This opinion piece may represent many voters, including those independent voters who may or may not have a fixed view on Trump or Biden, who are thinking more along the utilitarian line of “Who is better for the country?” Frankly, I myself was thinking the same way and would have voted Trump — if there were no pandemic (I would never wish Trump dead however, which would be too mean and would have crossed the humanity bottom line).
Unlike the author above, I would definitely vote for Biden and never for Trump not just because the low ethical level that Trump has revealed and his anti-science position. Let us consider the economy. Would Trump do a better job than Biden in handling the economy?
It has been the common public perception that Trump beats Biden in that field. An important reason is like the aforementioned essay has said: Trump has built a good track record up until the pandemic hit the country. In fact, without the pandemic, Trump would have had little trouble getting reelected.
Trump’s Economic Leadership Should Be Questioned
Trump has had the “benefit of doubt” when it comes to his economic/business leadership. After all, he is the first president arising from a full time business background. True, the US economy, including employment, was doing well before covid-19. However, he has followed the old republican recipe of cutting taxes and deregulation. Other than that, he has essentially led the country by his personal gut feelings, with a personal preference of reading the performance of stock market and using that to guide his decisions. This is a dangerous approach for a national leader to keep the economy on track in the long run. A strong leader cannot and should not lead by intuitions and personal preferences, at least not for too long, because sooner or later problems would come up and such a leader would be ill-prepared for new challenges. A true and strong economic leader must be thoughtful and insightful, possessing a big tool box for all kinds of scenarios and “what-ifs”.
Trump Has Won By Looking Backward
Another reason that Trump is a weak economic /business leader is that he has so far only looked backward and protected sectors that are not “savable” or cost too much to save. A true business leader must lead by forward looking and by leveraging the future oriented industries that can offer resources to help the past-oriented industries transition into sustainable businesses.
No insightful business leader would move toward the decoupling from China, either. The reason is simple, the global supply chains emerged because they provided unique opportunities for all countries to win at the same time. Decoupling would waste all the resources that we have accumulated from the globalization. Note what and how each country was or is thinking in joining the global supply chains is largely irrelevant. Even if China did want to take advantage of the US, it cannot achieve its goal unless firms from the developed economies (like the US) wanted to take advantage of cheap labors and resources there. After all, trade is for parties to take advantage of each other. Decoupling however would take us back straight to where we were as if nothing has happened in the past decades.
The easiest and smartest thing for any true business leaders to do is to leverage, rather than to destroy, the global supply chains. Trump and his administration has shown no sign of deviating from the decoupling track and for that reason, it is dangerous to keep Trump in the office for another four years!
Biden Is Still A Big Unknown
If Trump has shown enough bads, we know relatively little about Biden. So far the Democrats are getting a free ride from Trump and it is true that if it wasn’t Trump, Biden would have a much harder time to win.
What we do know however is that Biden is a centralist within his own party, that by itself is a good sign because after four years of Trump extremist behaviors a centralist is more appreciated. We also know that Biden would not quit from international communities as Trump has, which is another good sign. As a party, the Democrats, as indicated by Jeffrey Sachs, leans toward forward looking and has been associated with the coastal blue states that have more advanced industries.