Gail Collins: How are you doing, Bret? I haven’t seen you in a while. In fact, I haven’t seen anybody, except my husband, the grocery store cashier and the dry cleaner.
You’ll be happy to know they’re all fine.
Hope you’ve got some deep thoughts about pandemic politics. Or at least recommendations for TV viewing.
Bret Stephens: Thanks for asking, Gail. Physically, I’m fine, as is everyone in my family. Emotionally? A bit on edge. Mentally? Slightly off-kilter. Politically? Filled with ominous foreboding. In other words, my usual self.
Gail: Let me express appreciation to your usual self for that column on your grandmother, the glamorous lefty artist. I believe I speak for many readers who would like to be descended from someone who possibly had an affair with Diego Rivera. Plus, we’re always grateful to turn the conversation away from communicable disease.
Bret: I’m so glad you liked it (and I had to leave out some of the juicier bits, because we’re a family paper). I was a little worried that publishing a column like that in the middle of a pandemic would seem frivolous. But she really was a one-of-a-kind woman, and readers seemed to be grateful for a distraction from the avalanche of bad news.
Speaking of which — on Thursday, I went for a bike ride in midtown Manhattan. I’m a cautious cyclist but there was so little traffic that I felt free to use the car lanes on major avenues. On Friday, I went out to get a bottle of white wine for dinner but my friendly neighborhood liquor store was closed. (Fortunately it still delivers.)
Gail: Don’t know if I could get through this without wine. Some people hoard toilet paper; we’re hoarding cabernet.
Bret: On the way back a pair of tourists asked me to take their picture using their phone, but I declined: I tried to be polite about it but I still felt like a jerk. The city feels not just vacant but suspended — waiting for the sky to fall or the clouds to lift.
As for deep thoughts, Gail, I can’t decide what should worry us more: another 1918 or another 1929? Pandemic, Great Depression — or possibly both. What say you?
Gail: The economy is certainly crashing, but I have hope that if the government is proactive enough in pumping money in where it’s needed, we’ll get by. For me, pandemic is scarier.
Bret: I get that. The same goes for my mom, who has been extremely disciplined about social distancing. I’m guessing there’s a generational San Andreas Fault running just beneath the surface here between younger people who are terrified their livelihoods will vanish if the lockdown goes on for a long time, versus many older people more worried about life than livelihood.
Gail: Now that I’ve mentioned the government — you’re very wary of any kind of intervention, aren’t you?
Bret: Not at all: I’m not a libertarian! The biggest challenge right now is to keep people and businesses liquid, lest they go bankrupt. Millions of people are being shut out from their jobs. Businesses across the country are being shut out from their customers. All through no fault of their own, and all on account of government orders. So there’s a moral obligation as well as an economic necessity.
Gail: Ah, you remind me a bit of Mitt Romney, circa 2020. Our new moral hero.
Bret: I’ll take that as a compliment so long as I don’t remind you of Mitt Romney, circa 2012.
The challenge is how to do it right. The federal government needs to create some kind of mechanism that can provide low-interest loans to every business that needs one, without political demands or heavy paperwork in order to speed the transmission of funds. Another idea, suggested by a friend who is savvy in these matters, is to use the tax laws to impose a four-month moratorium on interests and rents, since rent and interest are often the biggest expenses for many businesses. Congress could pass a 100 percent tax on rental and income interest during this period to enforce compliance without needing to void contracts.
My own brainstorm (not deeply thought through, so I’ll be grateful for reader comments on this) is to hand every American adult in a lockdown zone a government-backed credit card — call it a CovidCard — so that they can cover their essential expenses now and begin repayment, at zero-interest, starting in 2023, or at a gradually rising rate later on. Obviously there would have to be a fairly strict maximum limit to keep people from bankrupting themselves, but if the government worked with the credit card companies it should be relatively easy to do from a technical standpoint.
Gail: Sounds good to me, particularly the CovidCard thing. I’m always a sucker for a catchy name.
Bret: Bottom line here is that we need to prevent a Great Depression. We can’t afford to let the coronavirus become a tragedy for either our parents or our children.
