Giving thanks in a pandemic year

 This holiday season is going to be unlike most of us have ever experienced. No matter what your opinion on politics and the virus, the fact remains that America is undergoing more adversity this year than at any other time in many of our lives. Even 2001 after the terrorist attacks and 2008 amid the financial crisis pale in comparison to what we’ve experienced this year. For many of us, it is hard to be thankful in the midst of such strife, but, for those of us who are Christian, that is exactly what we are commanded to do. Despite all the bad news, when I look around me I can see a lot of things to be thankful for.

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

The most obvious is that, if you are alive and able to read this, you should be thankful. As the old saying goes, any day above the ground is a good one. Whether you haven’t contracted COVID or you’ve survived it, you have a great reason to be thankful.

We should also be thankful for the health of our friends and families. The Coronavirus has not touched my immediate family. I’ve had numerous friends and more distant family members contract the disease but most have recovered.

For those who haven’t recovered, I am thankful that we have a forgiving God. I am hopeful that they are removed from their pain and suffering and that we will be reunited in a better place someday.

My mom told me this week that their pastor, the man who performed my wedding, and his wife both have Coronavirus. Their church closed for two weeks in an attempt to limit the outbreak. My dad has respiratory issues and my mom is a cancer and chemotherapy survivor so I’m very thankful that they elected to continue attending church virtually rather than going to in-person services where they could have been exposed.

I’m thankful for the technology that makes social-distancing bearable. We can order groceries, meals, and toilet paper online and have them delivered or ready for pickup without putting our health at risk. I’m very thankful that toilet paper exists in general.

I’m thankful that we decided to put our children in virtual school this year and thankful that our school district offered the option. With several Coronavirus cases being announced in our local schools each week, that decision seems to have been validated. Even if my kids weren’t infected, I’m thankful that we don’t have to deal with a quarantine. On that score, I’m also thankful that virtual school means I get to sleep until 8 a.m. rather than waking up at six to get the kids ready to go to brick-and-mortar school.

I’m thankful for the time with my family that the pandemic has given me. We have seen much more of each other this year than we would have if we were going our separate ways to work and school. With my kids getting older, that extra time has been a precious gift.

I’m also thankful for the frontline medical workers and researchers who have spent the past several months fighting the virus. These people have risked their own health and lives for their neighbors. Many have died or lost their own health as a result.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

John 15:13

We should also be thankful for medical knowledge. Hundreds of years of accumulated expertise as well as more recent research have shown us that protecting ourselves and our families is as simple as:

• Maintaining a six-foot distance
• Avoiding crowds
• Avoiding confined spaces
• Wearing a mask if you can’t follow the first three rules
• Washing and/or sanitizing your hands frequently

I’m thankful for people around the country who will practice self-sacrifice on Thanksgiving and throughout the holiday season to protect the lives of their loved ones. Sometimes love is better expressed by staying away than by holding someone close.

The simplicity of protecting ourselves reminds me of the story of Naaman in the Bible, who was instructed by Elisha to wash in the Jordan River seven times to cure his leprosy. Naaman became angry at the simple and seemingly senseless command. Naaman almost didn’t do as he was told, but in the end, his servants convinced him to follow Elisha’s simple advice and he was healed. Sometimes following simple instructions leads to great rewards.

I’m thankful for our advanced medical research. It hit me last night that we had never heard of COVID-19 at this time last year. The virus has been a factor in our lives for less than a year, but we have already been able to create at least three very effective vaccines that are almost ready for mass distribution. That is an unprecedented accomplishment. I’m extremely thankful for the brilliant minds that chose to spend their lives researching and curing diseases.

Previous pandemics often lasted three years or longer. As bad as Coronavirus has been, the introduction of vaccines will cut this pandemic short, saving hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars. That is truly something to be thankful for.

Those of us who still have jobs should be thankful for the steady paychecks that are still coming, even if they might be at a reduced level. We should be thankful that the CARES Act reduced the number of layoffs in the first months of the pandemic recession.

It can be difficult to thankful in the midst of unemployment and pay cuts. I know because I’ve been there. But those people can be thankful for safety net programs, for charities, and for other people who lend a hand in their moment of need.

I get by with a little help from my friends.

