President Trump's Handling of the Coronavirus

With a tragic pandemic in our midst, it is sad to see the media and certain publications on our own campus pushing a false narrative of President Trump’s handling of coronavirus. Between coming across a timeline on The Federalist to listening to Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) explain what Trump has done to watching President Trump’s press briefings to checking information on PolitiFact, I have constantly been learning about coronavirus, and more specifically, our President’s  response to it. It is evident people are being misinformed about what Trump has done, what others have done, and the effectiveness of both.

Before I begin, there are two common misconceptions about the Trump administration before the pandemic even began that need to be squashed. First, Trump did not fire the leaders of the Pandemic Response Team nor did he simply disband the group. The senior director of global health and biodefense on the National Security Council was Rear Admiral Timothy Ziemer. He was in charge of the United States’ response to infectious diseases, but after he left the administration in May 2018, John Bolton reorganized the global health team in order to merge similar offices and have them work together. He did get rid of Ziemer’s job position, but it was only after he had left and, therefore, the job was vacant. Many members of the original department stayed on while others left to work in other offices, but Bolton and Trump did not fire the team nor did they simply get rid of having an office ready to face a pandemic. The one aspect of the Trump administration that was not fully prepared for a pandemic was the federal stockpile of PPE, but that was because the Obama administration used most of their reserves during the H1N1 virus and never replenished them. Although they could not foresee the necessity of replenishing, it was their job to do so.

Second, Trump did not cut funding for the Center for Disease Control (CDC). He did propose a smaller budget than the spending from the previous year for zoonotic infectious diseases, a major component for fighting coronavirus. However, Congress, when creating their final spending bills, looks at the president’s suggestion and adjusts accordingly. During the Trump administration, he has signed off on every funding bill, regardless of how different it has been from his proposed amount, and each has surpassed the previous year’s spending. The CDC’s final budget, for example, in 2018 was decided at $575,704,000, while in 2020, the final budget decided was $635,772,000. 

In regard to President Trump’s coronavirus response, a claim consistently propagated is that he failed to act fast enough. Trump, many say, was well aware of the threat that coronavirus posed, and yet he did not act, which supposedly caused the death of thousands. This brings about two main points. First, it implies that Trump had information that should have prompted him to take action, and the second that others were acting as quickly as they should have.

The first point is true: Trump did have enough information to take action, and he in fact did, while others strongly disagreed with his actions and did not act. The first patient with coronavirus entered the United States from Wuhan, China on January 15, and before the case was even reported on January 21, Trump began to have screenings in airports for flights coming from Wuhan in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles on January 17. Even after the second case was reported a few days later, the CDC stated, “Based on what we know right now, the immediate risk to America remains low.” Despite this, Trump, a few days later, extended airport screenings to look at twenty different airports across the country with travelers that had visible symptoms, as well as mandating quarantines. It was not until January 30 that the WHO declared coronavirus a national health emergency and that the CDC confirmed, for the first time publicly, that the virus can spread by person-to-person contact. In response to this, Trump created the White House Coronavirus Task Force that same day. The next day, January 31, he declared a public health emergency and implemented a travel ban between the United States and China. Meanwhile, the Senate had a vote on additional documents for the president’s impeachment, Biden accused Trump of hysteria and xenophobia, the WHO criticized Trump saying trade and travel bans are unnecessary, and members of the media accused the Trump administration of an overreaction.  Vox tweeted, “Is this going to be a deadly pandemic? No” and The New York Times quoting Dr. Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist, calling Trump’s travel ban “more of an emotional or political reaction.”

On February 4, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was instructed by the Trump administration to establish procedures for coronavirus diagnostic testing. The CDC said they were taking precautions to make sure the risk of contracting coronavirus stayed low, and they continued to emphasize the risk being low all the way through February 18. But, Trump still continued to act in order to protect Americans. Trump raised the warnings of travel to Japan and South Korea to “high” on February 20, and he asked Congress for $2.5 billion to deal with coronavirus on February 25. House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), on the other hand, encouraged people to join her and others in Chinatown on February 24 to celebrate the Chinese New Year, saying “It’s exciting to be here, especially at this time, to be able to be unified with our community. We want to be vigilant about what is out there in other places. We want to be careful how we deal with it, but we do want our people to say, ‘Come to Chinatown, here we are—we’re, again, careful, safe—and come join us.’” Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), a prominent figure during Trump’s impeachment trial, did not publicly mention coronavirus until February 25, despite being the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee and therefore having similar information about coronavirus as President Trump. With the information at hand, it is understandable why Pelosi and Schiff were not having strong reactions to the coronavirus. The WHO and CDC appeared to not present the virus as a serious threat to Americans, and China had continually lied about the reality of their number of cases, deaths, and overall information about the virus. Only exercising very slight caution is an understandable response at this point. 

On February 26, it was confirmed by the CDC there was the first case suspected to be transmitted locally, and Trump chose Vice President Pence to lead the task force, who appointed Dr. Deborah Birx as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator within a day. The next day, the media and Democrats tried to claim Trump called the coronavirus a hoax. But, his words in question were, “The Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus, you know that right? Coronavirus, they’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue.” He went on to talk about the questions of Trump and Russia and then the “impeachment hoax,” explaining how Democrats have continually gone after him for his actions despite a lack of wrongdoing with Russia and committing no impeachable offenses. When a reporter accused him the next day of calling coronavirus a hoax, he said, “I’m talking [about] what they’re doing. That’s the hoax. That’s just a continuation of the hoax, whether it’s the impeachment hoax or the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax. This is what I’m talking about. Certainly not referring to this. How could anybody refer to this? This is very serious stuff. But the way they refer to it — because these people have done such an incredible job, and I don’t like it when they are criticizing these people. And that’s the hoax. That’s what I’m talking about.”

President Trump was drawing attention to the fact the Democrats have been accusing him, and therefore the coronavirus task force, of poorly handling the virus, even though he has taken it extremely seriously from the beginning. Their lack of support thus far of his actions only deepen the true hypocrisy of their attacks. 

