History will blame Trump for catastrophe
The COVID-19 pandemic is getting worse in this country.
As we celebrated Independence Day last weekend, we were forced to see the concept of American exceptionalism in a new and shameful light. In confronting this global menace, the United States is not first and best. We are much closer to last and worst.
History will place the blame for this catastrophe squarely on one ignorant, incompetent, selfish man: President Donald Trump.
On a single day this week, the nation recorded more than 50,000 new cases of the disease. Trump, for the umpteenth time, irresponsibly promised the disease will somehow just “disappear.”
Governors who reopened their economies too quickly saw their state’s hospital systems buckle under the strain. Some of them, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, scrambled to reimpose restrictions. Trump, by contrast, dren back to school and to ease invited crowds to a Mt. Rushtravel restrictions to allow vismore fireworks show, no masks itors from countries that have or social distancing required. the pandemic under control. If
Officials at all levels of govyou live in, say, Australia, New ernment pleaded with the AmerZealand, Canada, Uruguay or ican people to wear masks. Rwanda, you are most welcome Trump still won’t set an example to vacation in Europe. If you by publicly wearing one, though live in the United States, you are finally he saysnot.hemight,aslong as it makes him look “like the It is clear at this point that we Lone Ranger.” would have fared better with no
We are indeed fortunate that president at all than the one we the daily death toll has not rehave. turned to the levels we saw two From the beginning, Trump months ago, when the pandemic has not only failed to make was raging out of control in the Americans safer from COVID-19 New York metropolitan area. but actively put all of us in But U.S. COVID-19 deaths have greater peril. Any positive imstopped declining - we lose bepact from the travel bans he imtween 500 and 600 Americans plemented against visitors from to the disease each day - and China and Europe has long been medical experts fear the number nullified by his stubborn denial will soon begin to rise. We have of even the most common-sense already seen more cases and responses to the pandemic. more deaths, by far, than any A good president, or even a other nation on the planet. mediocre one, would have be
Rather than even make a selieved world-renowned experts rious attempt to banish this like Dr. Anthony Fauci when plague, we have invited it to setthey warned that the first few tle in. cases of COVID-19 had the po
The European Union, which tential to mushroom into a was ravaged by the pandemic, global crisis. Any reasonably now is in a position to send chil- competent president would have seen the way the pandemic gripped northern Italy and resolved to take any available steps to avoid such devastation in the United States.
Any president with an ounce of empathy or compassion would have realized that swift, bold, nationwide action, rather than a lackadaisical federalist approach, was the only way to minimize suffering and death. Any president with rudimentary knowledge of science, or willingness to listen to his own top scientists, would have understood that the goal had to be to reduce infections, hospitalizations and deaths as close to zero as possible, then keep them there.
But we don’t have even a mediocre president.
We have Trump, focused more on minimizing damage to the economy, and his reelection hopes, than on saving lives. Trump essentially abdicated federal leadership, diverting both responsibility and political exposure to governors, which was bound to create a loose patchwork of restrictions that gave the virus ample freedom to circulate. Then he hectored those governors to give their citizens “freedom” to congregate in ways that scientists knew were unsafe.
Now, Republican Govs. Abbott of Texas and Doug Ducey of Arizona - who listened to Trump and reopened too soon - are frantically trying to contain COVID outbreaks of their own creation. And who knows what Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida thinks he’s doing in announcing that the state will not impose new lockdowns, even as Florida reported 10,000 new cases last week.
The impact of COVID-19 in the United States was bound to be bad.
No leader could have avoided that, given how infectious the coronavirus that causes it appears to be, and how long it was spreading while officials and citizens were largely unaware of the threat. But it didn’t have to be the worst in the world. American exceptionalism under Trump, tragically, amounts to epic failure.