# Human life Vs Politics **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 27, 2020, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528 "2020-05-27T04:57:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/21 "2020-05-27T17:00:42Z")
I keep hearing folks refer to current deaths and death rates which to me have a double meaning attached to them. Low death rates with high infection rates would show good management of protecting the vulnerable. Low numbers of deaths in a locked down society does not say anything as far as I am concerned because society cannot stay locked down. Tooting successes or failures in an active and ongoing situation is very short sighted. Standing behind a shield in a gun fight is only useful until you run out of bullets. We are quickly running out of bullets and will very soon need to expose ourselves and this is when things will start to count. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/22 "2020-05-27T17:02:32Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Why just pandemics? Should this standard be applied when fighting wars, establishing education policies, elder care rights, consumer protections, etc. etc. > > My point is that the problem we are currently experiencing isn’t that a pandemic is unique. It’s that the media and the politicians aren’t about to **waste a good crisis** to further their own agendas. This is a good question and exactly what I was thinking when I created the post. I guess it goes back to electing officials with good judgement who know when to hand off the ball for advice and who to hand it to. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/23 "2020-05-27T17:36:10Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > This is a good question and exactly what I was thinking when I created the post. I guess it goes back to **electing officials with good judgement who know when to hand off the ball for advice** and who to hand it to. It’s called electing real leaders. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/24 "2020-05-27T17:48:20Z")
Sometimes I think of how different things would’ve been if we’d been properly prepared. What if the government had enacted the Defense Production Act and started stockpiling PPE in late January or early February? According the Rick Bright’s whistleblower report, there were people in the government agencies that realized we might have a need for N95 masks and recommended stockpiling 3.5 billion of them. They had 30 million stockpiled at that time, IIRC. Imagine what a difference that might have made. Instead, the president directed the efforts towards obtaining millions of doses of hydroxychloroquine. Everyone remembers the press conference when Trump said there were 15 cases that would soon be down to zero because that clip is played incessantly. But they never play the clip where he talks about Congress trying to appropriate 8 billion dollars for Coronavirus response - a number that seems laughably low now- and he insisted that they would only need two billion. Imagine if we had planned for the possibility of social distancing and lockdowns 6 weeks before they happened. Imagine if there had been a real coherent nationwide plan with clearly defined benchmarks linking degrees of shutdown to certain data points. Imagine if our legislators had been able to address the possibility we might need a large economic relief bill early - they might have had time to prepare a more tightly targeted bill that did a better job of delivering the most relief to those that really needed it. Imagine if we had all been made aware of and allowed to prepare for these possibilities during February. I’m not even talking about earlier lockdowns, but I wonder what would’ve happened if we had all curbed our most dangerous behavior-travel and attendance at large gatherings - much earlier. Yes, our government agencies did a horrible job. But I’ve been following the various ways in which these agencies have been politicized since the beginning of the Trump administration and the political appointees that run them have had a clear focus on minimizing their function and destroying them from within. And apparently it worked. It’s funny how so many people see the failures of the government agencies like the CDC as somehow vindicating Trump, instead of realizing that their failures ARE Trump failures. I’m outraged, frankly. The US government has the best information gathering and crisis planning apparatus on the planet, employing thousands of highly trained and vetted professionals and top experts in every field. Instead, the President sidelined all these people and decided to run the government response with his VP, his son-in-law and a couple of his friends including the great medical detective Rudy Guiliani who came up with the hydroxychloroquine “cure.” The states picked up the slack as best they could with varying degrees of success but I think they all performed admirably considering that so much of their response should’ve been handled at the federal level. Running the government is NOT like running a business in many important ways. One if those differences is that for the government, walking away is not an option. You’ve got to make the deal - you can’t walk away from North Korea like you can a prospective client and think that means that you go your own separate ways and never have to cross paths again. Now that the coronavirus response is a total and abject failure, Trump seems to think he can walk away from it. The new federal response is to go full conspiracy theory. This is not a response that I agree with and I don’t think it’s good for our country. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/25 "2020-05-27T17:55:38Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I guess it goes back to electing officials with good judgement who know when to hand off the ball for advice and who to hand it to. I think it’s less handing off the ball as it is knowing who to go to for advice, how to balance conflicting advice from reliable sources, and how to bring together various pieces of data and construct a cohesive plan. I still want political leaders to lead, I don’t want Trump to say “I’m doing whatever the CDC guy says.” We didn’t elect the head of the CDC to represent our interests, that’s Trump’s job, along with Congress. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/26 "2020-05-27T18:08:17Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > Just for the sake of an opposing view. If the death rate ends up being .02, did he fail, was it overblown, or are you going to say that it was success in spite of him? > > I don’t think you can have it both ways. At this point, the absolute numbers of dead don’t matter, Trump has already failed. Now it’s just a matter of seeing how badly he is going to fail. The US is the richest, more powerful nation in the history of the world. It should have had everything it needed to weather this storm, but it didn’t, largely due to Trump’s incompetence, and the unwillingness of his Republican compatriots to admit he’s incompetent, and deal with him. When compared to other comparable Western nations, the US is having worse results in just about every measure: more infections, more deaths, less protection for laid of workers, more grift by large corporations and rich people, you name it. Medically, socially, and economically, Trump has already failed. The only real question is if he’ll ever be held to account for his failures. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/27 "2020-05-27T18:11:54Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The problem is not Donald Trump, he is a distraction from the problem. > When doctors in Seattle tried to test people for coronavirus they were forbidden. The initial test approved by the CDC was faulty. When the approved masks were unavailable practically identical masks were forbidden to doctors. Millions of masks were delayed by contracting rules. Testing at home kits were stopped because they did not have the right permissions. Nursing homes in New York state were forbidden from refusing coronavirus patients. Trump did not make any of those decisions and it is unlikely he knew any of them were being made. The people involved were following the laws and rules laid out over the last 60 years. > > Our regulatory systems are designed to slow everything down so no one makes a mistake. So when time is of the essence the system works against solutions. > > Remember Katrina? An expert in public infrastructure said that if Bush had guessed that a hurricane was going to hit New Orleans sometime in his tenure and made shoring up the system his number 1 priority his first day in office. Five years later when Katrina hit the engineers would just have been reviewing the responses to the environmental impact review. > > This regulatory kludge is why the response to coronavirus was so slow, why it is impossible to build high speed rail, why building low cost housing in LA costs a million dollars a unit, why law enforcement couldn’t search a 9-11 terrorist’s computer, why it costs 2 billion to develop a medicine. Regulations are also why we figured out that the CDC test wasn’t working and why we now know that hydroxychloroquine is actually harmful for Covid19 patients. With decent leadership, the agency could be directed to temporarily suspend the regulations preventing outside tests and near identical masks. If suspending the regulations fell afoul of established law, and so couldn’t be dealt with at the agency level, then the president could have used the bully pulpit to crafts some quick legislation and get on the horn to the head of the house and senate to make sure it went through quickly. Instead Trump used the bully pulpit to declare that everyone who needed a test or PPE could get it. I’m not sure what your point about Katrina was. Did Bush receive divine guidance that the New Orleans was going to be hit by a hurricane such that a Levy must be immediately constructed regardless of its effect on the critical wetlands and watersheds in the area? I must have missed it in the news. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/28 "2020-05-27T18:42:19Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I swear: Half of you have me set to Ignore … > > … The other half know how to _ **ignore the entire thrust of my post** _ and focus on misplaced commas: > > You couldn’t even figure out that the ENTIRE point I was making was > _“BUT, the BIG questions involved in the response to this pandemic are NOT suitable for any specific expertise. They are precisely the sort of questions that political leaders need to address. Heaven help the country that has incompetent or selfish political leaders.”_ > and that all the rest — whether expert specialty or policy questions — were just hypothetical “throw-away” examples for clarity?? I thoughtlessly throw in a mention of Amazon just to increase the number of examples, and you focus on profiteering?? > > “Great Debates,” indeed! :smack: What a joke. How dare anybody respond to what you actually said! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/29 "2020-05-27T19:08:23Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The problem is not Donald Trump, he is a distraction from the problem. No, you are completely wrong. Donald Trump has consistently been the main problem at every point in America’s response to this crisis. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/30 "2020-05-27T19:15:47Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > Just for the sake of an opposing view. If the death rate ends up being .02, did he fail, was it overblown, or are you going to say that it was success in spite of him? Whatever the death rate ends up being, Trump failed. Because he did the wrong things at multiple points and that made the death rate higher than it could have been if he had made better decisions. His failures as a leader killed Americans who would have lived and that’s true regardless of whether the exact figure is five thousand, fifty thousand, or a million. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/31 "2020-05-27T19:22:22Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > He failed to lead, however this continues to play out. He failed to listen to experts, he failed to encourage people to wear masks, he failed to discourage people from waving rifles around in state houses (in fact, he encouraged that). He spent his time blaming others, pitting the states against each other, fighting with governors who didn’t praise him sufficiently. He failed to set up a system to get help where it was needed; instead, he presided over a situation where the feds were outbidding the states for critical equipment. > > That’s all off the top of my head. I’m sure I missed other failures on his part. > > So, if the rate happens to be 0.02, he still failed at all those things. The guy who trips over a crack in the sidewalk and stumbles, flips, and happens to fall on his feet doesn’t really get to say “I meant to do that.” If he’s right about the deadliness, it’s by happenstance, because he doesn’t know shit about diseases. > > We already know that we’d have tens of thousands of fewer deaths if we had shut down a week earlier, and, as the leader of the nation, it was his job to get that right. Instead, he resisted calls for shutdown. Right, but those are only failures if the pandemic is an actual pandemic and not a flu like pathogen with the same death rate etc … It seems to be panning out that the things he espoused and the thing he did are working … Much more so than the chicken little folks screaming bloody murder if someone walks around without a mask on. I do think in the haste to blame anything and everything on the Chump, that people overlook the things that were done right or could turn out right (in hindsight) That is what I am referring to. You can call him and everything he did an absolute failure if the worst comes to pass and we have a death rate of 5%… But we haven’t, don’t and more than likely won’t. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/32 "2020-05-27T19:50:38Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > No, you are completely wrong. Donald Trump has consistently been the main problem at every point in America’s response to this crisis. But one additional problem was the mindset that government can do no good, and thus we should starve the beast. That meant that a lot of important positions in government weren’t filled, and many that were had nincompoops in them. We can’t give Trump full credit for this - it has been a right wing position for a long time now. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/33 "2020-05-27T19:54:06Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > Right, but those are only failures if the pandemic is an actual pandemic and not a flu like pathogen with the same death rate etc … It’s already killed twice as many people as the worst flu season in the last decade, despite all the restrictions our Governors have implemented in an effort to reduce the impact. Trump was inconsistent with his messaging, downplayed the disease to a laughable degree, is fomenting dissent against his political rivals, and now wants to be the hero who saved America after 100,000 of us are dead. The only thing he did that was arguably not a shitting his pants fuckup was the travel restriction to China. Of course he had to constantly lie about that one barely competent act to make himself appear to be the only person in the room who even thought of the idea of a travel restriction. BTW, don’t think I didn’t notice that not one of the useless motherfuckers who took Obama and Democrats to task because the ACA website didn’t launch successfully has a single thing to say about Trump’s CDC screwing the pooch on testing. Sure, a lack of testing will literally kill Americans, but since an R is in charge, the buck stops way over there. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/34 "2020-05-27T20:06:51Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > Right, but those are only failures if the pandemic is an actual pandemic and not a flu like pathogen with the same death rate etc … > > It seems to be panning out that the things he espoused and the thing he did are working … Much more so than the chicken little folks screaming bloody murder if someone walks around without a mask on. > > I do think in the haste to blame anything and everything on the Chump, that people overlook the things that were done right or could turn out right (in hindsight) > > That is what I am referring to. You can call him and everything he did an absolute failure if the worst comes to pass and we have a death rate of 5%… But we haven’t, don’t and more than likely won’t. This is almost entirely wrong. He espoused not shutting down, he espoused taking hydroxychloroquine, he espoused ingesting or injecting cleaning products. Which of those things do you have in mind that are working? Can you provide an example of something he espoused that’s working? We’re going to have more than 100k people die, and that’s with a shutdown so severe that we’re looking like a Great Depression-like economic downturn. This is nothing like a flu. Even if the death rate is lower than some flus, it’s much, much more contagious. The death rate is a factor of the disease – nothing he could have done could have affected that. The contagion is a factor of the disease and our response to it – an actual leader could have affected that. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/35 "2020-05-27T20:35:06Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > Right, but those are only failures if the pandemic is an actual pandemic and not a flu like pathogen with the same death rate etc … > > It seems to be panning out that the things he espoused and the thing he did are working … Much more so than the chicken little folks screaming bloody murder if someone walks around without a mask on. Can you clue me in on what he did right over here? > **[U.S. Could Have Saved 36,000 Lives If Social Distancing Started 1 Week...](https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/21/860077940/u-s-could-have-saved-36-000-lives-if-social-distancing-started-1-week-earlier-st)** > > The analysis from Columbia University focused on the period from March 15 to May 3, when states and counties implemented "measures enforcing social distancing and restricting individual contact." > [@](#): > > The U.S. could have prevented roughly 36,000 deaths from COVID-19 if broad social distancing measures had been put in place just