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OPINION: In absolute numbers, the United States is experiencing the worst Covid-19 outbreak in the world. How did this happen in a country with such vast resources?
There is a lot of blame, from the early test failures to the numerous officials who did not act quickly.
How voters assign blame will be the key question of the 2020 presidential election. As president, Donald Trump is trying to deflect all the blame from himself, while taking credit for everything that turns out well.
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Started by blaming the other side
Research from the past decade shows that the identity of the party is a major factor in how Americans blame government failures. In today’s partisan environment, many voters will simply blame the other side.
But the election is likely to be decided on the sidelines, by people without strong party identities who generally pay little attention to politics.
Trump’s own failures in the pandemic are well documented. His overconfidence, disdain for expert opinion, and his obsession with preventing bad news from reaching the stock market made the crisis worse.
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United States President Donald Trump defended his response to the coronavirus outbreak at an extraordinary press conference.
Perhaps most damagingly, Trump and his allies claimed early on that the media and Democrats deliberately exaggerated the virus to harm the economy and its chances for reelection. This politicization of the virus had far-reaching effects on the behavior of citizens and elected officials.
Almost all western democracies have had problems with people who have not taken Covid-19 seriously. But only in the United States did it become a principled political stance.
Then it became a ‘foreign’ problem
Trump is betting his reelection on a different narrative. Now he blames the pandemic outside the United States, the Chinese government, and the World Health Organization. He announced that he will suspend US funding for the WHO, which he accuses of mishandling the crisis and helping China’s cover-ups.
The centerpiece of this narrative is Trump’s travel ban on China, which he says the WHO “fought” for. In telling Trump’s story, he made a brave and prophetic decision that aligned with his instincts to keep Americans safe from foreign threats. In reality, the travel ban contributed to a dangerous atmosphere of complacency.
The Trump government issued an entry ban on foreigners who had recently traveled to China on January 31, starting on February 2. Trump faced almost no political opposition to this decision at the time, although the WHO did not recommend it.
Trump was not alone in making this decision. US airlines have already stopped transporting passengers to and from China. Many other countries, including Australia and Italy, announced travel bans for passengers from China at the same time.
Despite China’s complaints about travel bans, the world essentially followed China’s lead after it closed down Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak on January 30.
The virus was already spreading in the United States, and other travelers, such as returning cruise passengers, were planting new groups. But the response from the US government. USA It remained focused on China, even as Trump tried to calm markets by praising President Xi Jinping’s handling of the crisis.
Governors fight back after the President of the United States insists he “makes the decisions” when deciding on measures against the coronavirus outbreak.
Until the end of February, the CDC restricted coronavirus testing to people who had recently been in China or had come in contact with a known infected person. As a result, few Americans were evaluated in the first weeks of the crisis.
Australia, by contrast, had a similar travel ban, but it tested many more people from the start.
In March, Trump and his allies continued to brag that the travel ban had “contained” Covid-19, which they dubbed “the China virus.”
LACK OF PREPARATION LEADS TO CRISIS
After it became clear that EE. USA Facing a major crisis of his own, Trump repeatedly pointed to the travel ban as evidence of his early seriousness about Covid-19.
Framing the virus as a foreign problem solved by keeping foreigners out fit Trump’s political purposes while campaigning for reelection in a difficult border control. But it did nothing to help Americans as infection rates exploded.
The widespread framing of the virus as “foreign” continued even as it crushed American cities. Some Republican officials suggested that the crisis would be limited to cosmopolitan cities in blue states.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey declined to issue a stay-at-home order because, as she said, “We are not California.” However, Alabama already had more infections per capita in late March than California.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem told reporters her state “was not New York City” shortly before one of the worst viral groups in the country appeared in Sioux Falls.
Lack of preparedness for a pandemic in the United States caused a national shortage of medical equipment, forcing states to compete with each other for the few resources available.
As governors called for supplies from the national reserve, Trump said he wanted “to be thanked.” This has created a plethora of images of governors praising Trump’s response to the crisis, which will no doubt figure heavily in his election campaign.
Trump’s ability as an activist cannot be denied. But his initial electoral drive for the crisis, smaller than that of other leaders, is already fading.
Trump will continue to make reliable predictions and promote miracle cures as the pandemic progresses. And if one of them works, it will become another centerpiece of the campaign, showing how Trump beat the experts.
But many of these games have already failed. Death and suffering are real, and will be a grim backdrop for an election.
David Smith is Senior Lecturer in United States Foreign Policy and Policy, Center for United States Studies, University of Sydney.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
