A Playbook for Winning the 2020 Presidential Election, the First in a Series of Steps toward Victory, Part I

For President Donald J. Trump, the enemy is winning. Time is against him with less than 100 days before the 2020 Presidential Election.

COVID-19 has not only overwhelmed the healthcare system nationally, but the virus—and the president’s response to the ensuing crisis—has become the central issue of the election. Victory now hinges on voters’ perception of leadership.

Deep in the midst of the global pandemic, the American people are all over the board when it comes to coping with Coronavirus. Many people are afraid and fearful that no end is in sight, while others act as if the pandemic poses no threat to them or their loved ones.

COVID-19 has transformed most people’s day-to-day lives. As the crisis has deepened, people need a sense of hope, not unrelenting despair. Yet, desolation and misery are in heavy supply: death tolls increasing daily, hours-long waits in lines to get tested, closed businesses, unemployment, cancellation of leisure activities, the list goes on and on.

At this point, President Trump has lost the perception war.

Can Trump Win in November?

Simply put, the 2020 election is nowhere near over. Many of the recent polls show presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, with a significant lead, however key battleground states are within the plus/minus polling margin of error range. And, we can never forget how wrong the pollsters were in 2016…hours into election day they still predicted a Clinton victory. What seemed ludicrous at the time was that people would not admit to exit pollsters that they had voted for Trump, essentially decimating a system used to predict election results for generations.

Another “smell test” would be for the media to go out into the countryside in key states and look around, see things with their own eyes. I drive 50 miles across Southern and Southwestern Ohio twice a week. I have yet to see a Joe Biden placard, but there are dozens of Trump 2020 signs and flags.

Although the media is not addressing the issue from this perspective, it seems that people responding to polls are more anti-Trump than pro-Biden. At this point, it is Trump’s repeated undermining of his own position that is turning prospective voters against him. This is not a wave of Biden hysteria, rather a show that people do not approve of Trump’s response to the pandemic, which means that if he changes course, he still has a chance at winning.

What I am prescribing is really a series of steps that President Trump must take if he hopes to rebound with less than 100 days to the November election (and recognizing that many, many voters will vote via mail early). However—a caveat—I do not think that Trump has the wherewithal or ability to implement these strategies and tactics.

Trump still has time to turn it around. If he doesn’t, his place in history is sealed—simply the worst president in American history—a one-term aberration. He will be viewed as the anti-Lincoln or anti-FDR, a president who when called upon to act supremely presidential and for the common good, instead turned the nation toward its basest, noxious race-baiting and Nixon-like law and order police state.

So, this is the Trump playbook for victory…but one that he will not implement, because he does not have the emotional IQ or self-actualization to contradict his current policies or “pivot” away from what he has created to this point regarding the Coronavirus epidemic.

The Speech of a Lifetime

Immediately, President Trump should schedule a prime time presidential address. Without smirking or seeming insincere, he should begin the event while wearing a mask and while taking it off, urge all Americans to follow his lead and wear a mask at all times in public spaces where they cannot efficiently practice social distancing.

Then, after practicing the speech as if his presidency depends on it, Trump should—with all the authenticity and enthusiasm he can muster—deliver a straightforward address that tacitly acknowledges the shortcomings of the US (and his) response to the pandemic.

Step One: The Message

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed America, our economy, our relationships with nations around the world, and is currently threatening the American way of life. This will change now!

Starting today, my administration is launching a national agenda for winning the war against the virus. We will take three critical steps:

1. I am personally leading a newly-configured Coronavirus task force. Working with the governors in each state, I will coordinate and administer a program that gets money, people, and resources to the states, particularly those hotspots hardest hit by the outbreak. While no president can give attention to just one challenge, leading the new task force will be my central focus and I will use the full power of the presidency to win this battle.

2. I am appointing Vice President Mike Pence to a new role leading a national War Production Board (WPB) with the sole focus of creating the infrastructure that we need to wipe out COVID-19 and then organize for the national distribution and implementation of a future vaccine. The WPB will work with American corporations to produce the medical supplies our health care systems need now and in the future in the US, by American companies, so that we are not reliant on foreign countries to fulfill our essential healthcare needs. America needs this kind of coordinated production now against the virus, just like we did in winning World War II.

3. I am asking Dr. Anthony Fauci to wear another hat, this time serving as America’s “COVID-19 Czar.” Fauci’s task will be to be my chief advisor on the pandemic. More importantly, with the help of federal resources and those at the state level, he will implement a reinvigorated testing and tracing campaign to identify and then contain the virus.

By winning the war against COVID-19, the United States will be able to prepare for the time when a vaccine is created and must be given to our 300-plus million citizens. And, more importantly, stopping the pandemic will enable the nation to regain its economic status, getting people back to work, and our lives to a new, post-COVID “normal.”

Toward Victory

What needs to be said again and again: people are angry and upset by President Trump’s actions (or perhaps more accurately—his inactions) during the pandemic. They are venting their frustration via disapproving his job performance and indicating that Biden would probably be a better leader during a global crisis.

