To be sure, Trump continues to fail miserably, but the confused and delayed response by the Federal government has been systemically building for many years through Clinton, Bush and Obama. What’s even more disastrous for the world is Trump not only bailed on world leadership but did so to our own nation, creating anarchic chaos pitting state vs state vs city vs city vs hospital vs hospital to solve ‘their’ crisis. The President’s deferral of leadership isn’t ideological, it’s admittance of incompetence.
The nation can’t just blame those who elected, support and enable Trump for our present dilemma. We all knew somewhere within our consciousness that he would never be more than a destroyer, never ‘grow’ into a leader and never never be able to handle a global crisis or war. But gee, what ‘fun’ it is to read his bar room tweets fouling the Presidency and nation… yeah, he really sticks it to ’them’…
Didn’t “Pogo” say, we have found the enemy and they are us!
In one sense, Trump may have unconsciously realized how globalization would fail a national crisis… manufacturing (including medical supplies) in China and pharmaceuticals in India; but even if he did, clearly two terms wouldn’t have allowed time, nor were there economic incentives to reverse the ‘established’ business trends. The only other entity that could have handled a global crisis is the UN; and every ‘right’ thinking person hates world government! Regardless of all the sage comments regarding why Trump was elected, I think he is the outcome of our general loss of direction and purpose that has been growing within our nation. No nation can survive any period of time where the primary drivers are self-enrichment, self-satisfaction, disdain for government and where less than 1/2 of 1% its citizens make substantive personal contributions to its survival.
Our national reserve medical supplies were never refilled after SARS and indeed supplies were never prioritized nor stocked to handle a pandemic. What’s beyond amazing is the total downplay of everything scientific in nature by Trump’s GOP resulting in the shaming and/or firing anyone ‘erring’ on the side of existential threats, facts and studies — like his Federal pandemic study warning of this impending pandemic. Couple that with astounding turnover or the loss of all ’the adults’ in the room and you get a vacuum at the top that makes decisions like refusing a proven WHO virus test and having absolutely no strategy, starting with designating the CDC as operational lead. What’s even more ironical, FEMA devised a highly effective organizational process called National Incident Management System (NIMS) that is required to be practiced by all first responders for incidents/crises totally ignored by Trump.
Individuals make mistakes, but how so many of our nation believe the largest social media-opinion-news company in the world (FOX) who emphasize Trump’s ‘gut’ falsehoods at a time of national crisis is beyond logical explanation.
Has to be the bright colors decorating FOX sets.
The length of time the nation remains in ‘quarantine’ seems to be the critical economic unknown. What I hear is we don’t have the data to intelligently ‘release’ folks to go back to work. That makes sense as we aren’t even testing for antibodies pre-asymetrical contagious stages… so how, whom or where to “open” the economy? The statistical data indicates that we have large segments of the society with relatively low viral impact potential yet others with little chance of survival with the resistant segments spread across the nation and industries… national relocation? You can’t even say the rural states are OK based on number of cases as the virus starts in cities and then works outboard. Rana Foroohar has some company in her forecast of years of rebuilding due to the virus and likening this potential depression to the 1930s.
I just keep wondering… how is a ‘debt bubble’ possible, when the same Fortune 100 corporations have amassed $trillions abroad and many took their $1.4 trillion tax relief to buy back stock? Powell seems to be doing as much as the Fed can, but 0 is 0. Yes, the dollar is the world’s currency… but wouldn’t printing money reduce its value at a time when we’re no longer exporting a substantive amount of products and tend to inflation?
I don’t have the acumen to guess the right next steps on the economic future… maybe you do?
David Blake
Chromo, CO