It was not until March 10 that Italy locked down, and the WHO declared coronavirus a worldwide pandemic the next day. In response, Trump put travel restrictions to Europe in place-- an aggressively criticized tactic yet again by Democrats and the media. Biden called this travel ban xenophobic, and some media outlets came out speaking against it implying it would not help, “Coronavirus is already here. Blocking travelers won’t prevent its spread” in Vox, and others claiming he did it for the upcoming election,  a Washington Post headline: “Europe blindsided by Trump’s travel restrictions, with many seeing political motive.”

While others continued to insult his decision, Trump then declared a national emergency for the United States. Spain the next day locked down, and soon after, Trump put out Fifteen Days to Slow the Spread then later added Thirty Days to Slow the Spread. He has continued to have daily press briefings with various experts in order to keep the public informed, and he and his team have constant meetings with the governors to help them come up with plans for each of their states.

During all of this, on paper, it appears Trump was acting quickly and effectively. But could he have not done more? If we look at the data given to us, Trump did even more than what would have been expected. There are claims that Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade advisor, informed Trump of the threats of coronavirus and that he ignored the memos. Although Trump says he did not see them, he acted how he should have according to this advice. One memo was sent on January 29th that encouraged a travel ban on China, which Trump did implement on January 31st, and the other was on February 23rd that said the United States would need $3 billion to deal with coronavirus and on February 25th, Trump requested $2.5 billion from Congress. 

Despite Biden’s criticism of Trump’s travel bans, Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, is now saying, “The bottom line: if Donald Trump had listened to Joe Biden, fewer Americans would be dying, losing loved ones, losing their jobs, or losing their retirement savings.” Dr. Anthony Fauci, in an MSNBC interview in late March said, “One of the things we did right was very early cut off travel from China to the United States,” and Nancy Messonier, director of National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, supported the ban saying, “We believe our aggressive travel precautions are working.” In response to Trump’s European travel ban, Dr. Fauci explained, “Because if you look at the numbers, it’s very clear that 70 percent of new infections in the world are coming from that region [Europe].” He continued, “It was pretty compelling that we needed to turn off the source from that region.” If Trump had listened to Biden’s claims of travel bans being xenophobic, experts such as Fauci, would agree that the number of cases and deaths in the United States would be much higher. 

Despite the perceived low threat posed by the WHO, CDC, China, politicians, and the media, President Trump took drastic, necessary steps that have saved many Americans. But, the final major criticism of Trump’s response lies in testing. Trump was quick to look into it, but the CDC had a major issue. When they first were developing tests, China would not give the United States actual samples of the virus, making it significantly more difficult for developing tests. To make matters more difficult, because of FDA regulations in place, private industries were unable to make tests. Fortunately, Trump was able to reverse these regulations so they could. The process changed for labs, as explained by the FDA at the end of February, that their tests would still need to be approved by the FDA, but the labs could still begin testing rather than waiting for the official consent. But, the FDA implemented another change in March. Instead of them being in charge, labs now only had to go to state officials about their development of tests, and there was no longer a need for an Emergency Use Authorization for the tests made. 

This poses the question: where does this leave us? The United States cannot afford to simply stay in lockdown until a vaccine is developed. Trump and his team have been doing their job on the federal level. But, it is ultimately now up to the governors to continue to do their part. Trump and his team presented a plan that states should follow with reopening, but each state is different and therefore the governor has to figure out what is best for their own state. The federal government, when states are ready, needs to ween states off federal aid so they can begin reopening on their own. If they need more federal help, they can and should reach out. Trump, from the beginning, has saved countless lives, and if it were not for his actions, it is scary to think about what kind of state the country would be in. But, the cure cannot be worse than the disease, so it is the governors’ turns. They need to get to work on saving their people and saving jobs, just as President Trump has been fighting for since the beginning.

We All Might Like Each Other More If the Government Was Smaller

Despite living in the freest country on earth, Americans still display a palpable negativity and distrust towards each other. There are undoubtedly innumerable reasons as to why this is the case, but there is an agent, that while seeming unrelated, may be one of this developing phenomenon’s prime movers: big government. This article will not be making a case for small government for fiscal or cultural reasons, but rather simply from the standpoint that the bigger the government gets, the less we like each other. Civic organizations from churches and the Knights of Columbus, to parent-teacher associations have, as Robert Putnam famously explained in Bowling Alone, fallen apart, and a common sense of ‘American values’ seems no longer to exist. Lacking these ‘glues’ of social cohesion, it does not take much to slowly pull the community apart. The growth of government is both a major cause of this ‘glue’ being degraded and of the resulting collapse of social cohesion writ large, the latter of which will be the primary, but not the only, focus of this article. 

The main reference point for the creation and the solution of all of the problems the country faces today has become the government, thereby making its control of the utmost contention. As power is concentrated, so are the forces of anger and hatred. The President of the United States was not always as powerful as he is today. In fact, the Founding Fathers intended the legislature, not the executive, to be the most powerful branch of the Federal Government. This remained so for most of the nation’s history until Franklin D. Roosevelt. Of course, in times of war, be it the Civil War or World War One, the Federal Government and the presidency grew in power significantly, but it was generally impermanent. With the rise of FDR and his slate of New Deal programs, the Federal Government’s role and function changed forever. With massive government schemes ranging from Social Security and job programs, to extensive regulation and an attempted packing of the Supreme Court, the Federal Government ballooned in size and power. Much of this new power, while having been given by Congress, rested in the executive branch, which is the branch that did, and still does carry out and enforce congressional legislation. In due course, through Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, Nixon’s creation of the EPA, Obama’s Affordable Care Act of 2010, and more, the Federal Government and, importantly, the executive became inordinately powerful. There are plenty of arguments to be had for the efficacy of this mass shift of authority to the executive, but what matters is that this power grab helped to make the office of the president all the more contentious. 

