General Discussion

babylonsister

(171,070 posts) Fri Apr 3, 2020, 08:16 PM Apr 2020

The Coronavirus Test Is Too Hard for Trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/opinion/covid-trump.html?smtyp=cur&smid=fb-nytimes&fbclid=IwAR0Rzva4hj88EEM8sNmn45IDQ11SWw4Ik_qz-7U488ZUdU6lkeEbZMRkUX4

The Coronavirus Test Is Too Hard for Trump
The president joins Herbert Hoover and James Buchanan as a leader who failed when it mattered most.
By Jamelle Bouie
April 3, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET

snip//

Trump hasn’t just failed to anticipate the way Buchanan did or failed to respond like Hoover or failed to prepare like Bush — he’s done all three. He inherited everything he needed to respond to a pandemic: explicit guidance from the previous administration and a team of experienced experts and intelligence agencies attuned to the threat posed by the quick spread of deadly disease. He even had some sensible advisers who, far from ignoring or making light of the virus, urged him to take it seriously.

The federal government may not have been able to stop coronavirus from reaching the United States — that was impossible to avoid in a globalized, highly-mobile world — but it was well equipped to deal with the problem once it reached our shores.

But as the world knows, Trump ignored, downplayed and dismissed the problem until it became one of the worst crises in our nation’s history.

snip//

It’s true that Trump imposed some travel restrictions on foreign nationals coming from China as the virus came into public view. But he had the time, energy and responsibility to do far more. He didn’t. Instead, he said things like this — “I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along” — and continued to do everything he could to minimize the threat.

It was only after action from states, colleges and other institutions that the White House began to take this seriously. And by then, it was too late to move off the path to disaster.

As we enter the second full month of the pandemic in the United States, the cost of the president’s indifference is clear: thousands dead and thousands who will die because their government didn’t care to protect them.