Sure. But experts have estimated that trump, fox “news” and conservative talk radio was responsible for anywhere between 1/3 to 2/3rd of American deaths. So, let’s be fair and take 1/2, which means responsible for 500,000 dead Americans. That is more than any war, except the Civil war, and that of course depends on whether or not we count the traitors ass “Americans”.
The US and Canada are probably the two countries most easily comparable in the world. Our cultures are only slightly different, in fact, probably 90% of Canadian entertainment is US imports. We speak the same language (mostly!), have legal systems that both derive from the British Common Law, and have similar demographics. We watch the same news, and have the same arguments about politics.
Minor differences don’t explain such a huge difference in outcomes. What does explain it is a leadership that went out of its way to downplay the risks of COVID, and decided to react to it in a political manner, not as a public health matter. And all that flowed from the top. Trump set the tone, and Republicans at every level below him sang along with him.
And it’s more than the excess US deaths that I’d attribute to Trump and his actions. I’d put the blame for a lot of the world-wide deaths on him as well. We know from his own admission that he knew, via US intelligence sources, that COVID was real, and very dangerous as early as late January 2020. He deliberately sat on that information for almost two months, because he didn’t want to risk his “perfect” stock market.
The US has the best, largest, most comprehensive intelligence gathering and analysis system in the world. No one else could have had this information before the US did, and Trump kept that from everyone for two long months. That was two extra months the virus had to spread unchecked. And this was one of the most contagious viruses we’ve ever seen. Allowing it more time to spread directly contributed to the sudden explosions in case counts early in the pandemic, like what happened in Italy. If other governments had known at the beginning of February 2020 how bad it was, they could have enacted quarantine measures that might have stopped the world-wide spread, or at least slowed it down considerably.
So at least some of those deaths are on Trump’s head as well.
This map may help you.
This stat may help you.
Canada’s population density per square mile: 10
US population density per square mile: 91
That assumes equal population density. That’s not the case. About 90% of the population is within 100 miles of the US border. Canada’s population distribution is a horizontal version of Chile.
The northern part of the country is extremely low population density. That 10 people per square mile is an average for the entire country, but doesn’t tell you anything about the population density for that 90% who live near the US border.
Here is an aspect of Trump’s putative election that hardly anyone has considered. Come 2028, Trump will want to run again. Scotus is about to say that states cannot keep him off the ballot unless congress passes a law authorizing them to. So he appears on the ballot and, given the way they will prevent the wrong people from voting, they will win. Congress will supinely accept the result.
Could they split the difference and say that however the people vote, an ineligible candidate will simply not be sworn in?
The other easy comparison is Sweden to Denmark and Norway. Sweden also had health leaders who believed in a herd immunity approach, and chose to avoid lockdowns.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-95699-9
I don’t love this study’s methodology, but the raw mortality/million people at the start tells the story. The UK locked down more than Sweden and had comparable mortality, but London is a major travel hub, and there’s a lot of evidence they were hit sooner and harder. Whereas Sweden, Norway, and Denmark had rather similar introductions to the virus, as well as having similar genetics and culture. Denmark is the most densely populated, and Norway the least, of the three. So Sweden’s high mortality really stands out.
Or, if you are willing to play with interactive graphs, try this site
The third graph shows data by country, normalized for population. You can select Sweden, Norway, and Denmark as highlighted countries, and select “total deaths” as the metric. Sweden has well more than twice the mortality of Norway, and nearly 60% higher mortality than Denmark.
Yeah, Trump’s leadership mattered, and yes, a lot more Americans were killed by covid than would have been under a different leader.
He did help move the vaccine forward, though. Thank God that was consistent with him making more money. (Lockdowns hurt his tourist-based income, vaccines helped it.)
Very little. Congress did most of the heavy lifting. Warp Speed was a branding and organizational exercise conducted after the legislation was passed and funding was secured. Admittedly inspired PR, but it’s hard to see Trump’s special role. Timeline: The real story behind Operation Warp Speed – Kevin Drum
Cite:
But I think there is one huge difference, which is particularly relevant to covid:
Many Americans have a deep fear of ,and hatred for, their own government.
“We love our freedom”!!!
