David Leonhardt at the New York Times offers a reasonable analysis of Trump’s responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in.
I want to emphasize that blaming Trump for the appearance of coronavirus would be deeply unfair. No matter who was president, the virus would likely have created a crisis, as it has in Europe.
But it’s also important to be clear about the responsibility that does fall on Trump. His months of denial — and his acceptance of the testing fiasco — meant that the United States failed to isolate people with the virus, as South Korea and Singapore did. His refusal to fix the medical-supply crisis means that the virus is unnecessarily spreading in hospitals and that Americans will unnecessarily die.
The severity of the virus, in turn, will make the economic downtown worse and longer lasting. And Trump will be partly at fault. A reality-based response in January and February would have produced a different economy in April and May.
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