The Beatles

I’m thankful that, despite the angst about public health restrictions, Americans really don’t know what tyranny is. Some jurisdictions have gone too far in anti-virus regulation. Others haven’t gone far enough. None reach the level of tyranny, however. It isn’t tyranny to say “no shirt, no shoes, no service” and it isn’t tyranny to ask folks to wear a mask and social distance in the midst of a pandemic caused by a dangerous virus that is spread through the air by close contact.

Tyranny is the killing and imprisonment of dissidents and journalists in Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Tyranny is the confiscation of private land in Zimbabwe and Venezuela. Tyranny is the Chinese government imprisoning pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong.

America has problems but we don’t have tyranny. I’ll get pushback for saying that, but we should really be thankful that our freedom has survived 200 years of encroaching government rather than making our problems seem worse than they are. We can also be thankful that the restrictions made necessary by the pandemic will be going away in a few months as vaccines are distributed.

Finally, and this will also be controversial, I’m thankful that a peaceful transfer of power looks more and more likely. If Joe Biden had lost, I am sure that there would have been violence. I’m thankful that did not happen.

However, as I wrote before the election, I’ve long been concerned that President Trump’s allegations of election fraud could lead to violence from the right. I’m thankful that has not happened and hopeful that it won’t.

Most of all, I’m thankful that this too shall pass. Our adversity is temporary. We can look forward to a return to normalcy next year as vaccines end the pandemic and the economy surges back. Next year at Thanksgiving, masks and social distancing will be a distant memory. We just have to stay healthy until then.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

Originally published on The First TV

The Election Is About To Turn Ugly

I wrote earlier this week that the Trump campaign was being buried under a tsunami of bad news. Since then, the news has only gotten worse for the president and it doesn’t look as though things will be changing anytime soon.

The most obvious piece of bad news from today is the revelation that the president and First Lady have tested positive for COVID-19. Although I have frequently offered criticism of the president and his Coronavirus policy, I am not one of those who delight in this news. I pray that President and Mrs. Trump will have a mild case and recover swiftly.

President Trump’s infection does put him at a severe disadvantage for the last month of the campaign, however. It is likely that, with the president and much of his staff under quarantine, the remaining debates, rallies, and appearances will be canceled even if Mr. Trump never develops symptoms. The president’s disdain for masks and insistence on holding mass rallies made it likely that he would contract the virus, but the timing could scarcely have been worse.

Broad polling over the past six months has shown that voters don’t believe that Trump has handled the pandemic well. His diagnosis will not help matters and especially if the president’s case is severe, many voters will see it as confirmation that the Trump Administration did not take the Coronavirus crisis seriously enough. The diagnosis also raises concerns about the president’s long-term health.

If, God forbid, President Trump dies or becomes incapacitated before the election, the Republican National Committee could replace him with another candidate. Professor Richard Pildes, an election law expert at NYU, described in the Washington Post how the 168-member RNC would cast votes to select a new nominee with each state getting the same number of votes that they cast at the nominating convention. Vice President Mike Pence would be the obvious choice.

If Trump wins the election but is incapacitated, the Electoral College might choose another candidate. However, in this scenario, the Republican electors, who would constitute a majority, would probably select Mike Pence to succeed Trump.

Even before the news about the president’s battle with Coronavirus came out, his re-election campaign was in trouble. After Tuesday night’s debate debacle, the president seems poised to plunge in the polls. The first post-debate poll was released Thursday by Change Research and showed a 13-point lead for Biden while a new Georgia poll showed the Democrat up by two points in the Peach State. A handful of other polls released on Friday show Biden with a lead ranging from 8 to 10 points, indicating that the Democratic candidate has received a slight boost from the debate.

As Biden surges, Trump’s COVID quarantine means that he can’t hit the campaign trail to stem the tide. If the nation sees the president suffering from a severe case, his decline in the polls is likely to be accelerated.

The flip side, however, is that Trump’s enforced isolation may help his campaign. I’ve said for years that he would be more popular if he could simply shut up and stay out of the spotlight. A Coronavirus quarantine may help him do just that, but it may be too late.