When the president has the power to almost unilaterally effect powerful regulations on issues ranging from abortion and the environment, to immigration and education, it should be no wonder that the contest for the office has become so vicious. People begin to place their hopes and fears for the future in the one man or woman who occupies that office. Because of the power that is concentrated in the hands of one person, the vitriol created over who that person should be serves only to divide Americans who are already lacking a ‘glue’ of social cohesion. People choose to find that cohesion in politics generally, and the president specifically. There is an almost cultish love for figures from Donald Trump to Bernie Sanders, which is not healthy for the country, for a candidate always runs the risk of failure. The fall of someone who was the object of a cultish love and a replacement for true social cohesion almost inevitably sparks anger. Good social cohesion comes from nominally permanent, widely encompassing beliefs and communities, of which a presidential candidate is neither.

The relative insignificance of the presidency through much of US history speaks to the point. Elections were undoubtedly contentious at times, particularly when major issues erupted, like slavery and the Civil War, but in general most election campaigns did not engender nearly as much division among the general populace as today. A reason for this might be because much of the population could not vote, but even at a time when the vast majority of the population had voting rights, in the 1920s, there was comparatively little contention over the presidency. In fact, the presidents of that era, in particular Calvin Coolidge, tended to run on a platform of small government. When the Great Depression struck, rather than waiting for a natural economic recovery, FDR was elected on a platform of big government, and his presidency was, unsurprisingly, marked by serious political divisiveness. 

Additionally, the radical candidates that cause so much fear and division among Americans today would not be nearly as concerning or detrimental to the country if the presidency was not so powerful. It would be of much less consequence to have a radical president if the office did not have the ability to implement his or her policies on such a massive scale as could happen today. A Republican would have less to fear from a Sanders presidency, and a Democrat less to fear from a Trump presidency if each knew that neither man could radically alter the face of the nation.

The president is only the largest target for criticism, and may only be the consequence of the growth of the Federal Government as a whole. Similar to how the Founders intended the legislature to be more powerful than the executive, they also intended much of the responsibility of governance to be in the hands of state and local governments. Of course, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution of the United States (Article VI, Section 2) dictates that the laws of the Federal Government are to supersede those of the states. However, the Founders also laid out the premises for the power of the Federal Government in the Constitution, which are quite limited by comparison to what it has snatched away in the 225 years since. Those powers not listed in the US Constitution were generally assumed to be left to the states, and while it would be difficult to propose that the Federal Government should stick only to the responsibilities directly outlined, it has certainly claimed far too many. 

Like the division caused by an inordinately powerful president, an unduly powerful Federal Government produces the same result. As people focus their hope and hatred on the federal level, it also focuses them on all Americans. One can always move to a different state to avoid bad policy originating from a state’s legislature. If the tax law is not to one’s liking in California, there is always the opportunity to move to Michigan or Texas. If the Federal Government makes a law, there is nowhere to move, nowhere to hide. Thus, control over the Federal Government, which has become so incredibly powerful, becomes a battle for the very heart and soul of the country. There are always certain policy areas that should rest with the Federal Government, like civil rights, foreign policy, trade, and the military, among others, but that list should be kept as minimal as possible. It should be no surprise that as that list has grown, people become ever more desperate to control and place ever more faith in the Federal Government. 

Big government also lends to the collapse of social cohesion through how it is exploited. People are opportunistic, it is simply human nature, and that will never change. Because of this, programs that the government offers, however well intentioned, will be taken advantage of, and this inevitably causes division. Opportunism in regard to government power is almost always at the expense of someone else. It is usually the taxpayer, as in the cases of freeloading, competition stifling tariffs, or the like, or the business owner in the case of mandated paid sick days etc. Nobody likes being taken advantage of, not the taxpayer nor the business owner, and when they are, anger and division results. 

History lends much insight into this phenomenon, but an excellent example is an academic paper by John Connelly, The Uses of Volksgemeinschaft: Letters to the NSDAP Kreisleitung Eisenach, 1939-1940, on the Kreisleitung (District Offices) in Nazi Germany. This is obviously not a perfect comparison, as there is clearly no similarity between Nazi Germany and the United States. What is useful is the underlying situation: that of a big government and the opportunism that results. The District Offices of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) were spread throughout Germany in nearly every locality. These offices, headed by Kreisleiter or District Leader, were granted the power to do almost anything assuming it was not contrary to the interests of their superiors. Citizens could contact the District Offices with any complaint they had, and often could acquire help in achieving what they wanted. Many took advantage of this opportunity, requesting that Jewish Germans be kicked out of their homes so they could move in, or denouncing another German in the hopes of getting him or her punished. It is not difficult to see the divisiveness this system engendered, nor the abhorrent results it created. The reason for utilizing such an example is not to make a direct comparison, but rather to point to the potential of powerful government and opportunism combining to create serious discord. 

All of this helps to elucidate why a big government creates conflict and why shrinking it might alleviate some of the division, but a more concrete example is helpful to understand why a small government can reduce disunion and foster community. The BBC recently produced a short video chronicling developments in the town of Harrismith in South Africa, a country where racial strife and a corrupt government have produced significant problems. Harrismith, a relatively small town, is representative of an ever larger part of South Africa: a poor economy and the failure of government to provide even the most basic of services, like sewage. With the government unable to act effectively to solve the crisis, and with sewage backing up and other utilities failing, people of every stripe were forced to come together to solve the problem. The racial discord that so divides South Africa had to be transcended. Headed by black townspeople, with the help of wealthy white farmers who provided the capital and helped in the labor, the sewage system was repaired and other utilities managed. People worked together towards a common good, and had to look to their fellow man to solve their problems. Indeed, they could fix problems that the government utterly failed to solve. 

Of course, this is taking small government to an extreme, and is in no way representative of a viable solution to social division. Nobody would propose kicking the government out of essential services or living in a sort of pseudo-anarchy, but the sentiment of this situation is what matters. When the government gets smaller, there can still be solutions to problems that would otherwise be relegated to a bloated state, and an increased sense of community is often a consequence. This fits well with the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which stipulates that every solution should be solved at the lowest level possible. What can be solved at the local level should not be solved at the federal level. The farther away the solution is from the problem, the less respect and care is paid to individual human dignity. Federally sourced solutions produce one-size-fits-all programs that are often out of touch with the needs of people located hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from Washington, DC. Local solutions are close to the problem and make the best use of resources, while giving people a greater sense of control and community.

