By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com
INDIANAPOLIS – Government matters.
That’s one lesson the exploding coronavirus crisis has delivered.
In the countries – China, Italy and, now, the United States – where the national government has tried to deny that a potential pandemic presents problems, leaders have made the situation worse.
In parts of China, all commerce and social interaction have been frozen for weeks. The cost in lost lives, frayed health, and forsaken productivity are beyond calculation.
In Italy, the entire nation is on lockdown. The country’s hospitals are overwhelmed, and its old people exist in a constant state of risk.
Here in the United States, the president consistently has tried to minimize the crisis by calling it a “hoax†– his favorite term for any bad news he just doesn’t want to hear – while healthcare and national security professionals in his administration have just as consistently sounded alarms.
While the president engages in absurd conspiracy theories, businesses have canceled conferences. States and communities have banned large public gatherings. Schools across the nation have been closed. Entire towns have been put under quarantine.
This, in its way, is heartening.
While the federal government, led by a president who prefers fantasy to reality, flails, state and local governments have stepped up to meet the challenge.
This has been true in states, such as New York and Washington, where Democrats occupy the governor’s offices. They have acted with vigor to perform the government’s first function – protecting the safety of the people the government is supposed to serve.
But it also has been true in states, such as Indiana, which are led by Republicans.
Here, Gov. Eric Holcomb has done the things President Donald Trump should have done at the national level. Holcomb recognized the threat, provided information about it in a transparent fashion and took immediate steps to provide for public safety
When the first coronavirus case was discovered in Indiana, the Holcomb administration called a press conference on the issue before the news was even an hour old. Since then, the governor’s response has been rock-steady, concerned but not panicked, confident but not oblivious.
This is as it should be.
Leadership, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
When the president of the United States refuses or is unable to lead, it is natural that others will step forward to fill the void.
In a country in which millions of Americans along all points of the ideological spectrum have found a reason to doubt the effectiveness of the government that draws its authority from their consent, this should provide some reassurance.
When one part of our system of representative government fails – as the executive and legislative branches of the federal government have and continue to do in this case – other parts of the government often find ways to bridge the gaps. The system’s safeguards may be imperfect, but they do exist.
That’s another important lesson from this crisis.
Still, another is this: Frequently, the most fundamental question to be answered about a leader isn’t about ideology.
It’s about competence.
We Americans tend to tie ourselves in knots over how of solving problems. We fret and fume over whether a proposed solution is progressive or conservative, Republican or Democrat in conception.
The truth is there are liberal solutions to problems. There also are conservative solutions. Republicans have some good ideas. So do Democrats.
All these solutions and ideas have benefits. They also have costs.
Certain solutions and ideas benefit some Americans more than others. That’s true across the board.
No party or leader has a monopoly on wisdom or virtue. This also is true across the board.
But the one thing the successful leaders – Republican or Democrat, progressive or conservative – have in common is the ability to recognize challenges when they exist and confront them in a realistic fashion.
That’s how our government is supposed to function. At its most basic level, the government is an instrument to exert the public will to solve public problems.
We’re seeing now at the federal level what happens when a leader doesn’t grasp that – doesn’t see public office as a duty and a trust, but only as an opportunity for personal aggrandizement.
But we’re also seeing at the state level the good that can happen when leaders do understand and meet their duties.
Together, the president who flails and the governors who act are teaching an important lesson.
Government matters.
FOOTNOTE: John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
The City-County Observer posted this article without opinion, Â bias or editing.