The bad news does not end there, however. The CARES Act, which was passed in March, is expiring and the White House has not been able to reach an agreement with congressional Democrats to pass a new relief bill. Without new federal funding to keep employees on the payroll, the country will take another economic hit as businesses begin to lay off employees. The more than 30,000 airline employees who have received furlough notices are merely the tip of the iceberg.

The effects of these massive numbers of layoffs will likely cascade through the economy if Congress and the president cannot reach an agreement. Consumer spending will fall, which could lead to more layoffs in retail stores as well as manufacturing. Mortgages, rent, and other loans will go unpaid. Ultimately, the unemployment crisis could cause a collapse in real estate values.

It is difficult to say how quickly the economic crisis will spread, but, for a president already lagging in the polls, tens of thousands of newly unemployed workers is not a good sign. This is especially true if the newly unemployed view the president’s party as the obstacle to federal programs that would have kept their paychecks – or enhanced unemployment benefits – coming.

The president’s campaign has been in trouble for quite some time, but the new round of bad news is shifting the election from a Republican loss to a rout. At this point, it looks as though the swing states are gone and red states such as Georgia, Iowa, and Texas are within Joe Biden’s grasp. Meanwhile, quarantined in the White House, all President Trump can do is tweet about it.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Donald Trump Is Being Buried Beneath Tsunami Of Bad News

They called Ronald Reagan the “Teflon President,” but, when it comes to not having bad news stick, the Gipper had nothing on Donald Trump. Much of Trump’s tenure has been marked by bad news (much of it the result of bad decisions by the president) but very little has stuck to Mr. Trump. Now, a month prior to the election, the bad news continues to hit the news cycle at an alarming rate.

Beyond this weekend’s revelations about President Trump’s tax avoidance, consider a few of the stories that have emerged over the past few weeks:

• Bob Woodward’s taped interviews in which the president admitted that he understood the danger of Coronavirus but “downplayed” the pandemic
• Nearly 500 former generals and admirals endorse Biden in a joint letter that says Trump is “not equal to the enormous responsibilities of his office”
• Trump’s former Coast Guard chief says Trump is waging an ” insurgency… on our constitutional rights”
• On at least two occasions, Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election, saying he doesn’t want to be “cheated”
• The Senate report on Hunter Biden failed to find criminal wrongdoing or break new ground despite years of claims and investigations, which led to Trump’s own impeachment
• The intelligence officer who gave Trump 300 daily briefings wrote in the Denver Post that “As damaging as his faulty leadership has been, four more years would be devastating”
• US Coronavirus deaths surpassed 200,000, the highest national death toll in the world
• The Varieties of Democracy study found that executive respect for the Constitution was at its lowest level since 1865 and corruption was at its highest level since Warren G. Harding
• Olivia Troye, Pence’s lead aide on the Coronavirus Task Force endorsed Biden, saying that Trump “doesn’t actually care about anyone else but himself”
• Trump has sparred with health officials about the readiness of a COVID-19 vaccine and claims that the White House can overrule FDA authorization to speed the drug to market
• The allegation that Trump called wounded military veterans “suckers and losers”
• A former National Security Council official said the White House pressured her to say John Bolton’s book was a security risk in an attempt to delay its publication
• Continuing civil unrest and high racial tensions
• Polling found that more voters think Trump is unfit for office than Biden

And that’s just for the last four weeks.

Atop this mountain of red flags, warnings, and incompetence now comes the news that Donald Trump has paid nothing or next to nothing in taxes for at least 11 of the past 15 years. While paying fewer taxes is a worthy goal, it will be embarrassing for the billionaire (or is it “millionaire”) presidential candidate whose tax reform was a lightning rod for many middle-class taxpayers who ended up paying more. At the very least, Trump’s tax shenanigans may add fuel to Joe Biden’s plan to increase taxes on the wealthy, an idea that already has overwhelming popular support, even among a majority of Republicans.

To be fair, it hasn’t been all bad news. Trump’s Arab-Israeli treaties were good news and didn’t get the coverage that they would have in a different year. A year when a signatory to the treaty wasn’t leaving open the possibility of an unpeaceful presidential transition.

There was also the Supreme Court vacancy which, although Republicans see it as good news, might not be. The opening has energized Republicans but it has also energized the left. And the numbers seem to be on the side of the opposition.

