Democrats may proclaim that they are eager to see the pandemic come to a swift end and the economy return to a robust state. But the cold political interests of the Democratic Party today are what they were in Herbert Hoover’s time: to pray that the president fails, and fails badly, so that they inherit the estate.
As of April 30, the coronavirus pandemic has killed 61,500 Americans in two months and induced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. And if history is our guide, the economic crisis, which has produced 30 million unemployed Americans in six weeks, may prove more enduring, ruinous and historic than the still-rising and tragic death toll.
The Spanish flu of 1918-1919, the deadliest pandemic in modern history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide, a third of the planet’s population, and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including 675,000 Americans.
“Adjusting for the difference in the size of the American population then and now,” writes Chronicles columnist Roger McGrath, “that number will be equivalent to two million deaths today.” Yet, the Spanish flu did not shut America down.
As the Spanish flu hit and spread in 1918, the U.S. raised, trained and equipped an army of 4 million men, sent 2 million soldiers to France, broke Gen. Erich Ludendorff’s army, and turned the tide in favor of the Allies. By December 1918, Doughboys were arriving in New York harbor — having sailed home from Europe’s battlefields on flu-infested transports.
As the scourge continued to take its toll, Woodrow Wilson sailed to Europe, participated for months in the Paris Peace Conference, returned, went on a national train tour to sell his Paris treaty and League of Nations, and suffered a stroke.
In September 1919, Gen. Pershing led his victorious troops in victory parades in New York City and Washington. This writer’s father, a teenager then, was in the D.C. crowd.
In the history books of the 1950s, World War I, Wilson and the Senate battle over the treaty he brought home and U.S. membership in the League of Nations loomed far larger than the Spanish flu that had killed as many U.S. soldiers as the Kaiser’s armies.
But the Great Depression, to which our current crash is now being compared, did not last for just a year like the Spanish flu. The Depression lasted from the stock market crash in October 1929 to the eve of World War II.
Economically, it was devastating. Unemployment during the 1930s never fell below 14%. In 1937, it was back up to 17%. At the bottom of the Depression, the stock market had lost 90% of its value, and the GDP had fallen 50%. Not until the end of FDR’s second term, in 1940, when the U.S. began to gear up for the war, did America really begin to pull out of it.
FDR’s New Deal, however, while it did not cure the Depression, was a historic political triumph for both the president and his party. From 1930 through 1946, Democrats controlled both houses of the Congress every year, elected and reelected FDR four times and gave him a 46-state landslide in 1936, losing only Maine and Vermont.
What this suggests is that the economic devastation we have brought upon ourselves to battle the pandemic may prove more lasting and historic in its impact than the terrible losses of human life to COVID-19.
Politically, the Depression worked for the Democratic Party like no other event in history. After the Crash of 1929 under Herbert Hoover, the GOP held the House and Senate for only four of the next 50 years. From 1932 to 1968, the GOP lost the presidency in seven of nine elections. Only Dwight Eisenhower’s two terms in the 1950s interrupted a 36-year reign of the Democratic Party in the White House.
Richard Nixon broke the Democratic dominance and took back the White House for the Republicans in 1968. But it would still take another dozen years before the GOP won control of either house of Congress.
President Trump predicts a V-shaped recovery, the greatest boom in U.S. history. But it is well to recall what happened to the GOP when it failed to deliver in the last Depression.
Just as the Civil War was the defining event of the 19th century, giving us 13 Republican presidents from Lincoln to Hoover and only two Democrats — Grover Cleveland and Wilson — how and when we emerge from this new Depression may tell us which party not only wins 2020 but also dominates the new era.
And as one sees the growing divisions along political lines, with conservatives and populists calling for the country to be opened up, and liberals and Democrats calling for continued sheltering in place, both seem to realize the stakes.
Democrats may proclaim that they are eager to see the pandemic come to a swift and early end and the economy return quickly to the robust state it was in last February. But the cold political interests of the Democratic Party today are what they were in Hoover’s time, to pray that the president fails, and fails badly, so that they inherit the estate.
Republished with gracious permission from Mr. Buchanan (April 2020).
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I think many people will cut Trump a surprising amount of slack on the economy. It was going great guns before the pandemic and the fact of the pandemic is not his fault.
What may kill him are his evening television appearances. He reads the fairly well-written speeches in the tones of a zombie. Then he free associates with statements that are clearly erroneous and/or incoherent. These are cringe worthy performances which seem to be turning off the elderly, who are one of his biggest blocs.
Remember that the unemployment rate at the end of 1982 was 10.2 percent and was down to only 7.8 percent on election day 1984, hardly stellar figures. Nonetheless, Ronald Reagan won re-election in a landslide, carrying all states except the hapless Walter Mondale’s native Minnesota. Until 6 weeks ago, we had unemployment of less than 4 percent, which is generally considered full employment. I think most people recognize that the current economic downturn is the result of intentionally shutting down the economy due to a pandemic and not a failure of capitalism. Although it may not bounce back as quickly as Trump predicts, it will pick up much faster than after the 2008 recession and certainly the Great Depression. The most important thing is for Trump to convince the American people that the economy is much more likely to recover under his leadership than under that of the Democrats. He already has strong credentials to run on. Also, like Mondale, Joe Biden is a weak candidate who has all the hallmarks of a loser. His mental abilities and personal character are highly questionable.
Donald Trump is no Republican.
I do not think any more examination of his record is necessary to establish this. He has flaunted the very tenets of Repubicanism that have served as guidance since its inception.
Of course the pandemic is not his fault. And although somewhat difficult to accept, when one assumes and accepts responsibility in any position, the problems are yours. The American economy is extremely dependent on consumer consumption, which depends on consumer confidence, good cheer if you will. I doubt that is going to come roaring back.
As for Mr. Reagan, second term elections usually favor the incumbent, especially if one is running against Mr. Mondale. But I seem to recall, even though I was barely in college, that Ronald Reagan ran on lowering taxes, which he did. But then incurred a huge deficit by spending on what was glibly referred to as Star Wars.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans reflect our own desire to have things without paying for them, without sacrifice. And all politicians, from Mitch McConnell to Lyndon Johnson to Mike Madigan (Illinois where I’m from) to yes Donald Trump will gladly use our own treasure to put us into great Debt, and get themselves elected and re-elected.
Democracies seem to be very short lived in history. And it would seem to me that it is not the Senate, or the Emperor whom we should fear. We should fear our own tendency towards selfish sloth.