We're Losing Track of COVID--and It's Going to Bite Us in the Ass

[keep_left]

32. Neoconservative Max Boot, not someone I normally quote, said (in 2020) that...

...if Trump had been President during World War II, we would all be speaking German. Max Boot here was discussing, among other things, Drumpf's incompetent public health response to Covid. (The underlining for emphasis is mine).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/15/if-trump-had-been-charge-during-world-war-ii-this-column-would-be-german/

But even though the war has just begun, the Trumpified FDR is already losing interest. One day he says the war is already won; the next day that we will just have to accept the occupation of France because that’s the way life is. He speculates that mobilization might be unnecessary if we can develop a “death ray” straight out of a Buck Rogers comic strip. He complains that rationing and curfews are very unpopular and will have to end soon. He tells the governors that if they want to keep on fighting, they will have to take charge of manufacturing ships, tanks and aircraft. Trumpy FDR prefers to hold mass rallies to berate his predecessor, Herbert Hoover...

...Trump, by contrast, cannot focus on a single subject for the length of a paragraph. So it is no surprise that he has already gotten bored with a war against the coronavirus that isn’t going his way. He is taking his cues not from FDR but from Sen. George Aiken, the Vermont Republican whose plan for the Vietnam War was summed up as “declare victory and get out.” In Trump’s case, that means getting Americans out of the home whether it’s safe to do so or not...

...Medical experts argue that it’s necessary to dramatically ramp up testing, but Trump has no national plan to do so, and said on Thursday that testing might be “frankly overrated.” “When you test you find something is wrong with people,” he declared. “If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases.”

Where would we be if the country was facing a 21st century Axis? Would we be willing to make the necessary sacrifices? Would we even be willing to plant a victory garden? Today, we can't even get the population to get vaccinated, and many of them would rather listen to internet conspiracy theorists than their own doctors.