The Greens are the people who run the Hobby Lobby empire and, after they won their great victory by which corporations can pretend to be religious in order to refuse to pay for birth control, the Greens have been having a bit of a rough time. They spent bazillions of dollars to build a Museum of The Bible in Washington that has turned into a magnet for all manner of thieves and grifters. First, the Greens got caught smuggling artifacts out of Iraq and, last week, it was revealed that they’d been taken for suckers by people who peddled the Greens alleged fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls that were as fake as their corporation’s piety.

Then, of course, the pandemic came to town, and people were told to stay home and not go to work. However, the Greens took the matter to a higher authority. From the Christian Post:

“Today, that title takes on such a different meaning than I ever imagined before because we are at war with this latest virus,” he wrote, and quoted the late Dr. Billy Graham. “We are to pray in times of adversity, lest we become faithless and unbelieving. We are to pray in times of prosperity, lest we become boastful and proud. We are to pray in times of danger, lest we become fearful and doubting. We are to pray in times of security, lest we become self-sufficient.”

Green said the Lord put on Barbara’s heart three profound words to remind us that He’s in control. “Guide, Guard, and Groom. We serve a God who will Guide us through this storm, who will Guard us as we travel to places never seen before, and who, as a result of this experience, will Groom us to be better than we could have ever thought possible before now.”



This is plainly nuts. It also is plainly un-Christian to exploit an underpaid workforce at a time of international crisis. We’ve all seen those easily deplorable videos of drunk college kids partying hardily down south during spring break. Here we have a major corporation telling its employees to risk their health because God spoke to the CEO’s wife. Who’s worse, really? Those ancient scrolls are not the only phony thing about Hobby Lobby’s religiosity.



Hobby Lobby chief Steve Green will keep his stores open because God spoke to his wife, Jackie. Leigh Vogel Getty Images

Ominously, it seems that American business is starting to panic, and that the fervor of its participation in this whole social distancing thing is starting to fade. The president* seems to be sweating a bit now, too. From Axios:



Amid dire predictions for jobs and the economy, the White House is beginning to send signals to business that there's light at the end of the tunnel — that the squeeze from nationwide social distancing won't be endless. Trump tweeted at 10 minutes to midnight: "WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD [which began a week ago, March 16], WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!” Vice President Pence, who heads the White House's Coronavirus Task Force, had signaled the change in tone earlier when he said the CDC will issue guidance today allowing people exposed to the coronavirus to return to work sooner by wearing a mask for a certain length of time.



And, while the Greens had the Almighty to advise them on proper epidemic prophylaxis—the Greens should pardon the term—the president* has his own outside experts. These include a sex counselor, a third-rate Ann Coulter, and an actor who got himself thrown off the electric Twitter machine for a spell. From Mediaite:



On Monday morning, a series of retweets gave a clear indication of which way he is leaning. Among those posts shared by the president, a Tweet from sex counselor Dr. Dawn Michael. “The fear of the virus cannot collapse our economy that President Trump has built up,” Dr. Michael wrote. “We The People are smart enough to keep away from others if we know that we are sick or they are sick! After 15 days are over the world can begin to heal!” Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren and actor James Woods also made cameos in the president’s tweet spree. Lahren’s comment criticized the idea of releasing prisoners who are vulnerable to the coronavirus. “So we are all basically on house arrest but they are letting the prisoners out?” Lahren wrote. “Sounds like a brilliant idea.” And Woods took a shot at former Vice President Joe Biden.

From the start, the president*’s response to the pandemic has been driven by his desire to run for re-election as the creator of The Greatest Economy There Absolutely Ever Was. (And on racism, which sadly is still available to him with the whole Chinese Virus business.) He slow-walked testing so that the economy wouldn’t suffer. And I am increasingly of the belief that the whole 15-day plan originally was a temporizing measure designed by desperate advisers merely to placate an unstable and volatile president*. Now, we’re coming to the end of it, and the president* seems to be convincing himself—and a number of other people—that once we hit March 31, we’re all in the clear. From Bloomberg:

Blankfein had supported “extreme measures” to flatten the virus curve, but said those at lower risk of the disease should return to work “within a very few weeks”, pointing out dangers a longer shutdown would bring to the economy.



One also has to wonder whether or not Blankfein’s nerves are on fire because of the sudden semi-bipartisan popularity of certain liberal economic theories in the Congress at the moment. Maybe he should call the Greens and see if they found any prayers for nervous capitalists down in the notions aisle.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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