We’re seven days in as I write this column – depending on when you started counting. Seven days that have underscored how the “new normal” is becoming the rule for who knows how long.

As a confirmed introvert, this ought to be an interlude to be relished – quiet, contemplative, with more than ample solitude. Though it is anything but, due to the uncertainty and the unseen nature of the foe. One week in and I’m already stirring, though this is certainly just an early chapter. 

There’s a meme making its ways across social media with the message that our parents and grandparents were called upon to fight a world war while all that is being asked of us is to sit on the couch. That’s called perspective, the kind worth taking to heart. 

Having indulged in that bit of self-therapy (call it the columnist’s privilege), let me build on my column that ran last week and, as promised, offer some random observations of how this virus has altered the political landscape. 

Last fall, had some pundit been asked to list the key variables that would shape the coming election year, a global pandemic would not have been the first response. Yet here we are with this health catastrophe and growing economic and social catastrophe dwarfing everything else.

• The pace of 2020 events has been unrelenting. Just six weeks ago, the nation was in an uproar over impeachment. Four weeks ago, Bernie Sanders was the Democratic frontrunner; Joe Biden couldn’t crack the top three in the Democratic field; and Donald Trump was reaping the benefits of a robust economy and the lack of any seeming giant-killer among the opposition ranks. That was then; this is now.
• In the coronavirus, Trump may have finally met a situation he couldn’t blunder or bluster his way through. His response has been uneven and unsure, at best. Voters’ first requirement is that a president provide calm, confident, competent leadership in a crisis. Plenty of other faults can be forgiven; but not a failing there. Do you think the country will be reminded of his silly assurance, “Anybody who wants a test can get a test”? His inability to accept responsibility is totally in character but now has consequence. Harry Truman’s famous Oval Office sign, “The buck stops here,” is being replaced with Trump’s dodge, “The buck skips here.”
• Whether Trump was leading and his media acolytes were following or the other way around, they were collectively slow to grasp the gravity of the crisis. If the matter wasn’t so deadly serious, one might find humor in the manner in which much of conservative media has turned on a dime from downplaying the crisis or even labeling it a “political hoax” to belatedly joining the chorus of alert. As it is, it has induced whiplash and further diminished the medium.
• In any crisis, time is arguably the most precious asset. Fueled by the president’s early instincts to minimize the emergency, turn a deaf ear to the experts and not let any such “foreign” concern rain on his re-election parade, precious time measured in months was irretrievably squandered. Voters are likely to be unforgiving of that lapse; historians even more so.
• Which brings us to the perennial loser now suddenly turned Democratic hope and presumptive nominee. If there is precedent for a candidate experiencing such a positive reversal over three short weeks, it escapes me. Biden was the beneficiary of a strong under-current wishing to focus less on internal Democratic strife and more on removing Trump. When the South Carolina primary started to tip those dominoes, they fell quickly. Then the dawning realization of what the Coronavirus was to bring, a la Italy and much of Europe, was almost perfectly timed to consolidate support around Biden. His endless experience became a sought-after quality instead of a disqualifier. Suddenly, political disruption, whether from the right or left, lost its appeal in favor of perceived competence and a commitment to the institutions that presumably bind and protect us.
• Under the circumstance, how about a new name as Biden’s vice president? Despite the fact that he’s two years older than Biden. And despite him being a he where Biden has promised a she. How about Anthony Fauci? Still a distance runner just shy of age 80, who better to be a “running mate”? (Okay, I jest momentarily.)
• Many have opined on whether there is historical precedent for this election. I weighed in on this question a few months back, posing three elections decades ago as possible reference points. Given this new reality, we may hear echoes of Jimmy Carter’s 1980 re-election race where voters stuck in endless gas lines concluded that the incumbent was simply not up to the task. And turned hard against him in favor of a challenger, Ronald Reagan, coincidentally also bearing doubts about his age and fitness. Those gas queues pale in significance to the reality we now confront.
• Turning this briefly to home, Jared Polis has been governor for 14 months. But he became the governor in the past two weeks. Just as Bill Owens became the governor three months into his term on the day of Columbine. From this vantage point, Polis’s leadership has been sound and impressive – right on both substance and tenor. That said, the devil is always in the bureaucratic details where the results have been far more mixed. CDPHE’s botched handling of the drive-thru testing was one case of underwhelming under-performance.
• Back to the national scene, who would have guessed that the fallen Democratic candidate with the most lasting impact would turn out to be Andrew Yang? As Republicans led by Mitt Romney, and even with favorable head nods from Trump, rush to put in place Yang’s idea of universal basic income, even if only temporarily. Something about politics and crises and strange bedfellows.
• In such national moments, budgets can be damned. The government’s ability to print money was made for these instances. There is no market for a skinflint when fighting a pandemic and associated economic collapse. However, it might have been wise to enter this without running an unforgiveable annual deficit of over $1 trillion ($1,000,000,000,000) in a time of considerable peace and prosperity. Smart societies built to last exercise restraint to be ready for times of crisis and upheaval. Countless Americans will all too soon reckon with accumulated bills. But as a nation, we continue to put off the lesson about pipers being paid.

There you go – 10 political takes to go along with 10 broader observations earlier this week. For a light-hearted diversion, I’ll now cue up some old David Letterman Top Ten lists. A bit of laughter indeed can be recommended medicine. 

Eric Sondermann is a Colorado-based independent political commentator. His column appears regularly on Sundays in ColoradoPolitics. Reach him at EWS@EricSondermann.com; follow him at @EricSondermann