This piece by William Saletan is absolutely brutal. If journalism is the rough draft of history, the actual accounting when we have more information will be crushing. Sure, some enterprising young AEI "scholar" will offer a contrarian take, the way some people defend Hoover, but this is miles worse than Hoover (who did a few things right).
There is also the stubborn presence of "excess deaths" that have never been adequately explained. If you don't want to hack through a medical journal article, basically, there were roughly 87,000 "excess deaths" beyond a normal two month period from March 1 to April 25. Around 56,000 or 65% were attributed to Covid19. Recall also that things like workplace accidents and fatal car accidents were down because of the quarantine.
So, with what we know now, Trump's handling of the crisis has been appalling. It's arguably the greatest failure of basic governance in our history. Even James Buchanan would blanche at that. AND it's quite possible that the actual death toll from Covid is closer to 240,000, which is more than those who died in combat during the Civil War, and almost as many as died during all of World War II.
Please read the Saletan article, but only if you have a stiff drink handy.
UPDATE: Here's another brutal take on how America was ranked most prepared in the world for facing a pandemic, but then Trump and the GOP botched it.
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