Jon Chait has a lengthy piece on the war between the GOP and evidence-based policy making. It catalogs (again) the ways in which the GOP has become a handmaiden of anti-science, anti-reason politics. It also note that America was ranked as being the best country in the world to withstand a pandemic (on paper) to having the worst response in reality (because of Trump). Here's an interesting quote:
One German expert told the Washington Post that Germany had used American studies to design an effective response, which the U.S. somehow couldn’t implement. American “scientists appeared to have reached an adequate assessment of the situation early on, but this didn’t translate into a political action plan,” observed another.
There were always going to be American deaths because of Covid, because Trump is not unique among Americans in his disdain for science. If Hillary Clinton had carried Michigan and Pennsylvania, we'd still be having mask protests and Covid parties. Remember, the Tea Party freaked out because Obama wanted to give people health care. But it wouldn't be this bad.
It didn't have to be this bad.
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