“The government is going to take away our guns!!!”
We can’t let the government force us to wear masks!!! “That’s socialism!!!”.
There is a level of stupidity in Amercan culture that is , I think, unmatched in any other country.
Other countries imposed restrictions, lockdowns, mask wearing, etc based on rational dicussion.
Covid would have killed a million Americans no matter who was president. Trump encouraged the stupidity.But even if a sane president had been in charge, a huge number of American citizens would have died by refusing to follow instructions about wearing masks.Just like they did a year later by refusing to get vaccinated.
You apparently do not understand what has been said here. I mean really, really don’t understand the basics.
It’s actually kind of astonishing, isn’t it. 
He doesn’t seem to understand that both countries’ entire populations are not spread evenly across their respective total square mileages. You know, the only reason that far fewer Canadians died from Covid is that it couldn’t get from one igloo to the next. /s
There was even a simple picture that Northern Piper posted. One does not have to understand statistics or even simple math to understand the picture.
Exactly! I had also edited my initial response as you were saying the above.
“There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
And it’s not just the difference between Canada and the US. There’s also measurable differences between Democrats and Republicans. Republicans caught COVID and died at a higher rate than Democrats, because Democrats listened to the scientists, and Republicans listened to Trump.
Going back to the OP’s question:
I will avoid political news as much as humanly possible.
I will spend even more time on the things I love: E.g. music, travel, mysteries, crossword puzzles.
Joke joke. Joke joke joke. Then Boom.
Perhaps. Let’s move from the known to the unknown. Trump attempted a coup on Jan 4, 2021. He had telegraphed his intent for months. Indeed in 2016 he thought he would lose to H Clinton and planned to call it a stolen election.
Ok, but the system held. This time. This is consistent with the experience of other countries: typically democracies die after a period of procedural decay and attacks on the legitimacy of the democratic structure. Cite. Very familiar.
“But c’mon the Hang Mike Pence crowd was a joke.” Certainly. Trump’s strategy was to create a circus on the street for weeks, not days, create a circus in the legislature, then toss the mess to a compliant Supreme Court, hoping they would hand him the election like they did to GW Bush in 2000.
That was the strategy (sub req).
Living abroad is good experience which I recommend, though I’ve done only a little of it. On a personal level this SWM is more worried about 2029 onwards than he is about 2024-2028. But my grandfather left a thriving law practice in the early 1940s to fight fascism. If he can do that, I can eg sign up with Indivisible and support our 240 year experiment with democracy in the most effective way I can. That might mean demonstrations. Or texting. Or letter writing. Or boycotts. Or something else. Sounds a lot easier than fighting WWII. I hope we have the numbers. And I hope our business class recognizes that they operate in a rarefied rule-of-law environment, the state of nature is not libertarian at all (whatever its strengths and limits), and that democratic stability is great for business and prosperity.
Politics is about power. Doom scroll less, act more, maybe during the weekend.
Fascism has historically had very good relations with business, especially Big Business. I expect that Musk and others like him would be very, very happy with a fascist state that gives him more power and money. Future oligarchs would very much like to have exclusive monopoly control over industries. They could even benefit from lower labor costs, even as low as zero in many instances.
While it lasts. The problem is that authoritarian states are fragile, especially during changes in power. Most business leaders are younger than Trump. Democracy’s secret sauce is that it permits investment and planning over 5+ year time spans: you don’t need to rely on your guy remaining in power.
In other news, I located a population density map of the US and Canada. A lot of Canadians live in pretty dense places - Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and their environs. Maybe that will help.
ETA: This one is better. Population density as experienced by the average person in each country:
Reddit cite: Reddit - Dive into anything
It seems that Trump is being pretty clear what he’d do with a 2nd term, at least when it comes to international policy;
- Unilaterally take the US out of NATO, breaking international treaty
- Abandon Ukraine to Russia, inviting them to take it over
- Abandon other allies to Russia, as they probe further into Europe for soft targets
- Abandon US support for Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, ceding those countries to China
Domestic policy will likely be just as much a shit-show.
I imagine China and Russia are already drawing up plans to interfere in this year’s elections on behalf of Trump. If it’s not already underway.