Trump Was Unprepared For The Biggest Test of His Presidency
158, 256 COVID-19 deaths, 4,823,891 positive cases, and an unemployment rate that is in double digits.
This is what we have here in the United States of America as a result of this pandemic that we are in as of today and what was Donald Trump doing over the weekend?
He was golfing. That is right, as cases surge and more and more Americans and dying as well as tens of millions remain unemployed with the extra unemployment benefits having just expired on July 31st, the President of the United States found time to once again, golf.
He was unprepared for this crisis because he does not care about the people of this country, just himself.
Now, I have written many articles about his failed response to this pandemic and the failed response by this president, but as cases continue to spike and our country continues to suffer, I felt it was important to revisit the negligent and inadequate response by Trump once again and show just how unprepared he was for the biggest test of his presidency and the biggest moment for public health in decades.
There is so much at stake and this guy is out golfing instead of focusing on how we can get this virus under control and save American lives and still fails to see how serious this thing is and how our nation is suffering more now than when it first began.
There are a lot of ways that Trump was unprepared to deal with a crisis of this magnitude, but there are also actions that he took and failed to take that put us in the bad position as we attempt to fight this virus and get things under control with the pandemic.
President Obama Left the Pandemic Playbook , Trump Ignored It
Just like in sports like football where there is a playbook that coaches and offensive staff have to guide a quarterback and other players through the plays in the game, pandemics have their own game plan and President Obama left this playbook for the incoming administration only for it to be ignored and disgarded.
This reminds me of when a quarterback comes in the game and does not look at the playbook or consult with coach or offensive coordinator and just go and runs whatever play that he wants to run without any thought of what kind of consequences may arise.
Trump has treated the pandemic this exact same way although, the result is not the loss of a football game, the consequences are much more severe and will have a lasting impact on this entire country and the people who live in our nation.
The Obama playbook consisted of a clear and direct plan to address a tragic situation like the one that we find ourselves in now and Trump not only went and dismissed this game plan, but he threw the plan out completely and that would not have been so bad if he replaced the plan, but just like his approach to healthcare, he did not.
Barack Obama literally had a team called the Pandemic Response Team that was set up to deal with these types of events and Trump went ahead and gutted this team and ignored the rest of the playbook that Obama left him including the 69-page National Security Council guidebook that was left for him in 2016.
The Trump administration basically ignored every single plan to be carried up if we ran into a public health crisis like the one we are in now and the result has been massive loss of life and sickness as well as the associated side effects of such a crisis, like job losses and an economy that is falling apart and that is not to mention other impacts like mental health and stress.
“To say there was no playbook was ridiculous”, said one senior former Obama administration official.
There was a playbook and Trump was briefed on this game plan to deal with a pandemic and he completely ignored the intel and chose to do his own thing, which was to essentially do nothing and ignore the threat that is right in front of us with this pandemic.
Trump was briefed in his Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) and ignored it to the point where he would not even read it. Trump knew that this could be a problem and he chose to do things his way, instead of look at how you actually handle an outbreak from his predecessor and look at the difference, the H1N1 outbreak under Obama had around 12,000 deaths, with this virus we are now nearing 160,000 and in a fraction of the time.
Trump was unprepared and that is because he chose to go it alone and ignore the playbook given to him on how to proceed.
“It Is What It Is”, How Trump Dismisses the Sea of Death
His response should have been that it is a tragic thing that so many lives have been needlessly lost and that he and his administration will do whatever it takes to get the virus under control and save people’s lives going forward, not to act like he does not care with what he said, he should at least pretend to care about us.
A president has the responsibility to guide a nation through a crisis and that is not how Donald Trump has handled this situation, he has done quite the opposite of what a leader should do in times of crisis, he has denied, blamed, and deflected away from himself and onto others.
Just look at other times in our history when we have had a situation where mass numbers of our people died from a catastrophic event and how the president responded to those events. Look at how Bush handled the attacks on September 11th, 2001 or how Obama handled mass shootings or even the H1N1 outbreak or how Bill Clinton responded to the Oklahoma City Bombing that killed so many.
These presidents did not have such irresponsible and unpresidential actions in these situations and they acted in the good of the country and the people that they represent and that is not how Trump has approached this pandemic, not at all.