The unity of the citizenry form the structural support of any nation, and if that unity disintegrates, despite the continued outward trappings of a state, the country will not stand the test of time. If big government is ignored, or grown yet further, it will likely result in an ever increasing deterioration, and possibly even the eventual collapse of American social cohesion. It would behoove the country to consider the costs of such a collapse and to act accordingly. We just might all like each other more if the government was smaller.

The Death Penalty: A Modern Conundrum

I am a pro-life Republican, and I mean pro-life in all senses of the word. Catholic conservatives today face the question of whether society and government should sanction the death penalty. The Republican party platform as it currently stands supports the death penalty whereas the Catholic Church officially opposes it. There are a number of different arguments against the death penalty, whether from the point of economics or the perspective of liberalism, but I come to argue on the grounds of modern conservative ideology and Catholic theology.

The most compelling case against the death penalty from the Bible comes from the Ten Commandments. In these, God gave the Israelites a set of rules to live their lives by in a very simple form. The 6th command says ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ In a very blunt straight to the point statement, God says that you cannot kill. God does not then provide instances where one would be allowed to kill others. God does not then say that if someone breaks this commandment that one is then permitted to break it again with capital punishment. God simply says that you cannot kill and Jesus reaffirms this in the New Testament in Matthew 19:18 when he says ‘You shall not murder.’ However, this then raises the question: is self-defense allowed, and if so, is capital punishment a form of self-defense?

One of the best distinctions I have come across to alleviate the complexity of this situation is to divide self-defense into three separate categories. Personal self-defense is the defense of oneself such as against a home intruder. National self-defense would be to defend your nation through war. Social self-defense is the use of lethal force to protect society, for example, executing criminals that are a danger to society; this is one of the examples someone in the pro-death penalty camp might use to justify their beliefs. All of these forms of self-defense are allowed in Catholicism, but the problem in the instance of social self-defense is that in a modern society like the United States, once these people are arrested, they are no longer considered a threat to society. They are put into a level of security in prison where they are with criminals who committed similar crimes. Any act of capital punishment that is used against these murderers by the state is then unjust since they pose almost no threat to society in such a state. Today, these maximum security prisons, where murderers are housed in, have reduced escapes to nearly zero. Someone who is convicted and sentenced to death should instead have a life prison sentence to contemplate the sin he has committed and then, hopefully, repent.

However, this does mean that execution would be allowed just because someone poses a threat to society This is only the case in a society that is not modern, unlike the United States. In medieval Europe where life was much more chaotic and less safe, it is reasonable why one might execute someone as they could pose a legitimate danger to society, which is permitted by the Catholic Church. Additionally, in a tribal setting, where one does not have the means to detain people, it would be a wise choice to execute a serial killer. These do not conflict with Catholicism, but needless killing does.

Americans are not seeking the death penalty to protect society, as those that receive the death penalty would otherwise spend their life in prison. Instead, many Americans seek the death penalty for revenge. This was made blatantly evident when anti-death penalty candidate Michael Dukakis, in his 1988 run for president, was asked in a debate whether he would support the death penalty if his wife was raped and murdered. In response, he stood by his principle, and calmly explained why he would say “no.” This was seen as a gaffe by many, but the most notable point that arose from the exchange is the question’s key revelation as to the American outlook on the death penalty. Dukakis was not asked whether the man was a danger to society, but whether he would personally want to seek revenge for the rape and murder of his wife. It is made very clear in the Bible that seeking revenge is prohibited, for God will give what every person deserves on Judgment Day.

Despite the aforementioned arguments, I find the secular arguments in situations like these to be even more compelling, especially as pertaining to secular nations. As a conservative, the question of how much power the government should have always comes to mind when discussing politics, and the death penalty is no different. An argument against the death penalty is an argument for limited government. The government should not be given the ultimate power to choose whether people live or die. In the American spirit of standing against tyranny, for the people to willingly give the government the power to kill,while the people have no such power, is a very dangerous choice. For the same reason one might support the Second Amendment to ensure that the government can never become tyrannical, one should never support the death penalty and the life or death power that those who support it entrust in the government.

Government has a long history of being ineffective at doing certain tasks, and this is why centrally planned economies, government-run health care, and socialism are all opposed by American conservatives. States such as the Soviet Union have shown the government’s ineffectiveness in excessively managing the functions of everyday life and operations. This shows in the United States through the justice system, with the widely agreed statistic that 4% of convictions are false, including those sentenced to capital punishment. This would mean that the government has the right to kill, and indeed has killed, innocent people. This should scare anyone, for that the United States government has the capability to kill you and anyone you know through a false conviction.

For clarification, I do not believe that the United States is in immediate threat of devolving into a tyrannical regime, but I do believe that if certain powers are not safeguarded in a way that prevents the state from excessively exercising them, then we run the risk of dangerously expanding government power. Prominent Democrats that have gained national support in presidential campaigns such as Beto O'Rourke have put out a proposal for a mandatory gun buyback program for what he would classify as ‘assault weapons.’ American conservatives would agree that this would be a gross overreach of power and that it would limit the American public’s ability to protect themselves from state tyranny. But, when the similar issue arises of allowing state-sponsored murder that could fall on innocent people, many do not have a problem.

The death penalty in a modern society is state-sponsored murder prohibited by the Bible. The American public justifies this by seeking revenge against those convicted who are now rendered contained and helpless at the whim of the government. The death penalty has no place in a modern society that could devolve into tyranny and totalitarianism, and should not be tolerated by those who seek to act in a Godly way or those who fear tyrannical government power that has plagued human history.