one week earlier in March, according to an analysis from Columbia University. > > Underlining the importance of aggressively responding to the coronavirus, the study found the U.S. could have avoided at least 700,000 fewer infections if actions that began on March 15 had actually started on March 8. > > The U.S. currently has more than 1.5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, and more than 93,000 people have died from the disease, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. > > In the analysis, researchers applied transmission models to data drawn from the pandemic’s actual course county by county in the U.S. — the worst-hit nation in the world. The main focus of the study was the period from March 15 to May 3, when U.S. states and counties implemented “measures enforcing social distancing and restricting individual contact.” > > And if restrictions had gone into effect in the U.S. two weeks earlier, researchers found, nearly 54,000 people would still be alive and nearly a million COVID-19 cases would have been avoided. > > The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11 — an act that had been widely anticipated. Two days later, President Trump declared a national emergency in the U.S. But it took even longer for dozens of U.S. states to order social distancing and shut down business as usual. > [@Kearsen1](#): > > I do think in the haste to blame anything and everything on the Chump, that people overlook the things that were done right or could turn out right (in hindsight) > > That is what I am referring to. You can call him and everything he did an absolute failure if the worst comes to pass and we have a death rate of 5%… But we haven’t, don’t and more than likely won’t. Well, too late, and to those numbers coming from not doing things early, I would add the many that will die following the bad examples coming from the president, I pointed already at the nocebo effect that the president continues to have for his constant lack of setting good examples to his very significant followers. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/36 "2020-05-27T20:50:53Z")
Don’t get me wrong, I am not defending Trump the idiot. But I am questioning the validity of everything being laid at his feet. Like I did before him, with Obama. This pandemic is turning out to not be nearly as bad as predicted. So Trump, like a clock, is right twice a day. Now the real money goes to the why it’s not as bad. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/37 "2020-05-27T20:59:34Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > Don’t get me wrong, I am not defending Trump the idiot. But I am questioning the validity of everything being laid at his feet. Like I did before him, with Obama. > **This pandemic is turning out to not be nearly as bad as predicted.** So Trump, like a clock, is right twice a day. > > Now the real money goes to the why it’s not as bad. It’s “turning out not to be so bad” _because of all the efforts we’ve made to limit the spread of the virus._ And the vast majority of those efforts were made in spite of Trump’s actions, not because of them. Trump is taking credit for the work of others, as usual. The only reason this wasn’t as bad as it was initially predicted is because so many people, at lower levels of government, in the private sector, and individuals, decided that Trump was an idiot, and they’d have to do it themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/38 "2020-05-27T21:01:46Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > It’s “turning out not to be so bad” _because of all the efforts we’ve made to limit the spread of the virus._ > > And the vast majority of those efforts were made in spite of Trump’s actions, not because of them. Trump is taking credit for the work of others, as usual. The only reason this wasn’t as bad as it was initially predicted is because so many people, at lower levels of government, in the private sector, and individuals, decided that Trump was an idiot, and they’d have to do it themselves. Also? It’s not over yet. Nothing like over. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/39 "2020-05-27T21:07:31Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > Don’t get me wrong, I am not defending Trump the idiot. But I am questioning the validity of everything being laid at his feet. Like I did before him, with Obama. > This pandemic is turning out to not be nearly as bad as predicted. So Trump, like a clock, is right twice a day. > > Now the real money goes to the why it’s not as bad. WTactualF?? Are you living on this planet? It’s not as bad because we’ve shut the world down. People aren’t going to bars, restaurants, on airplanes, to work. Unemployment is sky high because of the shutdown. Have you noticed that your favorite places are closed? Do you live on a mountaintop? I’ve heard people say that we’ll start hearing that it wasn’t as bad as the experts said it could be so we overreacted. I just didn’t think I’d hear something like that here. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528/40 "2020-05-27T21:48:01Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I will attempt to frame the debate as I go here. I am starting to feel like politicians in general should be left out of handling things like a pandemic. All the wrong incentives are in place and can be used by either side. The problem is that Americans have failed to make that connection that they are electing leaders who will be making life and death decisions that affect them. Instead they think in terms of “our side” or “their side” as if rooting for something inane like the winner of a reality TV show. What a good leader would have done is create a core panel of experts in health care, virology, data science, economics and other topics relevant to the pandemic, as opposed to political flunkies and nepotistic connections. He would have used the best information available and, working with state and in some cases local leadership, come up with a plan for dealing with the pandemic. I mean, as opposed to throwing out the plan the last leader put together. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-life-vs-politics/854528.md?page=3)