Justice Ginsburg was far more popular than Donald Trump (by about 15 points) and voters favor leaving the seat vacant until the outcome of the election can be determined by double-digit margins. If Amy Coney Barrett proves to be an unpopular nominee, the Supreme Court vacancy could end up being the final nail in the coffin of the Trump campaign by swaying unaffiliated voters against Trump. Ironically, confirming Barrett before the election might also give Trump-skeptical Republicans one less reason to vote for the president since the Court will have a definite conservative tilt.

Despite the onslaught of bad news interspersed with a few favorable items, Trump is bearing up better than expected under the onslaught. Make no mistake, that doesn’t mean he’s doing well, but the situation could always be worse. Trump’s average approval rating currently sits at 43.7 percent, somewhat recovered from the summer doldrums, and right where it has been for the majority of the past three years.

That is not nearly good enough to win re-election. Biden leads by an average of seven points in national polls. When the Electoral College is considered, Biden leads in all of the swing states and is becoming competitive in red states such as Georgia and Texas.

But Trump’s resilience may be enough to prevent the complete collapse that would overtake a candidate with a less zealous base. What is astounding is that the bottom has not dropped out of the president’s polling given the volume of bad news. Even more astounding is the fact that Mr. Trump is polling ahead of incumbent Republican senators such as Lindsey Graham.

My theory is that the 43-percent is made of several disparate groups of voters. One of the largest segments is the “My Trump, right or wrong” crowd for whom the president can literally do no wrong. A second group is voters who don’t like Trump but who fear Biden and the Democrats more. A third group is the partisans who will simply vote for any candidate with an (R) after his name.

We have also become numbed by the sheer volume of mind-numbingly shocking and, frankly, alarming revelations about the president. He’s been so bad for so long that it takes a lot to move the needle after five years of the media spotlight on the president’s erratic behavior. Abnormal has become the new normal or, as WWII GIs used to say, “Situation Normal: All Fouled Up (SNAFU).”

The high floor (so far) for Trump is both good and bad for Republicans. In the short term, it is good because it will help the party minimize its losses this November and Republicans need to maintain the Senate, or at least a big enough caucus to filibuster, to check the progressive agenda. In the long term, however, it can be dangerous for the party because so much of the Republican identity is now based on personal loyalty to Donald Trump. It will be difficult for conservatives to steer the party in a positive direction post-Trump if most Republicans are still members of the personality cult.

Donald Trump won’t make finding a new Republican direction easy. He won’t be going away after the election, no matter how it turns out. The president will be cheering (and jeering) from the Twitter sidelines and directing his legions of followers, a faction that will likely remain formidable.

For the moment, however, the real question is what tomorrow will bring. Trump is facing a daily dribble of bad news that is similar to the bad news cycle that Hillary Clinton endured in 2016 with health problems, leaked emails, and a lack of direction. That year, the steady drip of bad news finally broke her once solid lead after James Comey’s letter to Congress was released.

This year, Trump is already well behind his challenger only a month out from the election. The steady flow of negative press will make it even more difficult for Trump to climb out of the electoral cellar. It’s impossible to predict the next fire that the Trump campaign will have to put out, but the fires will undoubtedly continue until Election Day.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump’s Toughest Demographic: Former Trump Administration Officials

 Donald Trump has struggled with minorities and swing-state voters but another demographic seems to be even tougher for him to win over: Former Trump Administration officials. There is a long list of alumni from the Trump White House who have left under a cloud and had bad – even shocking – things to say about Donald Trump. The most recent of these is Olivia Troye.

Olivia Troye was a member of Vice President Pence’s staff for two years. During that time, she worked as an advisor on homeland security, counterterrorism, and the coronavirus pandemic. She served Pence’s lead staffer of the Coronavirus Task Force until leaving the Trump Administration in August. Now she has recorded a devastating ad against Donald Trump for Republican Voters Against Trump.

“Towards the middle of February we knew it wasn’t a matter of if COVID would become a big pandemic here in the United States,” Troye says in the video, “It was a matter of when. But the president didn’t want to hear that because his biggest concern was that we were in an election year and how was this going to affect what he considered his record of success?”

“It was shocking to see the president saying that the virus was a hoax, saying everything was okay when we know that it’s not.” Troye continues. “The truth is that he doesn’t actually care about anyone else but himself.”