The Easter Sunday Bombings in Sri Lanka

April 21, 2020 marked one year since the Easter Bombings by suicidal Islamic terrorists in Sri Lanka’s major cities of Batticaloa, Negombo, and its capital Colombo left over two hundred and fifty men, women, and children in attendance at the Catholic churches of St. Anthony’s Shrine and St. Sebastian’s, the evangelical Zion Church, and three hotels dead (Crux). The death toll included Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. Most of the deceased were Roman Catholic. During the homily of this year’s Easter Sunday, one free of violence though under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcom Ranjith, compassionately and shrewdly named the perpetrators, nine members of the ISIS admiring Islamic preacher Zahran Hashim’s National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ), as “misguided youths." In short, he expressed his belief that the terrorist group involved did not represent the principles of the nation’s Islamic minority. Setting an example to the greater Sri Lankan society, one shaped by terrible ethnic-religious conflict, Cardinal Ranjith extended a much-needed olive branch. The lingering ethnic and religious tensions between the Tamil and Sinhalese ethnicities and memories of the Sri Lankan Civil War as recently as a decade earlier in 2009 had created the atmosphere conducive to a disillusioned few turning to extremism.        

During the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries of the modern era, Muslims experienced extreme violence and various degrees of harassment from both the Tamil and the Sinhalese. Most excruciatingly, during the civil war lasting from the early 1980s to 2009 between the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sinhalese Sri Lankan government, the LTTE  murdered two hundred and sixty-two Muslims and forced approximately seventy-five thousand to emigrate from Sri Lanka’s northern regions in two attacks on mosques. Years later, the government itself failed to act, a tacit form of approval, against the vandalization of mosques and destruction of property by Buddhist terrorists during the early 2010s. Most recently, on that bloody 2019 Easter Sunday, such negligence of minority security was similarly repeated by the malfeasant Sri Lankan intelligence services and political leaders of the highest authority who received alerts from India and the United States of potential attacks upon churches on Easter. Neither acted against nor even warned the Church of these threats due to the atmosphere of mutual mistrust among members of the bureaucracy, one ultimately favoring the Sinhalese-Buddhist majority.     

Consequently, the sense of helplessness among some Muslims led to a search for a means to assert themselves against domination. An acquaintance of one of the bombers from the town of Mawanella remarked “We all felt the same rage” at the trend of humiliating treatment and the sense of helplessness. He implied that the primary difference between the bomber and himself was that the bomber had expressed his resentment “emotionally” with violence. Another shared his belief that “The feeling of injustice” had been a motivation. Zahran and his terrorist society, paired with the conspiratorial transnational allure of connections with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), in their eyes an effective scourge against non-Muslim powers and a source of religious and national unity, offered a promising outlet for the enraged to spend their anger through self-destruction. After the attacks, the late-Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi claimed responsibility for the Easter Bombings. However, Zahran’s group appears to have been inspired rather than directed by ISIS, albeit with one of its members in direct contact with ISIS in India to receive training.                           

Today’s Sri Lankan population of twenty-one million people is majority Sinhalese Buddhist (70%) with Tamil Hindu (12%), Muslim (10%), and Christian (7%, majority Roman Catholic) minorities. A major question in Western media immediately following the horrific events revolved around the question of why had Sri Lanka’s small Christian minority been targeted in the nation’s first manifestation of international Jihadi terrorism. Christians too experience their own share of persecution and pressure especially against evangelizing by the Buddhist majority in power as a result of Christians' lingering historical association with their privileged position under Portuguese and British colonial governance in the past. On the other hand, Christians had participated on both sides of the civil war. Additionally, Christians and Muslims did not share a major history of violence in Sri Lanka before the bombings. Perhaps, the motivation for the terror of Zahran’s NTJ was a foreign import by means of the internet of ISIS’s anti-Christian and anti-Western vitriol. For example, before the beheading of twenty-one Coptic Christians in 2015, the masked leader of the murderers praised the utility of fostering a “majesty of terror” over Western diplomats, allegedly the modern day crusaders of the spirit of Roman Christianity. ISIS believes Christians are historically one of Islam’s major enemies. It is very plausible that the online radicalization of a small segment of Sri Lankan Muslims led to a conclusion that the source of their treatment, religious and political, lay in the Christian churches.

In Consideration of Monarchy

At present, the institution of monarchy is largely seen as a relic of a bygone era, limited to figurehead status within modern parliamentary states like the United Kingdom, or to totalitarian states such as Saudi Arabia. Yet, for thousands of years, monarchy was considered to be the premier form of government, an institution that was universal to almost every nation and culture. Though democracy focused political thinking tempts us to view the concept of monarchy as outdated, a closer examination reveals that monarchy carries a variety of benefits, many of which have become increasingly appealing with the rise of COVID-19.

Some of the most prominent advantages of monarchy lie in the unitary nature of the institution. The first and foremost of these advantages is the consistent nature of monarchy. With benefit of choice that accompanies a democracy comes uncertainty. While parties in a democratic system generally fall within the continuum of ideas that are acceptable to a society, the openness of the democratic system can facilitate the rise and spread of radical ideas due to the influence of demagogues. While monarchs are not immune to radical ideas, as Henry VIII potently demonstrates, there is a lower likelihood that they could be swayed in the same way demagogues sway the populace. As a singular governing entity without attachment to a party that would otherwise shape decision-making, the monarch has less connection to ideological factions, save for the philosophical precepts that govern the state. Such a lack of partisanship would ease political divisions that have recently grown sharply in western democracies, as citizens would no longer be battling each other for their respective parties to take the reins of power.

Furthermore, the monarch’s singular power gives it unparalleled agency compared to other forms of government. While they can be helpful in fostering deliberation and preventing rash decision-making, divided legislatures can prove significant obstacles that may delay or even prevent the creation of statutes that would be pertinent to the time. It is often the case that partisanship is to blame for legislative stagnation. Stagnation becomes particularly problematic in times of crisis, such as the refusal by senate Democrats in April to pass an aid package for small businesses unless they received funding for their interests as well. In the case of an absolute monarchy, the monarch has no such legislative constraints, and is free to make law according to the needs of the country. In cases of a constitutional monarchy, such as the Principality of Liechtenstein, monarchs still possess the necessary executive power to streamline the legislative process. While the Landtag is the country’s primary legislative body, the Prince still possesses the ability to veto legislation and to dismiss and appoint the prime minister.

