What a difference a couple more weeks can make.
Gov. Steve Sisolak, like every governor across America to whom President Donald Trump has passed the buck (or the hot potato if you will), has made a decision.
But unlike some other governors who have underweighted the risk to life in favor of some questionable financial considerations, Nevada’s governor has made a decision with which Nevadans can live. We will wait another two weeks to determine how and when Nevada will reopen for business.
Leadership isn’t easy. It almost always involves making decisions that make some people happy and others not so much. That is part of the job and it is the reason why most voters entrust one person over another — the belief that when the tough calls must be made, their choice can make them.
We have seen close up and way too personally the abject failure to lead that has defined the Trump administration’s reaction to this global pandemic. At every turn, Trump hasn’t missed an opportunity to tell America how great he is while, at the same time, Americans are dying at alarming rates.
When President Harry Truman told the world where the buck stops, he couldn’t have imagined a man like Trump in the Oval Office doing all he could to pass that buck to each of America’s 50 state governors. At a time when this country needs a comprehensive federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration has gone AWOL, providing the potential for 50 different and, therefore, diluted decisions about what to do.
Enter the governor of Nevada.
Sisolak’s math is very different from that of most other governors. He is in a similar boat with Govs. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gavin Newsom in California. I would have included Gov. Ron DeSantis, but it appears he believes Floridians are tougher than the virus and is, therefore, willing to risk many more lives.
Sisolak’s decision-making has come down on the side of life. What is curious to me is that most of the opposition he is getting is from the Republican Party. You don’t need to read between the lines on this one. Just re-read the lines.
Nevada’s challenge is not just the lives of its 3 million-plus residents. We have more than 40 million visitors from all over the world who we mustn't put in harm’s way. And we can’t let them endanger our lives either.
That makes opening Nevada far more difficult for Sisolak. What can happen here can come on an airplane or a car, and for certain it won’t stay here. That is the main reason why the good governor’s decision to close the state early on was so generous to everyone else, even though it hurt so many here at home. That is the responsibility we have to our guests.
So we have a couple of more weeks to stay away from each other while Nevada slowly opens its doors, carefully, just one step at a time. While no one has any idea what the right path is to reopening, God forbid Nevada gets it wrong!
So an extra week or two, or more, is a small price to pay — even though the cost to everyone is enormous — so we can make sure we get as much information as possible to make smart and sane decisions. Those decisions, I would suggest, might involve limiting travel (or taking extra precautions) from those states that aren’t as careful with our lives as we are with theirs.
It is hard for people to like any directive from the governor that says we can’t do what we want and need to do for ourselves, our families and our businesses. Coronavirus be damned!
But, at a time when leadership is in very short supply at the federal level, it is easy to respect a leader who can make that call at home.
Sisolak, right or wrong (and then it is only by degrees), has earned our respect. That is a hard win for any leader.
And in time, for having made these most difficult decisions, he will have earned our thanks.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.