March 16, 2020

As I see panic gripping our nation and its rippling effect around the world, I ponder the question:

When was the last time I experienced a hysteria like the one I am witnessing in the United States?

The date was September 15, 2008, less than two months before the historic election that propelled Barak Hussein Obama from the relative obscurity of a junior U.S. Senator to become the President of the United States.

When the Federal Reserve refused to bail out Lehman Brothers and guarantee its loans, that giant financial investment bank filed for bankruptcy. Lehman Brother’s default set in motion a national and international economic crisis that experts suggested nearly plunged our nation and world into another Great Depression.

Bank failures, a plunging stock market, consumer default on home loans, and an eventual bail out of two of the big three automakers created instability and economic havoc.

For the Democratic Party and its socialist policies, the stage was set to take the White House in 2008, as well as, the House of Representatives, and Senate.

Dateline: March 2020 – A national crisis with seven months to the Presidential Election.

The news of the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and the public panic fed by a 24\7 news cycle has forced politicians to respond to perceptions over reality (death toll as of March 16, 2020 is 69 according to USA Today).

Federal and state governments are instituting harsh policies that politicians insist are necessary to curtail the spread of the virus. The Washington Post headline reads: “U.S. Life Shuts Down Due to Coronavirus.”

In a matter of days, we have witnessed something no one expected: the world’s strongest economy is in trouble, federal interest rates are at zero, and the great surge of support for the re-election of President Donald Trump is threatened as he and his administration grapple with the Coronavirus and the political fallout.

What do 2008 and 2020 have in common? 

A crisis that has set the stage pitting two political ideologies against one another: Republican vs. Socialist.

Like the wizard hiding behind the curtain on the Wizard of Oz, I wonder who is pulling the levers of power in the current crisis. Regardless of who or what is behind the turmoil, the power to decide our fate as a nation still rests with “We the People.”

As Americans, we have an opportunity to decide if we will live in a “nanny-state” and serve the government, or if we will accept nothing less than a government that serves “We the People.”

Let us not place our faith in men. Trust God knowing He is Sovereign.

Romans 8:38-39 – “³⁸  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, ³⁹  Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Copyright – Travis D. Smith