When the Twin Towers came down and thousands of lives were lost, you did not see Bush saying. “It is what it is” or when there was a mass shooting or a hurricane or any other tragedy during the Obama years or any tragedy in these other presidencies, they did not sit up there and accept that this was the way it was.
They stepped up and acted presidential, even Bush who I did not support, he united the country at a time when we were at our lowest.
Once again, we are at a low point, but the difference is that we do not have a leader who brings us together and who is outraged by the tragedy that we all are in, but rather we have one who throws his hands up and gives up on the fight against this virus and that is not something that we should accept as a nation.
A President With The Deer In Headlights Look, Part Two
I just mentioned how President Bush acted presidential during the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and he did.
However, when the planes first hit the towers, he had that deer caught in the headlights look as he sat in the classroom, not knowing what to do or how to respond to the crisis.
Trump has had that same look throughout this pandemic and in fact, he had that look on election night when he realized that he was elected president and had no clue how he would do it. The last four years and especially this COVID-19 pandemic has shown that he in fact does not have a clue what he is doing as president and cannot manage this crisis.
Just look at him when he gives these press briefings, look at his face when he is answering these questions about the deaths and our response to the virus as a nation. You can tell that he is clueless when it comes to this pandemic and has no idea what to do next.
Trump has that deer in the headlights look and his behavior with this crisis of the pandemic shows that he has no clue what he is doing, or he does not care to take the correct actions that will bring us together as a country and stop the outbreak.
We need leadership that is not afraid to make the right choices and choose public health and sanity over what is the politically popular thing with their base and Trump has shown that he is not that type of leader. This guy has shown that he does what his base wants, not what is best for the American people.
Unprepared and Unpresidential
Trump was unprepared for the biggest test of his presidency, he was not ready for the crisis of our lifetime and it shows.
He has acted unpresidential throughout this entire process and has shown that he was not ready to preside over such an event as the COVID-19 public health emergency.
Here we are almost six months into this pandemic and while other leaders within our nation as well as across the globe have taken swift and decisive actions to slow the spread and save lives, Trump has done the exact opposite and has failed over and over.
He was unprepared and as usual, he has acted unpresidential.
He had a real opportunity to get this thing under control, but he failed to do so and thus we have a situation where there are thousands of deaths and more than four million positive cases with no end in sight anytime soon and this president continues to deny the severity of this virus.
He was like a soldier who forget his weapon and went into battle, unprepared for what was about to happen and because of that he has done mostly nothing to contain this thing and get things back to normal and that is something that we for sure cannot accept.
Unprepared to deal with the crisis of this pandemic and acting unpresidential at a time when he should lead, rather than blame and deflect.
His press briefings where he calls reporters names, makes fun of people who wear masks, and comes up with cuckoo cures for this virus like telling people to inject disinfectants and take unproven medications and none of these things are ways that a president should act during a crisis.
His unprepared actions and inaction have shown that he is not who we need in a leader and have told us that he is not fit for the office of the presidency of the United States, especially at a time like this. During a time like this we need real leadership, not the failed leader that we have with this president and his failed actions (and inaction) on the pandemic.
The Pandemic Will Remain As Long As Trump Remains
This November 3rd, we have a decision to make together as a country, a decision that will decide the fate of this pandemic and our nation.
We either vote to keep Trump on as president or we go in a different and better direction and select Joe Biden to be our next president and leader as we navigate the many challenges that we face including this pandemic and the other problems that our country faces as a result of the failures of Donald Trump and his administration.
Americans will continue to die and our country will continue to suffer in so many ways as long as Trump is president and this is why we must go in an entirely different direction in the 2020 Election, we must choose someone who will get us out of this mess and choose public health over politics and that person is Joe Biden.
Joe is our best hope. Joe is the one who was part of the Obama administration who developed that Pandemic Response Team that Trump went ahead and dismantled and Joe will be the one to lead us out of this crisis that we are in now.
The deaths and positive will continue to rise, the economy will continue to suffer, and the fake news and lies will continue to be spread as long as this man stays in office. These reasons are why we must choose Joe, the crisis of COVID-19 is not going away anytime soon, but if we get Trump out of office, then we may have a fighting chance.
Joe gives us that fighting chance, Joe would be prepared and would lead us via a common sense approach, Trump never will.
