopes. That’s why we have the Constitution. Written Laws
No. His instincts are towards being a dictator.
The thread is based on a misconception.
Trump declared a national COVID-19 emergency in March. He has been exercising those powers. This is an example from today:
The above is likely illegal, and I expect DJT to self-pardon on the way out.
I do agree with this.
King George III, in 1776, did not have the power over taxation and spending exercised by Donald Trump.
Past modern presidents have done things in this direction, but not to the same extent.
Another non-Trump voter saying “No.”
As others have noted, I think he has the power to bring the numbers down already, and has not done so with the power he has-- I see no evidence that he wold use further power for a greater reduction in cases.
More, I’d be worried about restoring the balance of power to normalcy once we had a vaccine, or treatment, or whatever, though. We don’t need Trump-as-dictator-for-life because of this crisis, which will come to some kind of resolution at some point, even if it is a natural one, life the recession of the Black Death after a few years in the Middle Ages.
I hear people say that we live in unprecedented times, but that is not wholly true-- this may be the first easily spread pandemic to face modern 21st century medicine, and a really organized defense from humans (it may not feel like that, but compared to the Black Death, it is, and even compared to polio, it is). And we’ve fared terrible wars and natural disasters. Ask people in Puerto Rico, or deep recesses of Africa or South America if these are “unprecedented” times. I think that is mainly something people in developed countries who were living comfortably say.
Another vote for no; I don’t trust Trump with any degree of power; terrible things have happened already, I don’t want to play the “How bad could things get?” game.
However, I don’t like to think someone will take this thread as evidence that trump-haters are willing to sacrifice innocents just to bind Trump’s hand. There are versions of the OP’s hypothetical where we could be sure lives would be saved overall, and so I would be prepared to give trump and the republicans more power, as bad as it would feel.
It’s just that I am not convinced that lives will be saved overall in the hypothetical as currently defined.