If Not for a Financial Meltdown…
The 1997-98 Asian financial crisis caused economic havoc across much of the globe, with Indonesia one of the hardest hit nations. But it triggered a chain of events that discredited the country’s corrupt, repressive ruler, Suharto, and led to his 1998 resignation after over 31 years as president. His downfall signifies a lesson America learned this month: how even a disastrous development can rescue a nation from dictatorship.
Suharto oversaw significant economic reforms and growth while in power. In other regards, his record was repugnant.
As a top general, Suharto was tightly tied to the army-led killings of massive numbers of suspected leftists in 1965-66, with one expert estimating 500,000 murdered and other counts ranging as high as two million.
As president, he ordered Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of previously independent East Timor, which resulted in as many as 200,000 deaths.
As “one of the world’s most corrupt leaders,” according to Transparency International, he “allegedly embezzled up to US $35 billion in a country with a GDP of less than US $700 per capita.”
If not for the financial crisis, Suharto and his cronies could have continued their rapacious, repressive rule in Indonesia indefinitely. In his wake, the world’s fourth most populous country and largest Muslim nation still faces serious challenges even today. But it has become Southeast Asia’s most successful democracy.
If Not for a Pandemic…
Which brings us to Covid. If not for the pandemic, our reality these days would feature the re-election of Donald Trump and the evisceration of U.S. democracy.
Yes, I know we’ll never know for sure. But consider what would have happened in the absence of Covid.
Trump would have boasted about a low unemployment rate and other positive economic indicators. People would not have seen his utter incompetence and indifference in the face of such a deadly challenge. The United States would not have suffered, even as of early October, 300,000 excess deaths linked to the coronavirus, many a result of that incompetence and indifference.
Without the pandemic holding him back, Trump would have been holding his rabble-rousing rallies across the country throughout the whole presidential campaign, rather than only toward the end. And without contracting Covid, he would not have been out of action for a week down the stretch.
Once re-elected, there would be little to restrain Trump from trampling on more and more norms, rules, rights and institutions. He would not become an absolute autocrat overnight. But he would be on his way.
If Not for Trump’s Dysfunction…
There’s a second way in which Covid aided Trump’s defeat. It involves Trump himself – or more specifically, the dysfunctional part of him that gets in his own way.
Imagine if, instead of opting for denial, disinformation and outright lies throughout the pandemic, Trump had taken the non-narcissistic path. Imagine if he’d actually tried to limit the disease’s deaths. Imagine if he cared.
Yes, tens of thousands would still have died. The economy would have taken a huge hit. Mistakes would still have been made.
But most Americans would rally around a president handling the job responsibly during terribly tough times. Consider how support for George W. Bush soared after 9/11.
A Cultish Calculation
I suppose one could contend that, by showing reasonable leadership, Trump might have cut off a slice of his base that didn’t want to be told to wear masks, socially distance, limit travel, avoid motorcycle rallies and otherwise sacrifice its “freedom.” But given the cultish following he’s built, we should question whether the drop-off would have been large.
Far more important: Whatever Trump would have lost at the fringe would have been outweighed by more folks backing him if he’d displayed even a modicum of decent crisis leadership.
45,098 Lucky Stars
Now, it’s true that Trump was trailing Biden in polls even before the pandemic hit – though whether we want to put much stock in such surveys these days anyway is another matter. And Biden did accumulate large electoral college (306-232) and popular vote (nearly six million) margins.
But Biden’s win nonetheless hinged on narrow victories in a handful of states. In fact, as of today he only beat Trump by a total of 45,098 votes in three of the states that enabled his electoral college majority. If Trump had flipped Arizona (a 10,377 vote margin for Biden), Georgia (14,156 votes) and Wisconsin (20,565 votes), he would have tied Biden in the electoral college.
Trump would have won the 269-269 tie, since under the 12th Amendment the presidency would have been decided by the House of Representatives, with each state delegation (rather than each member) getting one vote. With the Republicans controlling more state delegations than the Democrats, Trump would have emerged on top.
As long as we’re thanking our 45,098 lucky stars, bear in mind that Biden’s margin this year is a lot lower that the 79,646 vote total that enabled Trump to edge out Hillary Clinton in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2016.
Pick Your Poison
None of this is to suggest that we should feel anything but dismay over a contagion that has already inflicted so much pain and shattered so many lives.
That same dismay applies to Trump’s dysfunction, even when he inadvertently acts contrary to his own selfish interests. Our country has paid a huge price for his pathology. Its legacy that will linger for years.
But history works in bizarre ways. Just as Indonesia benefitted in one big way from the disastrous Asian financial crisis, the United States gained something tremendously significant from the pandemic. In an alternate universe where Covid does not exist, Trump beats Biden two weeks ago and our democracy is at death’s door.
Back in our actual reality, literal deaths mount as the disease spirals across the globe. Covid’s cost to date? Over 1.3 million lives lost. Daily fatalities topping 10,000. And about 20 people perishing from the virus while you read this post.
Sometimes you win by losing. Sometimes you lose either way.
Yes – although it’s not clear that democracy has been saved. Rather say it hasn’t been completely trashed. Yet.
Good point. But let’s take our partial victories where we can, given the alternative of what a Trump win would have meant.
What you write is true, Steve, but let’s keep in mind the Biden has won the election by a commanding margin of nearly 6 million voters. Were it not for the distortions of an Electoral College heavily skewed toward rural states, we wouldn’t be weighing the impact of Covid on a few tens of thousands of popular votes.
Quite right, Phil. If not for our cockamamie EC system, Hillary would have comfortably beaten Trump four years ago as well. Unfortunately, given how tough it is to amend the Constitution and the forces arrayed against dropping the EC, we seem to be stuck with it for the foreseeable future. But those six million votes are good to keep in mind in terms of respecting Biden’s mandate.