Students of history know about pandemics, we’ve seen them before. So we’re on solid ground when we offer this advice—Survive. That’s what most people have done in the past. This advice will strike most readers as too general to be useful, so here are a couple of practical suggestions: 1) panic; 2) don’t panic. Research a little and you will arguments and reasons for choosing either course of action. I have no insight of expertise to offer, so I will concentrate on events and factors which may be overlooked.

Political trends, referring to American struggles for political success, have been predicable so far. President Trump’s speech and his policies have pleased his supporters and admirers. Trumpophobics dismiss them with scorn. Their scorn is especially energized by his quarantines, which they attack as xenophobic and racist. This response has become reflexive. Attacking everything and everyone identifiable as conservative, right-wing and Republican as racist is so habitual that it takes a powerful act of will-power for liberals refrain from doing it.

Joe Biden, for example, tweeted thus @JoeBiden “A wall will not stop the coronavirus. Banning all travel from Europe – or any other part of the world – will not stop it. This disease could impact every nation and any person on the planet – and we need a plan to combat it.” Actually Trump & Co have a plan. It includes limits on travel into the U.S. from areas where the virus is widespread and growing. Slow Joe, hobbling along on the trail of the liberal Democrats open borders mania, seems to have been overlooked by Nancy Pelosi when she sent word that House Democrats had dropped their bill limiting the president’s power to restrict foreign travel. They dare not openly oppose, but they don’t want to be seen approving restrictions

I’m no admirer of Speaker Pelosi, but nobody has ever heard me say that she’s dimmer than Good Ol’ Joe. She can see that when Americans read that Italy has limited movement from one Italian town to another Italian town in order reduce transmission rates, they will not understand why it’s racist of xenophobic to reduce movement across American borders. The rationale for these restrictions is easily understood. The World Health Organization has published data showing that the rate of increase differs radically from country to country.

Joe Biden has done more about the looming pandemic than tweet about Trump’s inadequacies.

He has announced the creation of a “Public Health Advisory Committee” composed of Democratic experts. This committee will advise him on making a Corona virus plan. Has the United States really got to the point where we distinguish Republican health expertise from Democratic health expertise? Is it easy to believe that the President of our Republic has better access to public health data and expertise than a private citizen with no official access to government resources? That is not a mere rhetorical question. I’m quite certain some people will reply Yes! to both questions. That’s not a good sign.

Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the principal designers of Obamacare, will serve as one of Biden’s advisor’s. This is the same Ezekiel J. Emanuel who wrote an article in the October 2014 issue of The Atlantic entitled “Why I Hope to Die at 75. An argument that society and families–and you–will be better off if nature takes its course swiftly and promptly.”

Finding myself, a survivor of 74 years of bad habits (I was a late bloomer), on the slippery downward slope from age 79 I await the outcome of a race between senility and death. I begin to see the superior merits of death, so I will pass on the essentials of Dr. Emanuel’s argument. Here goes:

“Here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.”

It would have been simpler and shorter if Zeke had simply quoted Charles De Gaulle’s observation: “la vieillesse est un naufrage” (Old Age is a Shipwreck). It’s true, you know. I was warned about it. I knew about the “Four R’s”–the Rope, the Razor, the River, the Revolver,” all readily available and all offering a dependable means of avoiding senility. But I let too much time by and now I’m too senile to act.

I’m not inclined to reject Zeke’s thesis out of hand. But there are two aspects of his meditation which deserve some consideration.

First, it’s well establish the youngsters are resistant to the Corona virus while the elderly (e.g., Me) are prime targets. Is everyone over 60 entirely comfortable with having this man plan for our survival/non-survival? It’s one thing to say 70 is the new 60; quite another thing to say 75 is the new dead.

Second, Joseph Biden is two years beyond Zeke’s “die by date” and appears to be faltering, declining, and robbed of whatever creativity and ability he ever possessed. There’s growing evidence that some Democrats suspect that the man is feeble, ineffectual and even pathetic. You see where I’m going here? Does the Secret Service know about Zeke’s October article? Will they feel comfortable having him around a President Biden? Are they already formulating contingency plans for a dedicated Watch Zeke detail?

John Frary of Farmington, the GOP candidate for U.S. Congress in 2008, is a retired history professor, an emeritus Board Member of Maine Taxpayers United, a Maine Citizen’s Coalition Board member, and publisher of FraryHomeCompanion.com. He can be reached at jfrary8070@aol.com.