Such concentrated power inevitably draws fears of tyranny in the minds of those with a more liberal attitude toward government. Like all members of governing institutions, monarchs are people, and are naturally prone to be flawed. Indeed, there have been various kings and queens who have acted as terrible tyrants. The name Henry VIII is prominently engraved in the minds of Catholics as an example of one of the worst oppressors of the church in history. Yet, various republics have engaged in similar levels of oppression towards the Catholic Church, most infamously Republican Spain during the Red Terror and Mexico under Plutarco Calles in the 1920s. Furthermore, democracy has also produced its fair share of infamous tyrants. It was the National Convention that facilitated Maximilien Robespierre’s rise to power, and it was the republican German Reichstag that passed the Enabling Act, allowing Chancellor Adolf Hitler to assume emergency powers. In addition, notable monarchs have gone out of their way to oppose tyranny historically. In Romania in 1944, Michael I, who had been reduced to a figurehead, took back his power in a coup and overthrew the Nazi-sympathizing dictator Ion Antonescu. As history demonstrates, tyranny is not inherent to monarchy any more than it is to democracies and republics.

As a matter of fact, monarchy has unique structures that serve to diminish the possibility of a tyranny rising. The most prominent of these is the hereditary succession that is an integral part of the monarchy. Unlike elected institutions, the identity of the future ruler is known years, if not decades ahead of their ascent to the throne. This period of time allows for the heir apparent to undergo rigorous training for when the day arrives for them to take the throne. Aside from honing their governing skills, the training that accompanies hereditary succession shapes the future monarch’s will to coincide with that of the state.

The issue of power is especially important when considering the present pandemic. A cursory examination of many U.S. states reveals that something has gone horrendously wrong. Elected officials have taken unprecedented steps to expand their power, with a poster child in the form of Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI). Aside from restricting travel between residences, Whitmer has imposed such inane regulations as restrictions on selling seeds and paint. While it could be argued that this is a glimpse at what the concentrated power of a monarch would look like, there are several key points that distinguish between the two. Foremost of these is that the governors are elected officials. It is often stated that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I would instead venture that it is the desire for power that corrupts. This is one of the first tastes of true power that many of our elected officials are experiencing, and they desire to expand their powers accordingly. By contrast, an official endowed with strong power and instructed from birth on how to use it would likely be less inclined to test its limits, as that person would not have anything more to gain.

It may also be argued that tyranny depends less on the type of government, but on the overall philosophy of the government. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the most repressive states in the world, while Liechtenstein is an extremely libertarian one. Both states have monarchs with great powers, but each governs their state according to its philosophy rather than according to its method of government. The same is true in the United States, where Republican and Democrat governors have taken differing lockdown measures that parallel their ideological values. In other words, it is philosophy that truly makes a tyrannical government, rather than the system.

To clarify some remaining questions, I do not necessarily wish for the installation of a monarch in the United States. Also, though I consider myself a monarchist, I am not using this article to advocate for a broad return to monarchy. Rather, I hope the points I have illustrated give pause for thought. It is clear that something has gone wrong with our system of government, and the Coronavirus has only served to accentuate the issues in the system. Perhaps this pandemic should give us pause for thought in regard to government, that democracy is not necessarily the purest form of government, and that other systems of government have their own merits. To address the future, it helps to reflect on the past.

Caution to Democracy: Dealing with Limited Freedom During a Pandemic

“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These are listed as three of our unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence that are to be protected by our government. Life during the COVID-19 pandemic, however, has left people with an overwhelming sense of helplessness, restriction, and despair. Our freedom, a central facet of American democracy, feels like it has been taken away from us with stay at home orders, requirements to wear masks, and the lack of normalcy we’re experiencing. The circumstances make us feel as if we’re living in a communist society rather than our cherished democracy.

The American people are experiencing increased frustration with their limited freedom. Protests are breaking out, and it seems as if distrust in the government is at an all-time high. In any government, a certain amount of freedom is given up in order to ensure the overall protection of its people, but being confined to our homes was certainly unprecedented. Many Americans are clinging to their rights now, and seem more fearful of compromised liberty than they are of a virus that jeopardizes the health of themselves and their loved ones. 

Are current restrictions on daily life truly reflective of a loss of liberty, though? Is it not the responsibility of our elected officials to govern in accordance with what’s in our best interest? Would they upset their constituents so deeply without good reason? Would a government that has championed a firm belief in individual liberty since its founding place that in jeopardy just for the sake of it?

Our freedoms are not being limited by an authoritarian regime on a power trip; rather, for the sake of our country and its people, we are being called to put aside our pride to “promote the general Welfare” of our beloved nation. Submission to the laws that protect us do not compromise our freedom––they ensure it. For example, the law prohibits us from assaulting someone. This law limits our freedom by prohibiting certain actions. Despite this, we accept it as necessary for our safety and respect the government’s right to enforce it. Just as laws prohibiting assault do not diminish our freedom, neither do temporary stay at home orders.  

COVID-19 may be making us feel repressed, but we must be cognizant of our nation’s overwhelmingly strong sense of democracy. The transparency with which our current administration has been dealing with the matter evidences the benefits we experience over nations like China. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) initial condemnation of Dr. Li Wenliang after his foresight of the virus reflects a regime that values its image over the general well-being and protection of its people. Our commitment to democracy through free speech and the ability to criticize our government’s policies reinforces our strength. We still have our freedom, even though we may not be able to express it as liberally as we would like to at the moment.

The U.S. government is trying to preserve our freedom as best it can, whereas China has been able to manipulate the situation to extract more private information out of its people. As a way to combat the spread of the virus, tracking apps have been developed that, when installed on one’s phone, can monitor who someone’s come into contact with (even in passing), and notify them if they may have been exposed to the virus. People throughout China have been required to install these apps and are assigned different levels of restrictions based on their risk level. So not only does the government have access to their locations, but some individuals’ movements will be restricted over others. The CCP can easily abuse this system to silence perceived threats from the public––an action that would not be surprising coming from their authoritarian regime. The United States is working on similar technology that is expected to come out soon, but participation is likely to be voluntary. Though the technology would certainly be useful in silencing the virus, our democracy is firm enough to recognize when one’s right to privacy has been totally breached. This is a privilege that those in communist countries do not have the benefit of experiencing.