Gail: I’m pleased we started out with the more cosmic questions today, but I’ve got to admit I’m itching to get specific about the terribleness of Donald Trump.
His press conferences have been sort of scary — whenever he makes a sweeping medical decree, you can see the health experts blanching.
Do you think we’d be in a different place now if we had a different president?
Bret: Hmm, lemme think …
Yes.
Our colleague Jennifer Senior had a great column the other day calling these press conferences what they truly are: propaganda. The deep problem with Trump is that he completely squandered whatever remained of the moral capital of the presidency long before any of us had heard of the coronavirus. So even if he were getting everything right — and he hasn’t — he would be failing at his task because he inspires zero trust with at least half the country.
Gail: Well some people certainly like him. I’ve been trying to keep alert during the press conferences by counting the number of times our alleged coronavirus leader Mike Pence reverentially mentions his boss’s name. In five-to-eight-minute presentations, the score very seldom drops below 20.
Bret: Consider the contrast with our governor, Andrew Cuomo, who has really risen to the moment with the right combination of compassion and authority. Or the contrast with past presidents. The overwhelming majority of Americans rallied around George W. Bush after 9/11, just as the country rallied around Franklin Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor. Both men enjoyed a certain baseline of respect that transcended policy differences. Trump never did and still doesn’t, which makes him so utterly unsuited for the moment.
Gail: Yeah, neither F.D.R. nor Bush seasoned the daily crisis updates with comments like “Nobody’s ever done what we’ve done.”
Bret: In the meantime, Gail, there’s this little matter of a vice-presidential selection coming our way, which seems to be coming down to Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchar (whose husband, John Bessler, has tested positive for Covid-19 and is in the hospital). I know you’re politically partial to Warren, but who do you think most strengthens the ticket?
Gail: Totally a fan of Elizabeth Warren. But I guess it’s true that the Democrats don’t need a ticket whose combined age is pushing 150. As things stand now I guess I’m tilting a bit toward Klobuchar. Just because she was a better presidential candidate than Harris, back in the day.
I know you’re a Klobuchar fan. And Bret, did you ever imagine when we started conversing that you’d get your dream Democratic ticket?
Bret: Well, my dream ticket, at least as of a few months ago, would probably have had Klobuchar or Mike Bloomberg at the top and someone else — maybe Pete Buttigieg — as veep. But I’m grateful the Democrats look set to nominate someone I can actually vote for, as opposed to Warren or Bernie Sanders.
Gail: I miss our Bernie arguments. Sigh.
Bret: I’ll be interested in seeing how the Biden campaign approaches the coronavirus crisis. My advice would be to avoid just attacking Trump, as that will only play to the president’s political talent as a counterpuncher. The better move would be to give a series of presidential-style addresses, calmly laying out his vision of how to deal with the health impacts, social consequences, economic fallout and foreign-policy implications of the pandemic. Make Americans long for the sound, the sense, and the demeanor of a decent and judicious president. Don’t even mention Trump’s name. It will make the contrast that much more stark.
Gail: Sounds reasonable, particularly since Joe Biden is never going to be a rip-roaring rouser of a candidate.
I always believed Hillary lost because people were looking for change and she was the most familiar face in American politics. Very possible that this fall people will be yearning for a lot less excitement. If so, Joe’s your man.
When we really get into the campaign, I have a feeling you’re not going to love the Biden agenda. Bigger government, stronger unions and on to Obamacare II.
Bret: I know! And I’ll oppose it on policy grounds as strongly as I know how. But I won’t be disgusted by the person proposing the policies. And I won’t live with this alternating sense of shame and fright the next time we have a national crisis.
In the meantime, Gail, you’ll be pleased to know that I’m putting together a coronavirus playlist. Top of the list: “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” (The Police); “Dancing With Myself” (Billy Idol); “Life During Wartime” (Talking Heads); “Urgent,” (Foreigner); “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” (R.E.M.); and, of course, “The End” (The Doors).
Wow, Gail. This is dark.
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