During her address to the Republican convention last month – you were watching, right? – Ivanka Trump said something that I had not heard before.  She was extolling her father’s accomplishments including the low unemployment rate and expanding prosperity that the country enjoyed through early 2020.  She stopped in mid-extol with the grave pronouncement that her father gave all of that up to fight the coronavirus.

The President himself made the same point a couple of times after the convention.  I haven’t heard it repeated since then.  Still, it is striking that a politician would take credit for an economic contraction.  Neither Herbert Hoover nor Franklin Roosevelt, the two grandmasters of shrinking an economy through government action, ever bragged that this was among their achievements.

The feds didn’t lock down the national economy.  The federal government issued guidelines and recommendations regarding lockdown, but not orders.  I doubt that the federal executive branch, acting without Congress, has the power under the Constitution to shut down the economy in the face of a pandemic.  But if they have it, they didn’t use it.

It has been state governments who have taken the lead on lockdown.  There has been an observable divide along party lines between those who want to close and those who want to open.  New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, California, Oregon, and Washington have been the most enthusiastic proponents of lockdown.  All have Democratic governors.  The large states with Republican governors, Texas and Florida particularly, have resisted lockdowns or have implemented them piecemeal.  Less populous states with Republican governors such as South Dakota and Wyoming have not locked down.

Why the difference?  Depending on the governor and the stage of the lockdown you’re talking about, I think the reasons fall into three categories:

• Self-regard
• “This is the life we have chosen.”
• Kryptonite

Self-regard.  People like Governor Cuomo, Governor Newsom, and Governor Inslee (D, Wash.) think of themselves as brave souls willing to be guided by science (or as they like to say “the” science) as they form public policy.

It doesn’t seem to occur to these governors that there are usually several policy alternatives informed by scientific findings and scientific research.  The policy recommendation they accept is likely to be the one they would have preferred before they referred the matter to scientific experts.  Politicians who select a policy based on “the science” or recommended by “the scientists” are likely to be rationalizing a choice that was pre-determined.

Prior to the current coronavirus outbreak, epidemiologists recommended against lockdowns.  There is growing disagreement among epidemiologists, physicians, and public health authorities over the efficacy and advisability of the lockdowns that have been implemented.  For every Anthony Fauci there is a Scott Atlas; for every CDC and WHO (on alternate Thursdays), there is a Great Barrington Declaration.

The temptation to preen as one declares that he or she is guided solely by “the science” likely masks nothing other than a raw policy preference. And political leaders who lean on “the scientists” might remember that scientists whose careers include advising political leaders have studied their audience even better than they have studied their subject matter.  This is a skill that courtiers have been honing since the days of the Pharaohs.

“This is the life we have chosen.”  For a person whose ambition is to serve as the governor of a state, COVID is the opportunity of a lifetime.  You sought the job and you want to keep the job.  Why? To have political power.  To exercise it.  To demonstrate to a grateful public that you champion the public interest against those small-minded people pursuing their own selfish interests.

The past six months must have been intoxicating to someone with that ambition.  You issue a declaration and it’s law.  Who gets to collect rent?  Who gets to run a restaurant?  Who gets to worship in a public setting?  Who gets to take to the streets to make a political point? For this and hundreds of other questions, the answer is found in the will of the governor, expressed in edicts issued at times and in the manner chosen by the governor alone.

Some executives love the limelight.  Governor Cuomo luxuriated in daily media briefings.  Others prefer a Delphic persona.  The governor of Washington State was asked what he planned to do about an insurrection that was reaching a fevered state in Seattle.  His laconic reply was that he had not been notified of any such event.  Louis the Sixteenth could not have shown an icier detachment.  But whatever presentation style our governors prefer, they are free to express themselves.  The citizens subject to their will do not have the same privilege.

Those without political power may still thrive in this environment if they play their cards in the right order.  Anthony Fauci has toiled for more than 40 years as a second-tier federal administrator.  But the sun shines most brilliantly just before it sets.  He has achieved at the end of his career the fame that he so clearly has hungered for during the preceding 40 years.

If the thought ever occurs to Dr. Fauci that his tenure as the head of a section within a federal bureau does not qualify him to have an opinion on every subject on earth, he keeps it to himself.  And that’s the only thought he keeps to himself.  Will there be football?  Will we vote in person?  Can we trust China?  Should we wear masks?  Dr. Fauci has an opinion, sometimes two contradictory opinions, that he is read to share with an adoring press.  Here is a sampling of headlines from a few days last month:

Dr. Fauci says you should hold off on this annual health appointment — The supplement Dr. Fauci takes to help keep his immune system healthy — Dr. Fauci warns:  Don’t eat in restaurants–Will the coronavirus vaccine be mandatory?  Here’s Dr. Fauci’s answer — Dr. Fauci says these states don’t need to lock down again — Dr. Fauci warns these places are COVID hotbeds — Dr. Fauci predicts when this will all be over — Dr. Fauci says the government won’t make these two things mandatory — Dr. Fauci would bet ten cents on Trump having a COVID-19 vaccine by November –The US is at risk of losing Dr. Fauci’s guidance — Dr. Fauci just called this state the “model” for COVID success (Vermont) — Dr. Fauci says this is the worst thing you can do right now — Dr. Fauci could’ve just gave [sic] the worst news about coronavirus yet — Six immunity tips from Anthony Fauci: How America’s top doc keeps from getting sick — Forget vitamins: Fauci says the 3 best things ‘to keep your immune system working optimally’ cost nothing