Troye cites the example of a Coronavirus Task Force meeting in which the president said, “Maybe this COVID thing is a good thing” because “I don’t like shaking hands with people.” She added that he said that the people wanting to shake his hand were “disgusting.”

Troye’s statement is also confirmed by recordings of the president released by Bob Woodward. Woodward’s tapes reveal a president who said, “I wanted to always play it down” even though he acknowledged “This is deadly stuff” as early as February 7.

Troye’s words might be written off as sour grapes from a disgruntled employee (and undoubtedly will be by Trump’s base) except that her testimony is merely one more installment in a long line of former Trump Administration officials with similar stories and complaints. She joins James Mattis, John Bolton, John Kelly, Rex Tillerson, and a host of others who have said that Donald Trump lacks the capacity to govern and is bad for the country. At least 11 former generals and admirals have raised the red flag on Trump.

The irony is that many of these people were darlings of the Republican right until they parted ways with Donald Trump. Now each is a persona non grata. Nothing will move a person faster from hero to zero in the Republican Party faster than voicing anything critical of President Trump.

The same goes for Olivia Troye, who was largely unknown outside the Administration. Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security, told CNN that Troye was “one of the most hardworking, honest public servants I have ever met in my entire career.” Taylor added that DHS recommended Troye for the vice president’s staff because “her background was immaculate, her service was extraordinary, her qualifications were unmatched” and that Pence had personally said that Troye was doing “an incredible job.” Contrast that description with today’s attacks on Troye as a Deep State Never Trumper.

In fact, some of the former staffers were once avid Trump supporters. Anthony Scaramucci, who served on the 2016 Trump campaign as well as briefly serving as the White House Communications Director, now says he realized that “My loyalty to God and the United States of America was more powerful than my loyalty to one man, a man who has left the country we all love weaker, poorer, and sicker due to his malevolence and incompetence.”

Granted that there are exceptions. Some former Trump officials stand by their man even after being fired. Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions are notable in this category.

The common threads between the critics who served in the Trump Administration are (1) a willingness to serve as advisors to Donald Trump and (2) a realization that Trump is bad for the country after spending time in proximity to the president.

The sheer number of people who come out of the Trump Administration and raise red flags about the president leaves only two possibilities. The first is that Donald Trump is lousy at picking people who are loyal and tends to hire people who are unprincipled enough to seek revenge by making up outlandish stories. The second is that the testimonials are true and that Mr. Trump’s behavior is so egregious and dangerous that he represents a national security threat. The evidence points to the second possibility.

As Miles Taylor pointed out, the warnings from former Administration officials are like police body camera footage that shows voters what is happening inside the Trump Administration. It is up to voters to heed those warnings for the good of both the country and the Republican Party, which is in serious need of a course correction.

“It was the opportunity and honor of a lifetime to be able to serve in the White House,” Olivia Troye says in her video message. “I put my heart and soul into this role every single day. But at some point, I would come home at night, I would look myself in the mirror, and say, ‘Are you really making a difference? Does it matter because no matter how hard you work and what you do the president is going to do something that is detrimental to keeping Americans safe, which is why you signed up for this role? It was awful. It was terrifying.”

“I have been a Republican my entire life,” Troye says. “I am a McCain Republican, I am a Bush Republican, and I am voting for Joe Biden because I truly believe we are in a time of constitutional crisis. At this point, it’s country over party.”

That is the definition of patriotism.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Texas Is Officially A Battleground State

Gen. George Patton famously told his soldiers in World War II, “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.” A corollary for presidential elections might be “The object of elections is not to fight on home turf but to carry the fight the fight to the other guy’s base.” In the election of 2020, Joe Biden seems to be having all the success at turning Trump states into battlegrounds. The latest polling shows that even Texas is in danger of turning blue.

Both new polls were released Sunday and both should send shivers up the spines of Republicans. The good news for Republicans is that a CBS/YouGov poll shows the president with a bare, one-point lead in the Lone Star State. The bad news is that a Dallas Morning News poll shows Biden with a five-point lead, which is outside the margin of error.

