I Had to Write This

Trump’s Failures With the Pandemic

Kamala Harris was right. The Trump administration has failed the country with their response to the pandemic.

Let’s look at what the country has gone through and what we know:

• First, in January, Trump received information that the virus was much more deadly than his administration was saying. We also know that at that time, Trump was informed that the virus can be airborne and transmits through the air we breathe. We know this because of Trump interviews with Bob Woodward that are published in Bob Woodward’s book.
• The Bush and Obama administrations left Trump with a pandemic plan as well as a pandemic team in place when Trump came into office. Part of this included a team in place in China to provide an early warning of potential pandemic disease. Trump abandoned all of this, dismissed the National Security Team that was organized to deal with pandemics, and Trump disbanded the early warning team of scientists in China that would have been able to give us an earlier warning of what was coming.
• Trump played down the danger of the pandemic and wasted the month of February when the country could have been organizing to fight the disease coming. Trump’s statements to the American people conveyed no sense of the danger and seriousness of what was soon to be a pandemic.
• By late winter and at the start of spring, the country was in a nationwide effort to fight the pandemic. There was no organized national plan coming from the Trump administration. The states were left on their own to find medical supplies, protective equipment and come up with their own defenses against the virus. Governors privately organized flights to China to buy desperately needed medical supplies, ventilators, and protective equipment. Sometimes, these flights were hijacked by the Federal government and the state purchased supplies did not reach the states.
• There is a bigger argument with the disjointed and disorganized national response to the pandemic and it has to do with the Republican philosophy of the last 30+ years. The GOP does not believe in national federal efforts like what we needed to deal with the virus. This is why there never was a national plan and a nationally organized federal effort to combat the virus. This is all part of an intentional effort to dismantle many of the federal government programs. Our feeble response to the hurricane victims and the wildfires is part of this limited view of the federal government. This view does not make a “Katrina” type response possible to any natural or other disaster like a pandemic.
• Guidance from the science and medical community was continuously undermined and contradicted by the Trump administration. Trump criticized governors and states for using health and safety protocols being recommended by the medical science community. Armed militias took over the state capitol in Michigan and threatened the Governor. Trump encouraged these militia thugs with words like, “Liberate Michigan.” We have now seen how Trump’s encouragement to the militias and white supremacy groups has gone so far as a planned kidnapping of the Governor of Michigan and efforts to start a civil war. There is still no word coming from Trump condemning any of this. In the first debate with Vice President Biden, Trump, when asked to condemn white supremacy groups, replied with this statement to the Proud Boys, “Stand back, stand by.” This was so liked by the Proud Boys, that they had a arm patch designed with these words.
• The United States continues to lead the world with deaths as a percentage of population as well as with the numbers of Americans becoming infected with the corona virus. Our response as a country is responsible for leading the world in these statistics full of sorrow and grief.
• The White House and the Trump administration have flaunted the health and safety protocols meant to protect us from the virus. A refusal to do something so simple, yet so effective as wearing a mask and practicing social distancing has been a source of pride for Trump and his administration.
• We are now over 210,000 deaths here in the United States. Many states are seeing an upsurge in numbers of Americans contracting the virus We were warned about this by the medical science community. Winter will be here soon and the winter conditions are favorable to the virus. Finally, the number one flaunter of the health and safety protocols for fighting the virus, Trump, has become sick with the virus along with his wife, and other members of the Trump administration. We have all seen pictures of recent events at the White House like the Rose Garden gathering for the announcement of the new Supreme Court nomination. These events were without any health and safety protocols. They have been described as super-spreader events. Today, the West Wing is a virtual ghost town as so many have had to go into quarantine with positive tests for the virus.

I could go on and on with this list of failures by the Trump administration to help the nation and Americans defend and work to lessen the pandemic. The Trump administration has this list to their credit along with ripping a country in half for the last almost 4 years.