A dearth of American leadership
The timing of a life-changing global catastrophe coinciding with a pathological liar occupying the White House is truly unfortunate. Whatever Donald Trump can do, pulled away from his golf and money amassment, to lead this nation out of the danger it is in from the coronavirus, will be made more difficult by the kind of governing he and his family have practiced since he took office in 2017.
Even with the duplicitous Richard Nixon in charge, the United States would have had a better chance of walking away from this tragedy in sound shape than its current prospects suggest. Mr. Trump is most interested in the impact of the virus assault on his own prospects for re-election. He sees the epidemic as a “Democratic hoax.” Good grief.
The virus is already turning America upside down, along with the rest of the world. Pope Francis coughs and we all worry. Should my daughter, a teacher in Washington, D.C., visit me in Pittsburgh? My stepdaughter has already been told by her doctor not to visit because Pittsburgh is the sister city of Wuhan, China, the city in which COVID-19 was first identified.
These relatively banal family problems pale in significance to the threat to the world economy posed by the pandemic. but they illustrate the impact this situation can have on Americans’ daily affairs.
None of this is new. In the Middle Ages, it was the bubonic plague, carried by flea-infested rats. The Spanish flu killed my father’s brother, training to go fight in World War I. What is different this time is that we should have known better and been much better prepared to deal with a global pandemic.
Instead, in 2018, Mr. Trump dissolved the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, which was established by President Barack Obama at the National Security Council after the ebola virus threat in 2014. This has hampered the government’s response to the coronavirus threat. And now that the virus has appeared on our shores, Mr. Trump is underplaying it, telling the country that it will leave as the weather gets warmer.
And still, despite Mr. Trump’s obvious failures, compounded by a flailing stock market, the Democratic Party has been unable to put forward an inspiring presidential candidate. The race between former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders is as compelling to watch as growing grass, and neither inspires much confidence.
The country needs a credible leader, not just because of the coronavirus, but because of the litany of international issues facing the United States and its allies. A credible president could plot a withdrawal from Afghanistan that keeps the country’s military in one piece. A credible president could straighten out the chaos in Venezuela. A credible president could stop the carnage in Syria. And a credible president could put the country on course to address climate change, an existential threat to all of us who would prefer not to move to the moon.
But credibility seems to be in remarkably short supply nowadays. It is hard to see who may be up to the task of stepping into the breach.