A COMPETENT PRESIDENT?
We rethink the week with Shawn Sebastian, Iowa progressive activist @workingfamilies and senior strategist for the rural #GreenNewDeal; Ron Abramson, attorney at Shaheen and Gordon; and Dean Spiliotis, Civic Scholar and Presidential Scholar at Southern New Hampshire University.
Competence has always been an issue for Donald Trump, ever since he first announced that he was running for president. During the years that he’s been in power, he has demonstrated over and over again how unprepared he is for the role that Americans rely on him to play. He’s shown very little knowledge (some might say he’s shown negative knowledge with his counterfactual information). And he’s shown very little ability to plan, organize, or marshal the resources of the government to help our country make progress in an unpredictable and often dangerous world.
On top of that, of course, his judgment is impaired by his own ego: he makes decisions based on what’s best for him personal – or to punish anyone who disagrees with him – and ignores what might be the best choices for our country and its people. To make his leadership worse, he cannot be trusted. He lies repeatedly, about mundane matters (like the size of his inauguration crowd) and about issues that are crucial to the fabric of our country (like asking foreign governments to interfere in the election campaigns of his political opponents).
This general m.o. explains Pres. Trump’s incompetent response to the coronavirus. South Korea got its first case of the novel coronavirus on the very same day as we did in the United States. But Korea quickly ramped up its protective system, instituted precautions for the public, and took urgent action to provide masks and respirators to medical providers and the general population on a large scale. That’s why we and other countries are now looking to them as a model of how we can better cope with the devastation of this pandemic.
In contrast, it took the Trump administration until mid-March (70 days later!) to take the COVID-19 pandemic seriously and to order masks and respirators in large numbers. Because of Trump’s (denial and) delay, the US was unable to slow the rampaging spread of the virus. We couldn’t “flatten the curve” to give our hospital system a better chance to protect our population. As a result, unlike South Korea, we will not be in a position to see any kind of return to normalcy in our communities and in our economy for many months to come.
Minorities, the unemployed and low-wage working people have always been at a disadvantage — in health care as in other aspects of life. They have been less able to obtain necessary medical treatment and have been more susceptible to disease. Now their underlying conditions make them more likely to get sicker with COVID-19 than most middle income or wealthy people.
In contrast to our federal government’s lack of competent political leadership, we note that Jay Inslee in the State of Washington and, to a lesser extent, Andrew Cuomo in NYS, did a much better job of helping their residents cope with COVID-19. They gathered/analyzed factual information, planned responses and policies, and put those policies into action. At the present time, Inslee is actually in a position to tell the rest of America what actions have *succeeded* in his state.
CAN DEMOCRATS WIN IN NOVEMBER?
Turning to politics, we discuss the problematic effects of the pandemic on our election. How is the Democratic Party going to generate a message that has a chance to inspire voters in November and thereby prevent Trump’s reelection? Even before COVID-19, the Democrats were facing problems ending their primary season with a nominee that all Democrats could support in the general election. In light of the pandemic, they’re going to face problems of losing the media “bump” that often comes from an exciting in-person convention. How is a Democratic ticket going to be able to campaign effectively in an era of social distancing where voters fear coming down with COVID-19?
Most important of all, how can Democrats make their presumptive candidate – Joe Biden – a candidate who can motivate voters to come to the polls in the general election and pull the lever for him? During the past year, Biden has not been remotely exciting or inspirational. Everything he says is bland, predictable, lacking in creativity or foresight or forward movement. What will make voters want to follow his leadership? And if that’s not possible, what can Democrats do to prevent Trump from skating into a second term on the wings of nothing but his own salesmanship and the Democrats’ lack of a better alternative?