In our poll-centric political games so popular on cable news channels, the score is tipped in Biden’s favor. Yet, there is no certain indication that the pro-Biden camp outweighs the anti-Trump sentiment. President Trump has not convinced enough potential voters that they should punch the lever for Candidate Trump in November.

A popular political cartoon representing how the nation has been crushed under the weight of the Teapot Dome scandals.

Widely considered the “best dressed man in Washington,” Jess Smith served as Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty’s confidante, friend, nurse, and bagman for the mountains of cash he was able to extort from America’s bootleg barons. When he committed… — Widely considered the “best dressed man in Washington,” Jess Smith served as Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty’s confidante, friend, nurse, and bagman for the mountains of cash he was able to extort from America’s bootleg barons. When he committed suicide on May 30, 1923, it ended what little hope Remus had from staying out of jail.

The Bourbon King offers a window into government corruption at the highest levels. Any lessons we can learn for understanding today’s political scene?

Presidential corruption is a delicate matter. Incredibly partisan, one side sees something that the other does not. History helps sort out details and brings new evidence to light, but then how do we deal with scandal as it takes place?

George Remus built a far-reaching bribery network that stretched from the suburban Cincinnati police to the Harding White House. He virtually taught Newport, Kentucky, about graft, which enabled the city to become a model for corruption and vice. Decades later, the mafia would move into Newport and see the city as a model for Las Vegas.

Much of the corruption Remus took advantage of came directly from the Prohibition Bureau, particularly as enforcement began. At every level, “Prohis" (the nickname given to agents tasked with enforcing Prohibition) fell to corruption and payoffs.

For example, many leaders at the state level issued whiskey certificates—paper documents that gave the holder the ability to sell liquor legally to pharmacies, hospitals, doctors, and others for “medicinal usage”—for a hefty fee.

“They received considerations,” Remus explained. “Otherwise those withdrawals would never have come to the respective distilleries that I was owner of.”

As a result of the permutations, trust evaporated and criminality ruled, particularly as officials in the Harding administration learned that they could be so dishonest.

Much of the underhanded maneuvers originated in Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty’s office and ran through Jess Smith, his bon vivant friend and confidante. Jess ran interference for Daugherty and his Ohio cronies linked to Harding’s White House. The money changed hands, which fit with Remus’s worldview of how men acted when they had a deal, but he had no guarantee that Smith could do what he said.

Amidst this setting, and with his own loose lips, could Remus possibly keep his central bribe secret? A journalist reported that he heard a rumor around town about George, explaining, “He was once heard to boast that he was immune from prosecution because he had the ear of the private secretary of a cabinet officer.”

The bribery network soon crumbled…

On May 30, 1923, Jess startled awake in the middle of the night. He drew a pistol from a bedside drawer, stumbled to the bathroom, and lay down on the floor. Positing his head on the side of a wastebasket, Jess put the revolver to his temple and pulled the trigger.

Smith killed himself a little more than two months before the shocking death of Warren G. Harding, who declined quickly on a trip out West and ultimately passed away on August 2, 1923, only 57 years old.

The Ohioan was wildly popular at the time and mourners lined the train route that brought the dead president back to the nation’s capital. Only after his death would the full weight of his scandal-ridden administration become unraveled by a series of congressional investigatory committees and reporters hot on the trail of his Cabinet members and their cronies, many who seemed to specialize in corruption. For George, the deaths of Smith and Harding left him with little hope. Worse, the tragedies severed his ties to Daugherty.

“Misfortune came fast, suddenly,” Remus said. “Jess Smith was found dead in his bathroom. President Harding died. The Senate called for the impeachment of Harry Daugherty. The game was over. I had no place to turn.”

Shortly after President Harding died in office, many scandals came to light that revealed the full extent of his administration’s corruption. However, Harding was given a kind of free pass.

Today, with President Donald Trump, the accusations regarding corruption are much more vocal and public. Events that transpired in Harding’s era demonstrated how bad actors could really line their own pockets by using their power in various schemes.

Modern presidents are not given the same benefit of the doubt. The amplification of outrage based on social media and a more pervasive news cycle means that cries of government corruption are going to be louder and shriller.

The challenge for us today is attempting to determine how much of the dishonesty is real and what might be condensed down to partisanship. Calvin Coolidge — Harding’s successor — watched a series of Congressional investigations into corruption by Harding Cabinet members. He constantly worried about how those spectacles would influence voters’ minds in the 1928 election.

As long as the economy boomed, observers gave Harding and Coolidge a free pass. At the time, the scandals did not topple their administrations.

Today, however, the notion of a free pass is laughable as a president’s every move is scrutinized by a highly-partisan citizenship.

The media—crippled by the financial crisis that has left the industry in shambles over the last two decades—responds by chasing every sensational detail, forced to feed the bile back to consumers, hoping that their anger will result in advertising dollars and measured in online “impressions.”

The corruption of the Harding administration—with George Remus at its center—provides a case study in corruption by White House subordinates who realized how swiftly they could fleece the system. Today, are we too distracted by the daily shouting to scrutinize the details as they unfold just below the surface?