Is there a specific thread critiquing Mr. Trump’s 2020 pandemic-related executive orders? Would that be something you’re willing to write?
~Max
I’m not sure what the point would be.
It’s not like it was an obscure incident. Most of the people in the world are already aware Trump’s handling of the medical crisis was incompetent.
The only people who disagree are Trump loyalists in denial and no amount of facts will open their eyes.
It would be for the benefit of people like me, who don’t have informed opinions on those executive orders. I did a search on Trump’s pandemic-related executive orders and found criticisms about his public messaging (promising more than he could legally fulfil with executive orders, promising more than his executive orders actually covered), and criticisms of Congress for not doing its job. I did not find constructive criticisms - such as, the ‘President should have done X with executive orders, and here’s why’. In the articles I’m reading about Trump’s executive orders, all of the “should of done X” are attributed to Congress.
If anything my takeaway is that he should have issued… no executive orders addressing pandemic relief, and instead put more pressure on Congress to work something out on the legislative side.
~Max
If someone is punching you in the nose, you criticize the nose punching, you don’t offer alternatives.
Maybe this is all a big misunderstanding. Where Little_Nemo wrote,
Donald Trump didn’t issue the appropriate executive orders in 2020.
Maybe what was meant was
Donald Trump issued inappropriate executive orders in 2020.
~Max
Both are true.
There are things that a competent president could have done to mitigate things, both by EO and by being a public figure.
However, Trump not only didn’t do these things, he chose to do things that made things worse.
With respect to the pandemic, that’s what I’m looking to read about.
ETA: The mask mandate (and later vaccine mandate if he had been re-elected) for federal workers is one example of something a competent presidential response to the pandemic could have accomplished by Executive Order, but which Trump didn’t do.
~Max
There were executive orders that he could have made that would have made manufacturing PPE a priority, along with ensuring that there were proper distribution channels to get it to where it was needed to start.
Do you really want a play by play and complete relitigation of 2020, or can you use common sense to figure it out from there?
And various shutdowns as well. Leaving it up to the states left a hodgepodge of rules that had no consistency, and that were also politically difficult for many to do the right thing. Gov. DeWine in Ohio, a very staunch conservative, has received death threats and worse because he took measures that helped to save lives in the state.
At least if it came from the top, the governors could complain about it, but still allow and enforce the rules.
That’s exactly what I’m asking for. A topic, an article, blogpost, something along those lines: “How a competent president’s executive orders would have addressed the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020”
~Max
I’m sure you can google one up just as easily as I can. Difference is, I am not interested enough to do so, but you seem to be.
Here is a place to start.
Thanks, that’s pretty close to what I was trying to get at.
~Max
I remember an early press conference, sometime in March 2020, IIRC, where Trump’s pandemic team announced - with much ballyhoo- plans for robust / public private partnerships. There was going to be a testing center in the parking lot of every Walmart. Google was going to develop a software platform to assist citizens nationwide with finding and scheduling tests.
Of course, it was all a big fat lie, and if those plans ever existed outside of Jared Kushner’s head they were soon scrapped, as the White House then embraced the strategy of “Its not our problem, why in the world do you snowflakes think the federal government is responsible for mounting any kind of Covid response?” Blame your Governor. Then they decided harassing state governments and blaming them for the pandemic was the most expedient response politically.
If they had actually done the stuff they lied about, I would be less critical of their response.
I remember they did set up a testing site in the parking lot of our community college in April '20. In the summer that site closed and they opened another one in the parking lot of the mall. I believe it was a partnership with the (private) hospital and the county/state. I don’t know to what extent the federal government was involved.
I don’t remember people (here) having problems getting testing until the Delta variant in late 2021. There was confusion in March of 2020 when we were reading about the first outbreaks and learning it’s been circulating in the U.S. for months, but I remember mostly following when the tests would be FDA approved. There were multiple outbreaks at my sister’s school where she’d have to go in for daily testing, and we had an office outbreak in the fall of 2020. The vaccine rollout in early 2021 was terribly botched though, I remember that clearly.
~Max
I didn’t say that no one ever set up any Covid testing sites. I said that a representative of the federal government promised the public, on national television, that they would set up a nationwide testing program in conjunction with Google and Walmart. That was an outright lie. The fact that you were able to get a Covid test, probably through your state government, doesn’t mean that wasn’t a lie.
Depends on how early you mean. I had a vaccine in my arm in April.
Sorry, I may have latched on to the public/private partnership and availability things.
~Max
December 2020 thru about the end of March 2021. I wrote about it… here
~Max
We have an official in the federal government whose job is to lead the country during major national crises.
As much as I hate to defend Trump, he did keep our number of cases from doubling with one simple action during his tenure. When he stopped that cruise ship from docking… and when it finally did dock then he kept the passengers from disembarking, that actually did (or very nearly did) stop the number of cases on United States soil from doubling. I haven’t bothered to look any of this up, my memory should be good enough for that tidbit of information. I also seem to recall that the infected passengers eventually were moved to either a US Naval ship or a ship under a US flag so the numbers increased anyway (That part might be spin I got from only one source.)
I am quite sure I heard Trump himself say that there were some few amount of cases, by next week it would be down to about fifteen cases and a month after that it would be zero cases. The moral is of course that he couldn’t even lie or cheat efficiently. If he had just taken the time to watch Paul Newman and Bob Redford in The Sting, he would have known the mark isn’t supposed to know you lied even after you have taken him/her/them.
Very seriously however, if the far right and/or the Republican Party ever do fail I have a hard time imagining that Trump will not be awarded the game ball and the MVP trophy. By my calculations he has done more harm to the party than any Democratic Party member I can think of – and he might not be done yet. It does seem like his days are numbered but I have been thinking and saying that for years. He has pulled off some spectacular failures in the past, maybe he has what it takes to completely ruin the party. He has them completely divorced from any policy or policy position.