While Rick Bright, former Director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and other medical experts were fanatically attempting to get their attention centered on the coming pandemic, Trump and key members of administration were doing their best to ignore them. They even managed to ignore a starkly worded memo which was circulated among administration leaders by Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser, warning that the new virus could put millions of Americans at risk of illness and death and cost the country billions of dollars.
The members of the Trump administration had apparently already thrown away the detailed playbook on how to deal with a coming pandemic left to them by the Obama administration. In 2017 and early 2018 Trump moved to cut the budget for the federal organizations tasked with tracking and stopping the spread new infectious diseases. In 2018 the Trump administration also disbanded the National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense founded to prepare for future pandemics like COVID-19.
In January and February of this year, the intelligence community was warning Trump in his daily briefings that the virus presented a threat to the country. At the same time while scientists and other key professional members in the federal government were urging their superiors to begin immediate preparation for the coming crisis, the upper echelons of the Trump administration were doing their best to ignore them. Even when later Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar twice bluntly warned Trump in late January that the virus could cause a pandemic, Trump called him an alarmist and was taking every opportunity to reassure everyone in the country that everything was under control while taking no concrete steps to deal with the looming threat.
As a result valuable time was lost which could have been used to alert state and local medical authorities to prepare for and isolate the initial cases. Work was delayed on ramping up the production of personal protective equipment (PPE) , ventilators, and supplies needed for testing. The start of work on developing a vaccine was also delayed. To make matters worse, while the World Health Organization was shipping hundreds of thousands of effective testing kits for the coronavirus around the world, the CDC developed tests didn’t work because of contamination traced to the failure of the organization to follow its on protocols. All of this led to the rapid building up of cases around the country and countless unnecessary deaths.
By mid-March the number of cases in the US was growing exponentially larger on a daily basis indicating that we had already lost our best opportunity to contain the virus, but it wasn’t too late for Trump to salvage the political situation. The time for downplaying the virus had passed. Any claims that the virus could be contained were sure to be proven a lie in short order. That was the point where Trump could have changed course, leveled with the American people about the virus, accepted accountability, and taken control of the situation to direct the federal government to do everything in its formidable power to fight the virus and provide front line personnel in the medical community with the tools needed to protect themselves so they could protect everyone else.
No one the least familiar with Trump’s character could have expected him to totally own up to the mistakes made by his administration which resulted in a lack of effort to contain the rapid spread of COVID-19 and which inevitably cost innocent lives. However, Trump could have handled questions about his administrations ineptness by saying what is past cannot be changed and now we need to concentrate on where we go from here because that is all we can control. From there he could have at least pretended that his only concern was doing what is best for the American people and acted accordingly.
He could have embraced truth and put his medical experts front and center and backed them to the hilt. He could have publicly taken his responsibility for leading the country through the crisis and beyond. He could have instructed his administration to take whatever steps were necessary to combat the virus regardless of how it reflected on him or how it temporarily affected the stock market and the economy. He could have reassured the American people that though the way forward would be very difficult, he would lead them to victory over the pandemic in the end.
In essence, Trump could have started following the example of Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York who did all of these things after admitting that he didn’t impose a statewide lock down quickly enough. That is what competent leaders do in a crisis and they are almost always subsequently rewarded by the voters in the aftermath for their leadership. Leaders are judged first and foremost by how they handle a crisis. In summary, the best way for a leader to be reelected in a crisis situation is to make it clear to everyone that nothing else takes precedence over the best interest of the people he serves, not anything, and certainly not his reelection.
Unfortunately for Trump he is totally unsuited to handle this kind of situation. His narcissistic personality keeps him from admitting that he ever makes mistakes, even to himself. His personality disorder also prevents him from ever putting the needs of others above his own, even when it is his sworn duty to do so. We should not have been the least bit surprised that throughout this long ordeal he has prioritized only one thing above all others, his reelection. Why, because for a narcissist his rejection by an entire country after four years in office would be a heavy blow indeed.
Consequently, it should be clear to everyone that he has prioritized his reelection above the best interests of the American people. Think back about all the things that Trump has said, what he has done and hasn’t done, and you will find that everything is centered about his concern about being reelected. Even his most fervent supporters should realize this, but they either are totally ignorant, or they don’t care, or they too prioritize his reelection over everything else. However, in the process Trump has become his own worst enemy in the eyes of the majority of American voters.
According to recent polls, an average of 52.5% of respondents disapprove of Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic while only 43.3% approve. That gap has been widening since early April. Among independents who often decide presidential election, only 39.6% approve of Trump’s handling of the crisis. These figures correspond with Trump’s overall job approval rating of 44.1% on average while 51.7% disapprove.
Perhaps more importantly, while Trump has been front and center on the national stage and Joe Biden, his presumptive opponent in November, has been confined to his basement office by the virus getting almost no media attention, Trump has been falling behind in the election polls. In the last 11 national polls taken since May 11th, Biden is leading Trump by an average of 5.9%. (For comparison Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.2% in 2016.) More importantly Biden is now leading the polls taken in late April and May in the five pivotal swing states which Trump won in 2016 in order to win the Electoral College vote.
In Pennsylvania Biden leads by an average of 6.3%. In Michigan he leads Trump, by 7.7%, by 3.4% in Wisconsin, by 3.3% in Florida, and by 4.3% in Arizona. (Again, these are states which were narrowly lost by Clinton in 2016.) Polls also indicate that Georgia and North Carolina, states previously won easily by Trump, may be up for grabs in November. Meanwhile Joe Biden has established large leads in all of the states Hillary Clinton won in the 2016 election.
Now things could change before the November election. Maybe the COVID-19 could abide by Trump’s predictions and magically disappear and not return for a second round in the fall as expected by many epidemiologists. Perhaps a tiger can change its stripes and Trump could subdue his narcissistic nature and start acting like a real leader who puts the country and its people ahead of his selfish ambitions. However, given what we know about the natures of both Trump and this virus we can’t legitimately expect either of those things to happen.
Cajun 5/15/2020