What Does It Take?

I thought some of Trump’s cult following might finally come to their senses when he abdicated all responsibility for the pandemic, labeled it a hoax, said it would disappear, and urged defiance of precautions established by the medical and scientific community.  His actions were clearly a cynical ploy to protect the economy he felt was the key to his re-election. The irony is that it led to his downfall.  There is no way for any reasonable person to view his handling of the pandemic as anything but corruptly incompetent. 

I understand that religious and free market zealots love the fact that he littered conservative justices throughout the judiciary.  I understand that being told constantly by Trump that we had the greatest economy in the history of the universe before the pandemic hit is enough to convince his fan base, even though every serious economist considers it a gross exaggeration.  I understand that his inept foreign policy moves can somehow be interpreted as ‘putting America first’.  I even understand that some of his absurd tweets and speeches, with their paranoia, mean-spiritedness and immaturity, can, in gymnastic feats of rationalization, be understood as standing up to elites and political correctness.

But the pandemic!  The President of the United States, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, allowed a virus to kill 250,000 and what will certainly be 350,000 people or more, while other nations in Asia and Europe were able to meet the challenge and limit deaths to a tiny fraction of that number.  There is no excuse imaginable for this failure in leadership.

And now, the world looks on in a mixture of horror, schadenfreude and pity, while the nation that since its founding has been the strongest advocate for democracy spirals into banana republic style election denial with a sad, pathetic dictator wannabe holding the nation hostage.

What does it take?