Bad polling for the president always brings out the people who rhetorically ask, “What about the polling in 2016?” so I’ll acknowledge that polls are imperfect snapshots of a point in time. They are not predictive, but they do show trends, especially if you follow the polling average over time. Incidentally, the Real Clear Politics polling average for Texas shows that Biden and Trump are tied. That’s bad news for Republicans any way you slice it.

Even if Trump doesn’t end up losing Texas to Biden, the close nature of the race there means that the Trump campaign will have to divert resources there to stem the bleeding, just as they recently had to do in Georgia. And resources are becoming relatively scarce with the Biden campaign raking in more contributions than Team Trump.

The details of both polls are public which allows us to tinker under the hood to find out what the problem(s) is (are) for Team Trump. I’m going to concentrate on the Dallas Morning News poll, which has a larger sample size and is made up of likely voters instead of the registered voters sampled by CBS. These factors imply that it is a better sample.

The first sign of a problem is that Trump’s approval is underwater. Texans disapprove of the president’s job performance by a 50-44 margin. This is despite the fact that the state’s governor and lieutenant governor have positive net approvals. Gov. Abbott’s numbers are 49 percent favorable to 40 percent unfavorable. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is less popular but still positive with 40 percent favorable and 38 unfavorable.

Trump also fares worse than Sen. John Cornyn, who is up for re-election. Cornyn, the incumbent Republican, outpolls his probable Democratic challenger, M.J. Hegar, 42-29 percent.

Clearly, the problem is with Donald Trump rather than the Republican Party as a whole. But what is the specific problem?

We have a YUGE clue in the fact that Texas voters disapprove of Mr. Trump’s handling of the Coronavirus pandemic by 51-41 percent. Another shocker is that 43 percent of respondents had a favorable view of the Black Lives Matter movement. This is a higher favorability than for either the Tea Party or the NRA, both of which scored 35 percent favorable. In Texas.

Further, 37 percent of the likely voters say that the federal government’s response to Coronavirus and the protests has influenced their vote for president. It’s a fair assumption that most of these voters moved away from Trump.

Lest you think that the poll was confined to progressive neighborhoods of Austin, only 15 percent favored socialism while 51 percent disapproved.

Demographic data shows that the poll’s sample looks like Texas. Racially, it was 61 percent white, 20 percent Hispanic, and 14 percent black. Ideologically the group was 51 percent conservative, 26 percent moderate, and 31 percent liberal. Forty-two percent were Republican, 39 percent Democrat, and 19 percent were neither. Most of these categories are very close to 2016 exit polling. The exception is an increase in Democrats which could easily be explained by moderates aligning with the Democratic Party over the past four years.

The CBS poll adds some additional data to our troubleshooting. By almost a two-to-one margin (63-37 percent), voters dislike how Trump handles himself personally while Biden breaks almost even on the question (48-52 percent).

Seventy-three percent said that things in the country were going badly versus 27 percent who thought they were going well. Among those who were unhappy with the direction of the country, 49 percent said that the most important way to address the problems were to have “competent leadership that manages crises.”

Again, the pandemic raises the largest red flags. Seventy-seven percent consider it a crisis or serious problem and 61 percent say that handling of the outbreak is going badly for Texas. Another 61 percent say that they state moved too quickly in reopening and most (63 percent) say it was because of pressure from the Trump Administration.

Slightly more think that Donald Trump’s economic policies are helping than hurting the country (47-42 percent). Voters were evenly split on Trump’s handling of the protests with rough thirds saying that they were more likely to vote for him (30 percent), less likely (33 percent), and no difference (37 percent). Slightly more voters turned against Biden over the protests than turned towards him (32-27 percent).

There are many warning signs for the Trump campaign but none is flashing more vibrantly than the possibility that Texas could go blue. The factor most pushing Texas voters towards Joe Biden is Donald Trump’s poor handling of the Coronavirus pandemic.

If the Trump Administration wants to have any hope of salvaging the election, they need to reverse course and acknowledge the severity of the pandemic. Pretending that the virus isn’t serious and pushing the nation to reopen is not making the concerns of most voters go away. The only way to resolve the crisis favorably is to rise to the occasion, tell people the truth (which they already know), and lead them in the mitigation strategies that will bring the virus under control.

Originally published on The Resurgent