Tout was going very well. "Crazy Bernie", that is Bernie Sanders, was to be the Democratic candidate in November. Jobs were blazing like never before. And the coronavirus had been stopped at the gates of the United States by Donald Trump when he decided, on January 31, to prohibit the entry of territory to foreign nationals coming from the epicenter of the Covid-19 epidemic, China.
Employment continues to soar (273,000 new creations in February). But that was before Wall Street dropped and the fear of a recession. The coronavirus has played with the Maginot Line erected by the president and now it strikes everywhere.
To make matters worse, "Crazy Bernie" may well be supplanted by "Sleepy Joe" Democrats after a crazy Super Tuesday on March 3 for former Barack Obama vice president Joe Biden. This prospect does not suit the president. He would much prefer to challenge the senator from Vermont, a thurifer in particular for Fidel Castro’s literacy program. Especially in Florida where a Cuban diaspora is much less enthusiastic about this evocation.
Because it is fairly well amortized, one can hardly imagine Joe Biden with his knife between his teeth, claiming like the senator that the billionaires should not exist. Democratic voters are only asking the new nomination contestant to beat the incumbent president in November by attracting independents with his kindness. For the rest, a day without blunders, without an episode of its own history being revisited and embellished, before pitiful correction, is enough for their happiness.
Presidency show
The President of the United States, meanwhile, fights against the invisible enemy by professing an optimism that sounds more and more hollow in the face of the slow blast that is looming. On February 20, in Colorado, Donald Trump still boasted of his ability to do whatever he wanted. "It's so easy to be presidential", he assured his followers, but also so boring. "I would only have three people in front of me" to hear it, he assured, assuming his show presidency without complex.
To be presidential, however, is the imperative of uncertain times. And Donald Trump is struggling to force himself into this discipline, preferring to outsource the greyness to his vice-president Mike Pence. Visiting the Atlanta Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday, the president marveled at himself. “People are really surprised that I can understand this stuff. Each of these doctors said to me, how do you know so much? Maybe I have a natural ability "he said, wearing a red cap with his 2020 campaign slogan: Keeping America Great.
