Trump slowed the coronavirus's spread by closing America's border to flights from China.  Democrats called him racist and then ineffective.  Bernie even suggested that America is facing a crisis equivalent to World War II.  During Friday's press conference, Trump, perhaps inspired by WWII, proved them all wrong.

Bernie was the voice of the Democrat establishment when he announced that this was World War II all over again!

"In terms of potential deaths...the crisis we face is on a scale of a major war...we also have to face the truth and that is that the number of casualties may actually be even higher than what the armed forces experienced in World War II." -Bernie Sanders pic.twitter.com/mMPbfcl2aT

— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) March 12, 2020

If Bernie knew his history, he'd know how America helped win the war without sacrificing almost 9 million troops, as Bernie's beloved Soviets did.  (Lacking weapons, the Soviets just threw their troops at the Germans.)  First, we had American troops, and that's already a huge plus.  Second, America was the arsenal of democracy.  This was because the private sector, while maintaining its private status (i.e., it was not nationalized), partnered with the federal government to create the materiel necessary to win the war:

"Powerful enemies must be out-fought and out-produced," President Franklin Roosevelt told Congress and his countrymen less than a month after Pearl Harbor. "It is not enough to turn out just a few more planes, a few more tanks, a few more guns, a few more ships than can be turned out by our enemies," he said. "We must out-produce them overwhelmingly, so that there can be no question of our ability to provide a crushing superiority of equipment in any theatre of the world war."

[snip]

War production profoundly changed American industry. Companies already engaged in defense work expanded. Others, like the automobile industry, were transformed completely. In 1941, more than three million cars were manufactured in the United States. Only 139 more were made during the entire war. Instead, Chrysler made fuselages. General Motors made airplane engines, guns, trucks and tanks. Packard made Rolls-Royce engines for the British air force. And at its vast Willow Run plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan, the Ford Motor Company performed something like a miracle 24-hours a day. The average Ford car had some 15,000 parts. The B-24 Liberator long-range bomber had 1,550,000. One came off the line every 63 minutes.

America launched more vessels in 1941 than Japan did in the entire war. Shipyards turned out tonnage so fast that by the autumn of 1943 all Allied shipping sunk since 1939 had been replaced. In 1944 alone, the United States built more planes than the Japanese did from 1939 to 1945. By the end of the war, more than half of all industrial production in the world would take place in the United States.

During his Friday press conference, President Trump announced that he had partnered with the private sector to fight the war against the coronavirus.  As the various CEOs spoke, someone at Fox News had the clever idea to put a stock market ticker on the screen.  It's mesmerizing to watch the ticker go up and up as Trump and the others speak.

Trump also copied the WWII model for victory by having government retreat, not expand.  During WWII, the government made demands on industry; it did not regulate it.  The speakers at the press conference made clear that it was government regulation that was stifling America's ability to fight this viral war.  To fight a vicious enemy, Trump cleared the way for private sector innovation, efficiency, and patriotism:

• President Trump continues to cut through every piece of unnecessary red tape that may hinder our response efforts and make every Federal resource available.
• The President will empower the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to waive provisions of certain laws and regulations and give maximum flexibility to healthcare providers to care for their patients.
• The declaration will provide HHS with critical authorities to waive:
  • Certain laws to enable telehealth, remote doctors' visits, and hospital check-ins
  • Licensing requirements so doctors from other states can provide services in areas with the greatest need.
  • Critical Access Hospital requirements to allow those hospitals to have more beds and longer lengths of stay
  • The requirement of a 3-day hospital stay prior to admission to a nursing home.
  • Rules hindering hospitals' ability to bring additional physicians on board or obtain needed office space.
  • Restrictions on where hospitals can care for patients.
• The Administration will be working to eliminate every obstacle possible to ensure healthcare providers can deliver Americans the care they need.

America's strength is her people, not her government.  Trump is mobilizing the private sector, which promises us a victory as great as that in WWII, except without the hundreds of thousands of casualties that Bernie predicts.