The handling of the southern border crises, North Korea, China, and others, and we would see the same thing. The businessman was action-oriented, and the politician was not
In 2017 a different sort of leader became President of the United States. He wasn’t a politician. He was a businessman.
In 2021, the old guard returned. The new President had been on Capitol Hill for over 40 years, and served another 8 years as Vice President of the United States.
Both of these men have dealt with similar issues. This provides a great opportunity to compare the way in which each of them approached urgent situations, even crises.
In early 2019, Donald Trump was faced with the COVID-19 epidemic. It was a virus that nobody had ever seen before and that scientists knew nothing about. All that was known is that it was spreading rapidly and killing people faster than any virus in nearly 100 years. He led his administration decisively, doing everything he and his team could think of to save lives. Since the virus appeared to originate in China, he shut down air travel to and from China, against the wishes of nearly all of his advisors. It has been acknowledged by all objective voices that this was the right decision as it bought precious time for the US to try and understand the virus that they were dealing with.
When it was determined that the virus was in the US and spreading rapidly, Trump succumbed to his medical team’s advice to basically shut down the US, except for those critical functions to meet basic needs, for three weeks. People were asked to hunker down at home. The three weeks passed and the spread continued. While his advisors and many state governors pushed to remain closed, he bucked against that advice and encouraged businesses to open again in a safe manner. He allowed those medical voices to be heard, but he also understood the importance of sustaining the nation’s economy.
All the while, he led daily televised briefings for the American people as to what was going on and what was being done.
He had his team work with US companies to use their manufacturing capabilities to build ventilators, develop and manufacture testing kits and make masks, face shields, and other critical supplies that were in short supply.
At the same time, he led his team in reacting to the unknown virus, he pushed to develop vaccines to quell the virus. He paid multiple companies, in advance, to get the vaccine in process. He commanded these companies with promising results to begin manufacturing millions of doses before it had even been approved for emergency use by the FDA. All of this was done so that once a vaccine was approved, it would be ready for distribution immediately. He pressed the FDA to do their work faster than they had ever done it before. The result was that three viable vaccines were approved and ready for distribution in less than a year. This can be compared to the normal four years to develop such a vaccine.
His successor, Joe Biden, inherited the situation a year after it began with ample supplies of vaccines, testing kits, and all other supplies vital for confronting the virus. The economy was ramping back up. At that time, considerably more was known about the virus than was the case a year prior.
This president did not think ahead. He focused all of his efforts on one thing. Vaccinating people. He assumed once vaccinated, immunity would last and the virus would be gone. When he discovered pushback by some, he mandated that all people must be vaccinated and went to work on ways to pressure people to get the vaccine. Ultimately, his team developed a ‘work-around’ that would, in effect, require all people to be vaccinated or lose their job. This, of course, proved to be unconstitutional.
With his ‘vaccine alone’ direction, his team allowed test kit re-order dates to pass, so that by December there was a critical shortage of test kits. Knowing that many people were against being vaccinated, he did nothing to encourage the development of medicines that would curb the symptoms of the virus and keep most people out of the hospital. Pharmaceutical companies were developing such therapeutics, but the President did nothing to fast-track those. There were inexpensive, generic drugs that were already proven safe on the market that had been proven effective in lessening the symptoms of Covid. However, there was no effort within the Administration to increase the manufacturing of these drugs or get them to doctors.
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During his first year dealing with the pandemic, less than a handful of televised briefings were held to keep the nation’s citizens informed. One of the few was held in July to declare victory over the virus, which surged in December and January to the highest level of infections since Covid arrived on our shores.
The result of Joe Biden’s action, or perhaps inaction, was that more people died with COVID during his first year in office than during the first year of the virus when little was known about it and there was no vaccine.
The picture painted here is not a comparison of a Democrat approach to a Republican approach. It is of a businessman’s approach compared to a politician’s approach. The businessman saw risk and took action. He took financial risks to protect the safety and welfare of the American people. The diplomat was not action-oriented. He let the things that were in place just move along, never seeking to improve them or anticipating further potential risks from the virus.
We could look at other comparisons. The handling of the southern border crises, North Korea, China, and others, and we would see the same thing. The businessman was action-oriented, and the politician was not.
Whether Republican or Democrat, perhaps we should be looking to successful business executives to fill the most important CEO position in the world.
Jack Meyer——Bio and Archives
Jack Meyer spent 43 years in business management, including 23 years in domestic and international operations with FedEx. He has been partner or sole owner in three businesses. He has been politically active, writing in support of national and state candidates, for the past ten years. Most of his writings have been posted in various online publications. He is recently retired and remains involved in writing, both political opinion and fiction.
