Judd Gregg: The world’s hope is America

The American spirit does not languish well.

We are, inherently, doers.

Large issues of a national or international nature are most often confronted, acknowledged and addressed aggressively.

{mosads}This has been true throughout our history.

It is embedded in our culture.

It began with those who came here without a great deal, but were able to build a nation out of a wilderness. It carries through to our time.

Today in a most unique manner, we face this pandemic that has hobbled the world.

But underneath all the trauma and heartache that this virus has brought us, there is still an undaunted resilience in Americans.

It is evident across the country.

People do not expect to be beaten by this sickness. They have adjusted.They are asserting our best values in the face of their troubles.

Parents are now both working from home and at the same time undertaking the care and education of their children, who cannot attend schools.

This is a difficult challenge for many. It is hard to carry on your job while ensuring that your children do not fall behind in their education.

It is a task that many parents have embraced.

We have accepted that there must be different types of concern for others.

Social distancing, abandoning the handshake, wearing masks when needed, accepting the different approaches to our everyday experiences — this is now how it is.

Americans have moved quickly to embrace the need to thwart this virus by adjusting our everyday life.

It is likely that because of the strength of our scientific community, especially our pharmaceutical research capabilities, the vaccines that will ultimately vanquish this disease will be developed and produced here, in America.

It will be this breakthrough medicine that will allow the world to return to some semblance of normalcy.

The economic damage, which is significant, will be with us longer than the illness. But vaccines will give the world a chance to return to life without the fear this disease engenders.

While all us have been on this road of disruption, it has also been apparent that American entrepreneurs have been moving aggressively to deal with this traumatic shock to our economy.

Many businesses both small and large have found the path forward to be difficult, if not entirely blocked, by the need to reduce activity to mute the growth of the virus.

Both the Federal Reserve, and Congress and President Trump, have pushed forward unprecedented amounts of spending and liquidity to try to give confidence to the market and to help those whose jobs have been lost.

These initiatives are not finished, but it is already apparent that they have allowed the nation to weather the initial devastating downturn.

America is beginning to restart.

All this activity, which is reflective of our historical strength, has not gone unnoticed by the rest of the world.

It is not by luck or accident that capital continues to flow from other parts of the world into our economy.

The dollar continues to be exceptionally strong because other people in other countries view it as safe.

The stock market has maintained relative strength in part because other people in other countries view it as a place where they can invest with a sense of safety.

Even with the massive explosion in our debt, international investors are betting on the American market economy and the American people to pull through this devastation.

The world has to a great extent placed its hopes for a vaccine on the expectation of a breakthrough that will come from American initiatives.

There is, however, one thing missing from this formula which should reinforce our natural optimism as a nation.

It is leadership that exhibits and exudes the belief that we as a nation and people will always move forward.

{mossecondads}President Trump mires himself in himself. There is no national cause to his nature. He does not even attempt to speak to our “better angels” as he tweets out his daily frustrations with all those whom he deems unsupportive.

The Democratic leadership of Congress has looked on this time of trauma and trial not as an opportunity to call up the strength of people in a manner of Franklin Roosevelt but rather as an opportunity to promote a tired agenda of expanded government.

The world understands the American people’s resilience better then our leaders in Washington do.

The world knows that our people define a culture that does not function in the negative.

Even if our leaders to do not seem to be capable of getting past their own personal prejudices, it is clear the world expects our people to excel, to take on this crisis and handle it with strength and purpose.

The world is betting on America. They are betting that we the people will pull ourselves through and bring much of the world with us.

It is a good bet.

Judd Gregg (R) is a former governor and three-term senator from New Hampshire who served as chairman and ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, and as ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Foreign Operations subcommittee.