Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes write:

President Trump rode out the Mueller investigation. He survived impeachment. He has waved away dozens of lesser scandals as though they were nothing more than gnats.

But now he faces a challenge unlike any he has confronted before: The coronavirus is continuing its spread around the globe and has arrived in the United States, causing widespread alarm and a precipitous drop in the stock market.

Americans should all hope he succeeds in mitigating the danger posed by the virus, though there are reasons to fear he is not up to the task. The new pandemic is a challenge for which his playbook seems uniquely unsuited.

The Trump crisis playbook to date has involved bullying both political allies, to keep them in line, and potential opponents, to prevent them from talking. It has involved lying. It has involved the deflection of attention onto other matters. It has involved attacking the attackers, spinning conspiracy theories about and spawning investigations of the investigators. It has involved bombastic dismissals of serious issues as the latest “hoax” or “witch hunt” or instance of “presidential harassment.” And it has involved endlessly reminding people that the economy is humming along and their 401(k) plans are doing well.

But a virus, unlike a Republican member of Congress, cannot be bullied. It doesn’t care about the president’s poll numbers. Nor does it pay any mind to whether the president describes his own handling of its presence as perfect.

The second- and third-order consequences here are also out of the president’s control. People don’t hold on to stocks out of political loyalty whose value they see declining. Businesses don’t make purchasing decisions to validate presidential ego either. The current challenge involves the highly distributed actions of countless organisms—human and microbial—none of whom will be looking over their shoulders at the president’s anger or desires. [Continue reading…]