May 27, 2020 6 min read

The coronavirus has put governments around the world under stress, as crises tend to do. It has demonstrated President Trump’s inadequacies for all the world to see, which is unfortunate. Traditionally, during world crises, other countries look to the U.S. for leadership. Trump has abandoned that role, and countries see the U.S. as a cautionary tale rather than a model. During Trump’s impeachment, many people felt that while Trump’s behavior was bad, the voters should have their say in November, so impeachment was unnecessary. Many of us who supported impeachment did so not to punish Trump, but because it was important to remove him from office because his behavior demonstrated his inabilities to do the job, and we feared having him as president during a crisis he did not manufacture. That crisis has arrived.

COVID-19 would present a challenge for any leader, so Trump should not be blamed for the outbreak. But Trump should be held responsible for his administration’s inadequate response. Trump was made aware of the potential danger posed by the virus in November. In December, Wuhan was taking dramatic action (forcing millions of people into isolation), which should have been a warning sign. But Trump’s instincts are to win the day, rather than think long-term (Joe Scarborough calls him a “political day-trader”). As the stock market, whose rise was to be the foundation of his reelection campaign, recognized the potential economic danger associated with the spread of the virus and began to falter, Trump downplayed the potential danger to assuage the nerves of investors. It took him over two months to admit that COVID-19 posed a serious threat to Americans, and that dramatic action was needed.

Hindsight is 20-20, as the saying goes, but there were many people urging Trump to take more forceful action as the crisis evolved. Trump did restrict flights from China (although this was not an expression of visionary leadership since 39 other countries did this about the same time), so that was his first appropriate action, but Trump’s ban had more exemptions than many other countries’, so more than 40,000 people arrived in the U.S. from China despite the “ban.”

While it might have been difficult to shut down the economy to prevent the spread of the virus before there were many cases here, what the Trump administration should have been doing was developing supply lines and building up stockpiles of necessary supplies. Instead, while Trump proclaimed absolute authority, he denied any responsibility, putting the onus on the states to obtain their own supplies. But governors have found their efforts thwarted, as the federal government has outbid them on these precious supplies. I’m not sure why, because Jared Kushner told the states that the federal stockpiles were not for them (though he did not say who they were for).

Trump has demonstrated his politics over governance approach with his support of the groups that recently began protesting state-mandated lockdowns at different state capitals. While his official policy was to support those lockdowns, he tweeted “Liberate Michigan” in support of the protestors. He sent similar tweets about Virginia and Minnesota as well; while other states with Republican governors were also locked down, the tweets were directed at Democratic governors only.

Trump’s unwillingness to wear a face mask demonstrates his failure of leadership. Leaders model good behavior. It is a scientific consensus that face masks prevent the spread of the virus. Nobody looks good in a face mask, but Trump is so insecure about how he looks, he refuses to wear one in public (though he claims to wear one in the non-public areas of his recent campaign stops in Arizona and Michigan). A darker interpretation of his refusal is that he is supporting his right-wing supporters who claim the preventive measures taken are part of a Democratic plot to sink his presidency; as his son, Eric, said, “after Nov. 3, coronavirus will magically, all of a sudden, go away and disappear, and everything will be able to reopen.”

People who downplay the severity of the virus like to point out that the seasonal flu as a similar death toll (which was true for the first few weeks of the pandemic). What they failed to consider is how quickly COVID-19 did its damage (surpassing the annual death toll for the flu in a manner of weeks), and that it did that damage in spite of heroic efforts to stop it (which are not used to prevent the flu). Had we not shut things down, undoubtedly the death toll would have been dramatically higher.

With more than 90,000 deaths, the U.S. has the most deaths of any nation in the world. While it is true that as a large country, the U.S. would be expected to have large numbers, the U.S. is also in the top 10 in deaths per capita. All of the countries with higher per capita rates are European countries, which have much higher population densities than the U.S., which makes containing an infectious disease more difficult. South Korea, which had its first case reported on the same day as the U.S., has about 250 dead; the population of the U.S. is about six times greater, so if the U.S. had a response as good at the South Koreans, we’d have around 1,500 dead. In spite of Trump’s assertion that his response has been “perfect,” by no measure has the U.S. response even been good.

Normally, during a crisis, Americans rally around their leader, as citizens around the world have done during this pandemic. This has largely not happened for Trump, primarily because Trump is such a divisive figure, and his campaign for reelection is based on demonizing his opponent while stirring up his base. Some have argued that we should not focus on mistakes that have been made, and apportioning blame, but rather on solutions and a way forward. While I understand this positive approach, part of determining the proper way forward is to understand what got us here in the first place, and how we can do better. And not recognizing Trump’s responsibility for our failed response risks making the mistake of not holding him accountable. An appropriate response requires capable leadership, and Trump has demonstrated he’s not up to the job.

Kent James is an East Washington resident and has degrees in history and policy management from Carnegie Mellon University. He is an adjunct professor of history at Washington & Jefferson College.