Though still holding onto our freedoms, the pandemic cannot help but give us some insight into what life in a socialist state entails. We have seldom faced food shortages and limited resources, but now, the items we took for granted are missing from their place on the shelves, and going to the grocery store resembles a battle more than it does a shopping trip. Shoppers line up before stores even open in an effort to purchase the items their families need. Leisure has left the equation. Necessities as basic as toilet paper and paper towels are sold in limited quantities to each shopper. Hospitals are struggling with the resources they have, desperate for face masks and even medicine in general. This may not be abnormal in a socialist country like Venezuela, but it is certainly not what one expects in a democracy like the United States.

The dissatisfaction and uncomfortable way of living that Americans refuse to get used to is perhaps emblematic of the inevitable failure a socialist leader would face in the U.S. The prospect of socialism has been making a revival in the U.S. in the past few years, especially by the presence of the populist Bernie Sanders in his two  consecutive attempts at securing the Democratic presidential nomination. Americans value freedom and prosperity, and either of these being compromised would result in even more extreme displeasure if it were the result of permanently intended legislation. The implications of socialism would not fare well in a strong democracy such as the United States. 

COVID-19 has placed Americans under unforeseen restrictions that have often felt like an infringement on our freedom. And though we are temporarily unable to move as liberally as we once did, we must stay resilient by practicing social distancing if we wish to experience our freedom in its full form soon. We are fortunate to be under the leadership of a democratic state that acts in a way that seeks to ensure our individual liberty and takes any limits on it with the utmost seriousness. It is now that we must come together as a nation by staying apart.

Mitt Romney: A Profile in Courage

Written by President John F. Kennedy in 1956, Profiles in Courage details the careers of several United States senators who acted courageously and did what they felt was right despite the significant criticism and losses in popularity they faced because of their actions. In the book, President Kennedy describes courage as “that most admirable of human virtues” or “Grace under pressure, as Ernest Hemingway defined it.”

One senator who is highlighted in the book is Senator Edmund G. Ross (R-KS). During the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, it was clear that the Radical Republicans who controlled both the House of Representatives and the Senate had no intention of giving President Johnson a fair trial. When it came time to vote, Ross joined six other Republican senators who broke from their party and voted to acquit President Johnson. However, being the last of the seven Republicans to vote, it was Ross’s decision that eventually acquitted the president.

Despite claims of bribery, it was Ross’s genuine belief that “if a president could be forced out of office by insufficient evidence that was based on partisan disagreement, the presidency would then be under the control of whatever congressional faction held sway.” As a result of his decision, Ross, like the other six Republican senators, lost his bid for reelection, eventually returning to Kansas where his family dealt with poverty and ostracism from the community.

Over 152 years later and in the midst of another impeachment vote, it was another senator who displayed a similar act of courage. This senator was Mitt Romney (R-UT). When President Donald Trump was impeached as a result of allegations that he sought help from Ukrainian officials to influence the 2020 election, Senator Romney was put in a tough position. Being the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 2012 and with President Trump’s acquittal all but certain, many people assumed that Romney would naturally go with the flow of his party and vote to acquit the president. However, when it came time to vote on the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, Senator Romney shocked everyone by voting in favor of conviction, arguing that “corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine.” With that vote, Senator Romney’s place in history was forever sealed, as he became the only senator ever to vote for the impeachment of a president from his own party.

As a result of his vote, Romney was immediately hit with criticism. Right after his speech defending his vote, ‘#RecallRomney’ was trending on Twitter. At an airport, a stranger yelled at him and told him that he “ought to be ashamed!” The president, not one to shy away from attacking those who disagree with him, called Romney “a pompous ass.” Romney even faced disagreement from his own family, as Ronna McDaniel, who is chair of the Republican National Committee and Romney’s niece, said that “this is not the first time I have disagreed with Mitt, and I imagine it will not be the last.”

Despite all the criticism he has faced, Senator Romney deserves to be recognized and applauded for his political courage. Senator Romney could have easily taken the easy path, avoided criticism and simply voted in line with his party. However, Senator Romney made the difficult but right decision to vote based on his own conscience and belief, not merely because he is of the same party as the president.

You can not expect an elected official to vote like a robot and have blind obedience to authority. The reason why voters vote to send a person to Congress is that they trust that one person’s judgment to make difficult decisions. This was especially stressed by President Kennedy in Profiles in Courage, as he wrote that a true democracy puts its faith in people who “will not simply elect men who will represent their views ably and faithfully, but also elect men who will exercise their conscientious judgment” and that the people “will not condemn those whose devotion to principle leads them to unpopular courses, but will reward courage, respect honor and ultimately recognize right.”

This idea of having a conscientious judgment was also touched upon by Edmund Burke, who believed that elected representatives must act as they believe is right, regardless of the preferences of their constituents and that “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

While many are also quick to accuse Senator Romney of voting against President Trump out of pure hatred, it is important to examine his rationale for voting the way he did. And when one does this, they will see that this is merely an irrelevant claim. From the outset of the trial, Senator Romney took an impartial look at the evidence, and in the end, felt that the evidence pointed to the president’s guilt of abusing his power. As a matter of fact, if Senator Romney’s motive for voting against the president was indeed pure hatred, he would have voted to convict on the second count as well. After reviewing the evidence on count two, he felt that it was not sufficient enough to convict the president.

It’s also important to note that not only does Senator Romney vote with President Trump 78 percent of the time according to FiveThirtyEight, but also that Senator Romney and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have agreed on 93 percent of the votes in the 116th Congress. Based on this, labeling Senator Romney a RINO (Republican In Name Only) clearly ignores the senator’s voting history.

In today’s society that is filled with extreme partisanship, it is very hard to be politically courageous. However, Senator Mitt Romney shows us that we can be courageous if we want. Indeed, Senator Romney’s courageous decision is a refreshing moment in the Halls of Congress. It provides inspiration to those who want to be courageous but fear the outcomes of their decisions. More importantly, it teaches us that the most important thing one can do is to follow through with what one believes is right. I think we can appreciate Senator Romney’s commitment to his decision when he said that, “with my vote, I will tell my children and their children that I did my duty to the best of my ability.”

