Like the millions of voters who will decide US President Donald Trump’s fate, the 2020 White House race is in self-isolation. The coronavirus pandemic froze the Democratic duel between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, and eclipsed Trump’s reelection bid.

But it also clarified the stakes: The president’s handling of cascading economic and political consequences will now define November’s election and his place in history.

Trump could emulate Herbert Hoover, who was oblivious as the Great Depression devoured his nation, or Franklin Roosevelt, who saved it twice: From 1930s blight and during the Second World War.

Ironically, Trump has had to destroy his own best political assets — a roaring economy and red-hot stock markets — by closing down day-to-day American life to fight the pandemic. If hundreds of thousands of Americans die in a choked health-care system and the economy plunges into a prolonged depression, his destiny could be out of his hands — especially since he spent weeks dismissing the scale of the threat posed by COVID-19.

But, crass though it seems, he also has an opportunity. If, using the bully pulpit of the presidency, he changes course and offers strong, unifying leadership, he could shut out the man almost certain to be his Democratic opponent: Former Vice President Biden.

Even before the pandemic, the 2020 race was an extraordinary ride. After all, for the first time, an impeached president is running for re-election. A few head-snapping weeks threw up a vote-counting fiasco in Iowa and the real prospect that a democratic socialist, Sen. Sanders, would win the nomination of a major American political party.

Then Biden fashioned the most stunning comeback in primary history, storming through South Carolina and Super Tuesday, powered by African Americans and suburban moderates skeptical of Sanders’ “revolution.”

Let’s be honest: The Democratic race is done. Sanders is too far behind to catch up and cannot campaign with political rallies shut down. The only question now is whether his “Bernie bros” and young voters will unify behind Biden, an establishment lion, to beat Trump.

But Sanders’ ideas aren’t finished. Suddenly his plan for state health care does not seem so un-American, as hundreds of thousands of Americans lose their jobs and employer-sponsored insurance.

It is no secret that Trump fears Biden — after all, he got impeached for trying to dig up dirt on his rival in Ukraine, and the gaffe-prone 77-year-old former vice president imperils Trump’s rust-belt heartland. If Biden grabs back Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, he will be the 46th president.

But predictions are futile in such fraught times. No one knows what the election will even look like. Will the glitzy party conventions even happen? Will Trump wriggle out of debating Biden by citing the pandemic emergency? And will the virus abate in time to allow in-person voting?

Is Biden’s half century of governing nous, and the moist-eyed empathy distilled by a life of personal tragedy — he buried two children and a wife — a salve for a traumatized nation? Or will fearful voters embrace a strongman whose war on a “foreign virus” might enshrine his “America First” ideology for good?

Stephen Collinson is CNN's White House reporter.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view

Copyright: Arab News © 2020 All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

Disclaimer: The content of this article is syndicated or provided to this website from an external third party provider. We are not responsible for, and do not control, such external websites, entities, applications or media publishers. The body of the text is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis and has not been edited in any way. Neither we nor our affiliates guarantee the accuracy of or endorse the views or opinions expressed in this article. Read our full disclaimer policy here.