Townhall Review | Commentaries

One silver lining in the dark coronavirus cloud is the revival of federalism, the old-fashioned idea that not every issue has to be decided in Washington. While most every policy issue—from education to health care and beyond—has traveled a one-way road from states and local governments to Washington, the coronavirus crisis rediscovered a leadership role for state and local government.

Early on we learned that states like New York, California and Washington needed to address the crisis more quickly and their governors began to lead.  In California, there were higher concentrations in Silicon Valley and San Francisco, so mayors and county commissioners took action.  Important work was done well before there was a national consensus, and these laboratories of experimentation informed larger policies.  

This is exactly how the founders saw our government working.  Hooray for the revival of federalism.

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“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

So Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared to the British House of Commons in 1940 as the Battle of Britain raged in the skies and the Royal Air Force defended the United Kingdom from Hitler’s Luftwaffe.

That salute from Churchill echoes across 80 years to this day and is amplified in the praise for every front-line responder—health-care professionals, hospital staffs, nursing home workers and so on.

There’s an idea circulating through Donald Trump’s White House right now that would indeed grant eligibility to the GI Bill’s benefits to all those front-line responders who are battling the virus every day.

We should do it. Now.

Yes: We should clap these workers to and from work when we can, but we should also create for them a concrete set of economic thank-yous for those seeing us through the crisis.

It would be a tangible help for the heroes.

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Picture the scene: several studious young children translate Latin, discuss Shakespeare, and consider polynomials together.

Would you think you’re looking at a seedbed of white supremacy?

That’s how a recent article from Harvard Magazine, entitled “The Risks of Homeschooling,” presents religious parents who practice homeschooling. Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Bartholet argues that homeschooling evangelicals are “extreme religious ideologues.” In her view, these fearsome fathers and mothers pose some sort of major threat to national health.

This paranoid perspective is not new. For over 100 years, figures like John Dewey have argued that the state, not the family, has the fundamental right to shape children. And—for over 100 years—Christians and many other fair-minded citizens have pushed back against this view, even if they have their kids in school.

After all: The family is the first institution—not the state.

You could well label homeschooling traditional.

It certainly is not extreme.

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A chilling headline ran over Easter weekend from CNN: “Louisville Police Officers to Record License Plate Numbers of Easter Weekend Church Goers.”

Over the course of this pandemic, I’ve argued that churches should follow generally applicable shelter-in-place orders—that these orders and guidelines do not violate religious liberty.

Indeed, we ought to comply with them out of love of neighbor.

But if policies single out churches and religious groups, it becomes an entirely different issue—an unconstitutional violation of religious liberty.

Over the course of the last several weeks, government officials have crossed the line.

In the case of Louisville, it took a restraining order from United States District Court Judge Justin Walker to curtail Mayor Greg Fischer’s attempt to prevent drive-in church gatherings.

The Judge said, “The mayor’s decision is stunning, and it is ‘beyond all reason’ unconstitutional.”

Consider this, in America in 2020, comes the threat that they’re taking names and they’re taking numbers.

It’s extremely important that all American Christians take note—and in a hurry.

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President Trump continues to lead an effective counterattack against the coronavirus pandemic. The economic ruin is vast—but a V-shaped recovery seems possible if congressional Democrats will move as quickly as Trump has.

Small businesses and not-for-profits have been clamoring for replenishment of the Paycheck Protection Program. By blocking additional funding over this past weekend, House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Schumer forfeited their right to be taken seriously as tribunes for middle class or blue-collar workers.

The Democratic blue bubble is thick, and the air within it turns out to be a heck of a drug. Cable TV talking heads and left-wing Twitter seem to believe with deep conviction that COVID-19’s human carnage and the economic ruin will be blamed on the President.

But the American people see an administration on the offensive, determined to beat the virus and restart the U.S. economy as soon as it is safe to do so.

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President Trump should be applauded for his decision to halt funding to the World Health Organization while the administration reviews the group’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

You and I—the U.S. taxpayers—write a $400 million blank check to the WHO each year. It’s an organization that is broken and long overdue for fundamental reform.

In its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the WHO has demonstrated that it puts politics over public health.

During the critical weeks and months when the virus began its spread in China and then around the world, the WHO seemed more interested in playing politics—deferring to China—rather than taking the actions that could have saved lives around the world.

We should not waste this opportunity to bring about the lasting, positive changes that will ultimately save lives and improve public health not just here, but around the world as well.

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It sure feels better to be discussing the potential path out of this COVID-19 nightmare—in contrast to the last month of wondering when we could even talk about restarting the economy and our lives.

White House has a solid framework for what that plan looks like and we need that hope.

As we begin the inspiring and energizing road back to some semblance of normalcy, we better not lose sight of the hazards that can arise along the way.

Even as some businesses reopen, some folks should wait to return due to age or other vulnerabilities. Gloves, masks and social distancing gonna be with us for a good while more.  

And we absolutely need reliable widespread testing. 

We are on way out of this, but it’ll take every measure of our national resolve and our personal commitment to do it successfully.

But we can do this.

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The Coronavirus pandemic is awful. Nonetheless we should not miss that this event allows us the opportunity to take stock of our national health.

Here’s one angle. For decades, Americans have watched as uncritical globalism has shipped hometown jobs to overseas locales. Many hard-working people have lost employment, with many men struggling greatly. Opioids have filled the gap, leaving families ravaged in their wake.

Too long have we just watched these trends. Too long have our towns crumbled, our families pulled apart. Too long have we tolerated economic chaos to buy trinkets for a few dollars less. The social costs have been staggering.

A global economy bears many benefits to us all. But uncritical globalism has had major consequences. We need masks, for example, but depend upon a corrupt Chinese government for them. The irony is thick.

Now is a great time to imagine what a national reset could look like.

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We just passed the Passover and Easter Holiday weekends and I noticed something very interesting in the data published by the University of Washington.

It looks like the U.S. death rate from coronavirus peaked on April 10th, that is Passover and Good Friday. That day 2,077 people died, more than any other day before, and from there, daily death tolls look to be retreating.

Providence? Coincidence? You be the judge. But it certainly is poignant and spiritually powerful. Passover was the moment of peak death during the plagues on Egypt when Jews stayed at home together worshiping while the angel of death passed through the land. Good Friday was the peak death moment of human history, the hour of darkness before the turning of Easter and the defeating of death in the resurrection.

What an appropriate time for death to be on the retreat in our current struggle.

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The evidence that China covered up the early days of the novel coronavirus that has now left the world in great danger is overwhelming.

China has suffered a well-deserved loss of “soft power” and goodwill here in the US.

Most of us are now awake to the evils of this regime. But—as we respond—we need to be smart about it.

We don’t need to be concerned about cheap toys and consumer electronics.

We need to get hyper-focused on genuinely strategic industries—especially high tech and biotech/pharma. The way to stop the rise of China is to put maximum legal pressure on U.S. tech executives who look the other way while China steals the military technologies of the future: AI, quantum computing, 5g networks and advanced biotechnology.

We need to protect the intellectual property that drives the rise and fall of great powers, the cutting edge of technology.

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