by Chris Martenson
In our flood of emails was one that claimed to have access to Trump. So on the very small chance that’s accurate, and even smaller chance that anything might happen even if it were true, I took 5 minutes to pen this letter:
Dear President Trump,The coronavirus emergency is unlike any faced by a sitting president in over 100 years. Your leadership on this, and this alone, will define how your presidency is remembered.You are in danger of being remembered as “that guy who was slow to the punch and crashed the economy, and failed to save lives.”
It’s a very tricky balancing act you must now attempt. The greatest negotiation ever because the entity across the table is a virus, and it doesn’t respond to any pressure or requests.
Here are the three things you must balance:
- Stopping the spread of the disease
- Preventing the economy from crashing
- Not allowing our hospital system to become overwhelmed.
If you fail at (1) this thing just keeps burning through our society creating lasting damage
If you fail at (2) as much – or more – pain and misery results for people
If you fail at (3) many, many people die, from both the coronavirus as well as other treatable conditions like heart attacks and appendicitis.
Here’s where your incredible leadership is going to be needed. You can’t just ‘solve for one’ of the above without accidentally sacrificing it.
For example, if you simply opt to ‘save the economy’ (2) then the disease screams across the land, it destroys the hospital system, people refuse to travel or go to work, economic behaviors change, and you lose the economy (2) nonetheless. This is already happening.
If you simply optimize (1) and stop the contagion, then your sacrifice the economy and eventually people are starving so they break quarantine and then the disease takes off again and you’ve failed at (1).
Our advice?
Immediate transparency and honesty. This is a War. It’s time to pull the nation together. Ask for sacrifices and call on people’s honor and duty. We’ll get through this. It won’t be easy. But it will be worth it and will reignite a sense of togetherness like this country hasn’t had in 70 years. You could lead this. Or the opposite.
Next, people have been getting bad, and often scientifically inaccurate information from the leadership of the CDC and WHO. This needs to stop immediately. And they know it too; people can smell BS a mile away. This is eroding trust at a time when it is most needed.
Finally, people need to know what the plan is. Who is making more masks? When will they be available? What should they do in the meantime? Who is paying for the covid-19 testing? Who will pay for the uninsured hospital bills? What happens to mortgages and student loans if people are out of work?
You should simply state what the answers are to these (and many other) questions and then let Congress take the fall if they can’t or won’t deliver on them.
Time is running out. You have at most another week to get this right.
Sincerely,
Dr. Chris Martenson