How Donald Trump could use his coronavirus disaster to win reelection this November

Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos: I'm sticking with the piece above because it makes a critical point: the Trump/Republican election strategy listed above only works if total coronavirus-related deaths remain at, or below, that of the season flu. You can only argue that Democrats are overreacting if COVID-19 kills less than the 60-80,000 people that the flu will kill this year. So, you'd think that Donald Trump and Republican governors would be particularly motivated in halting its spread! Why is it liberals begging conservatives to take the proper measures needed to slow the spread of this deadly virus? Stem the death toll, and Trump has a ready-made excuse for the shitty economy: The Democrats overreacted. Instead, his actions are pushing us closer to the nightmare scenario. For example, look at what happens if Florida doesn’t take action within the next couple of weeks, according to CovidActNow.org, which has modeled out potential scenarios for all 50 states: Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is among the fiercest Trump allies, and will not do anything to contradict or undermine the impeached president’s words and actions. So Florida is currently somewhere between “no action” and “social distancing.” If Republicans hope to keep COVID-19 deaths below that of the common flu, Florida alone may be Trump’s undoing. Even if those predictions are too dire, merely one-third of the non-shut down death toll is a horrifying 100,000.   Furthermore, the more the disease ravages red states and rural America, the harder it’ll be to dismiss it as a creation of New York City and San Francisco. Oh, they’ll try anyway! But local politicians will bear the brunt of explaining why they didn’t take the necessary precautions, especially if small-state death tolls end up exceeding those of New York and California—which is quite plausible. For example, the models that drive the CovidActNow.org projections estimate that California’s death toll, with its shelter-in-place already in action, will be around 11,000. Meanwhile, Missouri, which hasn’t taken any action at all, could see up to 122,000, Oklahoma could see 79,000 deaths, and Tennessee 136,000! As horrific as things look in New York right now, measures in place may limit the damage to 38,000. (California looks as good as it does because it was the first to start shutting down, particularly the five pioneering Bay Area counties that beat anyone else by almost a week.) In any case, if we see that kind of death toll play out around the country, Trump’s goose is cooked, and so is his entire party. Otherwise, whether by luck (a vaccine or better treatment emerges), or by action (militarizing the Canadian border stops the spread of COVID-19 in Arkansas!), Republicans will use that mix of liberal-blamin’, big-city-hatin’, racism creatin’, and grandiose Trump myth-makin’, to explain away the economic collapse, and pin the blame squarely on the Democrats. Seriously, everyone, you should read this piece in full. We need to see how Republican messaging around the coronavirus feeds into their 2020 electoral strategy. And hey, if we can shame them into more life-saving actions in order to protect their reelection chances, that's good too!