President Trump’s bold and unifying leadership during the coronavirus pandemic offers a template that all Republicans should follow as we approach one of the most important elections of our lifetimes.
By limiting travel from China and other coronavirus hot spots early on and securing our borders, plus temporarily suspending immigration and providing vital economic relief to struggling workers and businesses, our president has consistently looked after the well-being of all Americans at every stage of this crisis.
While the Democrats struggle to line up their various bickering factions in support of presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, Republicans remain extraordinarily united in our support for Donald Trump. Just as our newfound sense of national unity will carry us through the pandemic, the loyalty of GOP voters is one of the major factors that will help the president secure a second term.
There are limited cases of rancor in the ranks of Republicans, especially in some primary races this year. For instance, there’s been some bickering among Republicans competing for statewide office in Indiana, including personal attacks and dire warnings about so-called “electability.” Please, let’s leave that sort of pettiness to the Democrats. It is unity — not intra-partisan attacks — that will carry Republicans to victory in November.
Fortunately, such cases stand in stark contrast to the kind of patriotic fervor we’re seeing elsewhere in the Republican Party and across America as a whole.
Republicans should look to President Trump for an example of what it means to set aside political differences for the good of the country. The Trump administration’s round-the-clock efforts to broker agreements between Republicans and Democrats in Congress, for instance, yielded the historic $2.2 trillion relief package known as the CARES Act.
President Trump has also established productive working relationships with Democratic governors in some of the hardest-hit states, including New York and California, to speedily conduct hundreds and thousands of tests and get supplies to their hospital systems with the goal of preparing to reopen the economy as soon as possible. As a result, the COVID-19 fatality rate has decreased in the United States to a level far below what most experts anticipated just a few weeks ago, and we passed the peak without a single American dying for lack of a ventilator.
While some Democrats, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, have tried to hinder our nation’s progress in the war against COVID-19, others such as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, have praised President Trump’s “extraordinary efforts and acts of mobilization.”
The Democrats’ inconsistent appraisal of the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic parallels their uncertainty regarding their own presumptive 2020 nominee. Republicans, who are poised to reap an electoral windfall from the other side’s internal conflicts, should pay careful attention. We need to stay united to ensure that we win the 2020 elections, just as the country must stay united to ensure that we defeat the invisible enemy.
Herman Cain is CEO of The New Voice, Inc and a former presidential candidate.