Agree with the clear assessment here, but..."mostly satisfactory" covid response?? I seem to remember a president first praising China for doing a great job containing it (they werent) while denying it would come here, and then, when it arrived, saying it would quickly go away, when he had *data telling him the exact opposite*. He was in…
Agree with the clear assessment here, but..."mostly satisfactory" covid response?? I seem to remember a president first praising China for doing a great job containing it (they werent) while denying it would come here, and then, when it arrived, saying it would quickly go away, when he had *data telling him the exact opposite*. He was in unsupported downplaying mode for months. He undermined testing and tracking efforts. He scoffed even at reasonable late pandemic requests to wear masks to indoor gatherings. He suggested we try bleach on patients, publicly. Then he got a life-threatening case himself, thoughtlessly spreading it to others. Project Warp Speed (and not going along with outdoor mask wearing/other early alarmism) is doing a LOT of heavy lifting in "mostly satisfactory". It was an unforseen unprecedented situation and would be for any president, granted, but "mostly satisfactory" is your takeaway? Wow.
Well, his more recent behavior and attitude has provided a strong contrast to make his earlier COVID-era response look a lot better.
But, I think the bigger factor was that he mostly left the hard work (especially Warp Speed) to competent professionals who knew what they were doing, and despite coming out and saying the random stupid things, left them alone to do their thing (even Fauci).
To make an analogy, Trump 1.0 was the kid who gets invited into the cockpit to talk with the pilot and points and asks the pilot to take a more interesting route, or pointing and asking what a red button does. Trump 2.0 is the kid jumping into the co-pilot seat and randomly yanking around on the control stick.
Despite his very obvious personality flaws during the pandemic, it’s not obvious to me that the outcome would have been very different with someone else in charge in 2020. That may be why the "mostly satisfactory" rating makes sense to many.
"Someone else", ok. I suppose another leader could've dragged their feet, downplayed, and willfully undermined, in their own ways. No one could've handled it perfectly of course. Then imagine someone who simply knew early on to take it seriously and acted accordingly, who had a plan in place, who hit the ground running and didn't undermine efforts to get it under control (but rather boosted them), who rallied industry and public sentiment, who rejected misinformation and image concerns (This doesn't seem crazy to expect, and would've been superior to what we got). Someone with an ability to adapt as we learned about the virus, with a strict focus on the public good, shutting out the noise. Taking the polar opposite tack to pragmatic and responsible competency does more damage, I think, particularly from a leader heavily burdened by myopic image-fretting and publicly touting misinformation. His personality disorder made him a uniquely poor leader for that situation. We can't know to what degree it would've been different, but presumably doing the opposite of everything he did wrong could get a very different outcome.
There were other leaders at that time. This was a global issue. Other than extreme measures that were taken in places like Australia and New Zealand, nothing really worked. Biden did a poor job even though the vaccine was ready when he took office. More people died in 2021 compared to 2020. Other than better leadership vibes and optics, I don't agree with the argument that another President would have achieved significantly better results in 2020.
Biden didn’t help much after the vaccine rollout, declaring it over prematurely. So yeah, someone stronger and more capable than Biden in place when it hit, which would’ve improved eventual vaccine uptake as well, being Trump supporters drove vaccine denial. (To be fair, a Biden admin wouldn’t have gutted the Obama pandemic protocols. Biden even tweeted in October 2019 we weren’t prepared for a global pandemic. Look it up.) Anyone doing the polar opposite of the particular performative foot-dragging and willful undermining Trump engaged in from the get-go, which Josh oddly labels “mostly satisfactory” (unless he strictly means the big policy moves in a vacuum, warp speed and stimulus (?), then okay), an engaged, more impervious to public opinion leader than Biden, certainly. I’m saying there’s a plausible scenario where it could’ve gone far better, pre and post vaccine. I get it’s theoretical Monday morning quarterbacking, but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility we could’ve had more successful proactive leadership.
Agree with the clear assessment here, but..."mostly satisfactory" covid response?? I seem to remember a president first praising China for doing a great job containing it (they werent) while denying it would come here, and then, when it arrived, saying it would quickly go away, when he had *data telling him the exact opposite*. He was in unsupported downplaying mode for months. He undermined testing and tracking efforts. He scoffed even at reasonable late pandemic requests to wear masks to indoor gatherings. He suggested we try bleach on patients, publicly. Then he got a life-threatening case himself, thoughtlessly spreading it to others. Project Warp Speed (and not going along with outdoor mask wearing/other early alarmism) is doing a LOT of heavy lifting in "mostly satisfactory". It was an unforseen unprecedented situation and would be for any president, granted, but "mostly satisfactory" is your takeaway? Wow.
Otherwise very sharp piece as usual.
Well, his more recent behavior and attitude has provided a strong contrast to make his earlier COVID-era response look a lot better.
But, I think the bigger factor was that he mostly left the hard work (especially Warp Speed) to competent professionals who knew what they were doing, and despite coming out and saying the random stupid things, left them alone to do their thing (even Fauci).
To make an analogy, Trump 1.0 was the kid who gets invited into the cockpit to talk with the pilot and points and asks the pilot to take a more interesting route, or pointing and asking what a red button does. Trump 2.0 is the kid jumping into the co-pilot seat and randomly yanking around on the control stick.
Despite his very obvious personality flaws during the pandemic, it’s not obvious to me that the outcome would have been very different with someone else in charge in 2020. That may be why the "mostly satisfactory" rating makes sense to many.
"Someone else", ok. I suppose another leader could've dragged their feet, downplayed, and willfully undermined, in their own ways. No one could've handled it perfectly of course. Then imagine someone who simply knew early on to take it seriously and acted accordingly, who had a plan in place, who hit the ground running and didn't undermine efforts to get it under control (but rather boosted them), who rallied industry and public sentiment, who rejected misinformation and image concerns (This doesn't seem crazy to expect, and would've been superior to what we got). Someone with an ability to adapt as we learned about the virus, with a strict focus on the public good, shutting out the noise. Taking the polar opposite tack to pragmatic and responsible competency does more damage, I think, particularly from a leader heavily burdened by myopic image-fretting and publicly touting misinformation. His personality disorder made him a uniquely poor leader for that situation. We can't know to what degree it would've been different, but presumably doing the opposite of everything he did wrong could get a very different outcome.
There were other leaders at that time. This was a global issue. Other than extreme measures that were taken in places like Australia and New Zealand, nothing really worked. Biden did a poor job even though the vaccine was ready when he took office. More people died in 2021 compared to 2020. Other than better leadership vibes and optics, I don't agree with the argument that another President would have achieved significantly better results in 2020.
Biden didn’t help much after the vaccine rollout, declaring it over prematurely. So yeah, someone stronger and more capable than Biden in place when it hit, which would’ve improved eventual vaccine uptake as well, being Trump supporters drove vaccine denial. (To be fair, a Biden admin wouldn’t have gutted the Obama pandemic protocols. Biden even tweeted in October 2019 we weren’t prepared for a global pandemic. Look it up.) Anyone doing the polar opposite of the particular performative foot-dragging and willful undermining Trump engaged in from the get-go, which Josh oddly labels “mostly satisfactory” (unless he strictly means the big policy moves in a vacuum, warp speed and stimulus (?), then okay), an engaged, more impervious to public opinion leader than Biden, certainly. I’m saying there’s a plausible scenario where it could’ve gone far better, pre and post vaccine. I get it’s theoretical Monday morning quarterbacking, but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility we could’ve had more successful proactive leadership.