Brexit, France and Germany: What Future for Conservative Political Parties?

For the majority of you that do not know me, I have spent all of my life living between France, Germany and the United States.  As a political science major at HC and a daily reader of political news, the effect of public opinion and demographic shifts on electoral agendas has always fascinated me.  

Recently, two events occurred which exemplify a phenomenon that has slowly moved political majorities in large western economies: Brexit and the election of Thomas Kemmerich.  Kemmerich, a FDP (neoliberal) Minister-President of East German State Thuringia won parliamentary votes of the CDU (Christian Democrats) and far right (some call them Neo-Nazi, Alternative für Deutschland Party -AfD), causing a major political turmoil within Germany’s political class and ultimately leading to Kemmerich’s resignation.

While these events are seemingly disconnected, they characterize internal ideological conflicts mainstream political parties have been facing in the last 40 years and offer different strategic choices these parties have made to capture votes of an increasingly fractured and radicalized voter base.

In this short piece, I will share my understanding of how and why European political parties have lost significant chunks of their electoral base to far-right political parties and have adjusted their electoral strategies to survive, tacitly agreeing with their anti-immigration, populist agenda, collaborating with these factions or slowly facing the risk of disappearing.

Since the fall of the Berlin wall and collapse of the Soviet Union, mainstream European political parties have offered the following similar choices to voters:  a social democratic state on the left in which market capitalism is embraced but softened by generous social benefits, and, on the right, a freer, more laissez-faire form of market economy in which the government operates as a regulator but still allows for a generous safety net. Regarding immigration issues, the left has tended to embrace borders that are more open while the right has favored a slightly more conservative, nationalist stand. 

In Europe’s major western economies, political parties have divided the electoral cake and agreed on three ideas: social democracy, the free movement of goods and people and the construction of a supra national political organization, the European Union. They built their agenda, electoral pitch and policies around these fundamental pillars. Over time, however, several factors, which correlated to these policies, have hollowed-out their electoral base. De-industrialization, unemployment and immigration, have slowly pushed voters to retreat, abstain, or join the ranks of more extreme or alternative political movements whose messages focus on national identity and protectionist economic policies, but also “green” agendas.

The UK, France and Germany have all witnessed this shift at different times and in different forms. During that shift, far-right political movements remained at the fringe of mainstream political discourse, oftentimes demonized and excluded of any alliances or coalitions.

To survive this electoral shift, however, mainstream parties, especially those on the right, are increasingly tempted to poach on the hunting grounds of the far right.  In certain circumstances, Brexit and Thüringen, as recent prime examples, have openly benefited from their votes. Observers are wondering what the future of center-right parties will become and if far-right political ideas and parties will increasingly be accepted and perhaps even become necessary allies in coalition building.

Until recently, it would have been unthinkable for mainstream traditional center-right parties to benefit from passive or active support of far-right political support; The memory of the 1930s dictatorships in Spain, Germany, and Italy often acted as a scarecrow to any party suggesting a policy that left-wing opponents could be characterized as xenophobic, racist or fascist.  

Political Scientist Eric Kauffman brilliantly describes this in his book “White Shift,” showing how mainstream political parties refused to address the ideological demands of a growing chunk of the population frustrated by immigration (but not only), thus leading to the growth of so-called populist parties catering to these demands.

In this context, Germany, France and the UK, while completely different battlegrounds, are interesting examples to consider as right-wing movements shape the political agenda.

In France, nationalist anti-immigration party Front National (now renamed Rassemblement National), had been hoovering around 10-15% of votes until its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, made it to the second round of presidential elections in 2002. Since 2011, his daughter Marine has taken the party’s leadership, softened its image and has repeatedly gained second or third place in national elections, even earning 33.9 % of the vote in the recent 2017 elections in which Emmanuel Macron took everyone by surprise by running on an independent, centrist platform. Marine Le Pen’s popularity rises with concerns over immigration and has drained supporters from the traditional center-right parties (as well as the former Communist party interestingly), leaving observers to wonder how the center right’s electoral strategy will evolve to compensate for the loss of popular support.

Germany, due to its federal organization and electoral system offers a different picture. Its post-war constitution and political system were designed to prevent the ruse of extremist parties, favoring a strong, two-party system, much more similar/very similar to the one found in the United States but with a frequent occurrence of coalition governments.  While new parties have emerged, such as the neoliberal FDP or the Greens, the biggest political challenge to the two-party system was brought upon by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome over 1 million refugees, mostly stemming from Muslim countries.  This unilateral decision by the Chancellor led to the shattering entry into national parliament of the AfD in 2017.

The United Kingdom went through a different situation altogether. In a way, political decisions leading to Brexit – the 2016 referendum – were strategic yet hazardous moves by the Cameron government which none of its major European ideological relatives would have considered. The referendum clearly pandered to the anxieties of the right-wing populist Eurosceptic UKIP supporters and led to the surprising Brexit outcome, which materialized February 1, 2020 after nearly 4 years of negotiation.  

Going forward, in the hope that Europe and the global economy recovers quickly from the Covid-19 pandemic, the renewed spike in refugee arrivals at Europe’s gates brought on by Turkey’s aggressive diplomacy might strengthen the fear-narrative peddled by right wing parties and further weaken center-right parties unable or unwilling to cater to that voter-demographic.

With this in mind, the role of Germany and the Franco-German relationship will be key in the development of the European agenda in the coming months. French president Macron had already offered his vision for a more integrated and independent Europe in a famous speech held in Aachen, Germany in 2019. As expected, the fiscally conservative German political class received the speech with lukewarm enthusiasm.

Upcoming national elections in member and non-EU member countries could very well be the platform in which the questions tied to national identity and immigration might be discussed openly and might just be the opportunity for mainstream political parties to reclaim their electorate from the less experienced and oftentimes irresponsible right-wing political groupings and agitators.