Maybe the President will be right, and by the fourth quarter, the economy is humming along. Everyone will be back to work and spending as if nothing ever happened. The 30+ million unemployed were just on an extended paid vacation. That’s one scenario. It’s the one most hope proves to be true. Of course, maybe not so many go back to work. Their old jobs and employers no longer exist. A negative wealth effect rules out discretionary spending. The media highlights continuing deaths among the at-risk. As a result, many are still reluctant to go to a restaurant or get on a plane. It’s hazardous to travel. Children and their parents realize they lost a year of education. They’ll never get it back. Maybe people will be unhappy.

When things aren’t turning out as well as hoped, we ask what went wrong and why? Remember, the Iraq invasion was supported across the political spectrum until it wasn’t. As things went awry, people felt misled. Was it mishandled? They wondered why they wasted so much money and resources? The lives that were lost. There were revisionist answers. Will this be how the Covid-19 epidemic lockdown plays out? Will, the voices of opposition, drowned out during implementation suddenly have a megaphone? Saying “I told you so” is always satisfying to many. If we experience a slow climb out of a steep hole and people realize their pain is the result of a colossal overreaction, they will be looking for someone to blame. Remember, the last two presidents claimed to have opposed the war from the beginning.

As it was in the Iraq War, both our major political parties, with a few individual exceptions, backed the lockdown. Both parties joined in the most massive peacetime spending orgy in history Common cause explains why there is so little criticism from politicians or their media allies. The President makes the unsupported claim he saved millions of lives by his underwriting the lockdown. The only discernible Democratic criticism of his actions is he isn’t maintaining it longer, and he needs to spend more. They agreed on the shut-down and that they would throw money at it.

Whether they would admit it, both sides relied on Modern Economic Theory (MMT) to justify trillions of dollars of new Covid-19 expenditures. The theory is an idea propagated by far left, with the cooperation of the supposedly independent Federal Reserve, fiat money to spend on whatever. The Fed buys excess debt by creating money to pay for it. Because the debt is in our currency, we can meet the terms by “printing” the needed cash. Because of our established good credit and the primacy of the dollar in international trade, people will continue to buy and hold it. The problem with the theory is the same as with anyone who overuses their good credit. One day you can’t roll it over. People look at the total and say no thanks. Nobody knows when that will happen, but once it does, there is no going back. You can go closer and closer to the volcano’s edge without harm, but once you go over, you’re finished. When our credit is gone, and the dollar is no longer a reserve currency, it will take a long time if ever to return. Our two major parties, instead of recognizing the impending disaster, only concern themselves with divvying up the cash. Not content to push the country into our present depression, the politicians have planted the seeds for a major future crisis.

I warned in the series “The New Party” the two major parties had lost their capacity to govern effectively. Pulled to their extremes, they can no longer present responsible candidates or policies. I made clear the need for new competition to force reform. The parties conspired to put us in this extreme lockdown and then joined record settings spending spree. Either creepy sleepy Joe or the Donald will lead us into a now highly questionable future. Will the people lose confidence in those that brought us to this point? The “best and the brightest” talked about science, facts, and data, but ignored them all.

Given the obstacles placed in front of anyone challenging the two major parties, only one somewhat obscure congressman is in a position to take full advantage of the situation. The one person uniquely placed to upend the political duopoly is Justin Amash. If he gains the Libertarian Party nod, he’ll be on the ballot in all 50 states. He one of the few on record as opposing the massive coronavirus spending bills. Libertarians, by definition, are against a big overbearing government. He can relentlessly hammer the establishments for the ongoing crisis.

Other than seeing him on TV a few times, I know little about Rep. Amash. He seems intelligent and thoughtful. His impeachment vote shows he will stand up for his principles. He seems knowledgeable. Amash probably knows where Aleppo is. The inability to locate that Syrian City, sunk the last Libertarian candidate.

The real question is, does he have the courage to club his opponents while maintaining poise and likability. He will need to surround himself with those on record as favoring a targeted approach to the virus from the start—people such as Dr. Scott Atlas and Dr.John Icannidis. If enough people become convinced, there was a better way than the establishment’s incredibly costly depression; he becomes the viable alternative. If he believes the lockdown was good policy, he’s doomed. I think he is smarter than that.

As impossible as seems now, come November instead of Joe and Donald, we may be talking Michelle and Justin.