The President came down with COVID.  Dr. Fauci volunteered that the treatment that the Walter Reed doctors had provided was appropriate.  How does he know?  He’s not a clinician.  Dr. Fauci told us that the Rose Garden gathering to announce Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination was a “super-spreader event”.  Might that conclusion be ever so slightly influenced by politics?  Dr. Fauci refused to blame “peaceful protests” for a single case of COVID.

The opportunity to dictate the terms of life to other people has a broad appeal to a certain type of politician, whether elected to an executive office or appointed to an administrative post.  The COVID-19 outbreak has allowed those individuals to live out their dreams.  Such people have an incentive to talk up the crisis rather than calm the populace.

Kryptonite.  It’s hard to remember the days before COVID.  At the start of this miserable year, Donald Trump’s chance of re-election seemed fairly good.  The economy was strong. There was no significant foreign or domestic crisis.  Under those conditions, the voters usually retain an incumbent president, even one whose personal style irritates many people.

Mr. Trump’s political opponents have persuaded the public to blame him for the pandemic.  There seems to be little difference between what he has done and what they say they would have done.  It’s more a question of attitude.  He has said that we can’t allow the cure to be more damaging than the disease.  A risk-averse population appears to be willing to put up with unheard of intrusions and disruptions by government in order to battle a disease, even as the evidence mounts that the severity and fatality of COVID-19 are much lower than was first feared, particularly for those under the age of 75.

In earlier times, those stricken with disease would seek a cure from the hand of the sovereign.  The touch of one anointed by God was thought to have curative force beyond the power of physicians.  Evidently the President of the United States is expected to have such powers and will be held to account for disease on his watch.

Other countries that have been held up as models for how Mr. Trump ought to have acted have had outcomes no better and in some cases significantly worse than those in the United States.  Indeed, Sweden, one western country that did not lock down and accepted the risky strategy of encouraging herd immunity, seems to be coming out of this mess in better shape than those who scoffed.  That might matter to a neutral observer, but this has become a political issue, indeed a political opportunity.  In a political argument, neither the attackers nor the defenders are expected to present evidence dispassionately.  It’s up to the voters to discern the facts and evaluate the arguments.  To this point, it appears that COVID-19 is the kryptonite that Mr. Trump’s opponents were looking for.

The lockdowns deprived Mr. Trump of his most effective campaign mode, the large rally where indoor arenas are filled with Mr. Trump’s fans and he tells the crowd what’s on his mind.  He is remarkably effective in this mode.  As we approach the end of the campaign, he has moved these events outdoors and is holding two or three every day, but for months he was cut off from a favorite way of communicating and campaigning.

At the same time, the lockdowns have worked to the advantage of Mr. Biden.  He has managed to campaign successfully with limited public appearances.  He is not a compelling public speaker and is better suited to a “front-porch” style of campaign, last used by William McKinley in 1896, but used successfully let’s remember.

The lockdowns have prevented Mr. Trump from doing the very thing that Mr. Biden’s handlers don’t want their candidate to do.  When we consider that lockdowns are favored almost exclusively in blue states, it is tempting to think that partisans are exploiting a political advantage.

I am not suggesting that blue state governors locked down their states to damage Mr. Trump.  I think they locked down their states out of self-regard and because of the joy of exercising political power in a raw form.  Once they had taken those actions, they noticed the partisan advantage they had produced inadvertently.  Retaining that advantage is part of what motivates them now.

How large a part does the partisan impact play?  Is it stronger than self-regard and joy in the exercise of power?  Here’s one way to tell.

During the 1992 presidential campaign, one of Bill Clinton’s themes was that the US was experiencing the “worst economy in 50 years”.  A mild recession began in 1990 and lasted into 1991.  We now know that it was over long before the 1992 election, but it didn’t look that way at the time and it certainly wasn’t reported that way.  Economic contractions are unavoidable and there had been worse recessions during the 1950s, 1970s, and early 1980s, but it didn’t occur to George H. W. Bush to point any of that out.  The news media didn’t do anything to correct the economic record or to put it in context.  They helped Mr. Clinton spread the message of gloom and despair that could be alleviated only one way.

On election day, Mr. Clinton had won more than 300 electoral votes.  The day after the election, NBC reported that things were looking up “now that the recession appears to be ending”.

If today’s polls prove to be accurate and Mr. Biden is the president-elect on November 4, I will not be shocked to hear reporters tell us that we can look with hope to the future now that the first signs have appeared that the end of coronavirus epidemic is in view.