Powerless to help, Donald Trump worries about incompetent pandemic leadership
Alexandra Petri
April 20, 2020
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| Safe at Home |
Why was nobody doing
anything? That was the question President Trump kept asking himself, over and
over, as he gazed at the United
States’ response to the covid-19 pandemic.
“The states have to step up
their TESTING!” he tweeted. Why was no one helping them? The United States
was supposed to be some kind of a great nation, not a floundering compilation
of states, each acting at cross purposes. Why were they bidding against one
another for medical essentials? They were one country! Did no one realize that?
Why were they being left to solve this alone? Could nobody help them
coordinate? He looked on, helpless, as the rate of testing ticked up all too
slowly.
It was heartbreaking to see.
He sat in front of the television, barely watching baseball (“I’m tired of
watching baseball games that are 14 years old,” as he told reporters at a
briefing. “But I haven’t actually had too much time to watch. I would say maybe
I watch one batter then I get back to work.”), wondering why someone was not
working harder to fix the numerous problems the nation, as a whole, faced with
the pandemic. Shouldn’t someone be developing a plan? It seemed as though the
guidance the states had received about whether to do that had been very mixed!
“Get out there and get the
job done,” he tweeted to the governor of New York. If only he were in a position to
offer more than verbal encouragement! He was happy to tell governors around the
country whether they were doing good jobs or bad jobs, but it frustrated him to
see them running low on supplies. Still, seeing New York behave as though it belonged to
some larger entity that might be able to obtain more supplies at better prices
gave him hope. Perhaps New York
had a Costco membership?
“Some governors have gone too
far,” he told reporters Sunday evening. “Some of the things that happened are
maybe not so appropriate.” The governors were trying to lead, but it seemed to
him that they were not doing it in the right way. If he were in charge, he
would do things differently, but in the meantime, he hoped that people would
protest.
He felt so powerless, staring
at the TV, seeing all the reports of how badly things were going. If this
country were so great, why was its response so desultory? Why were supplies
being confiscated en route to states? Where were those supplies even going? If
only he were not powerless to help. If only there were something he could do.