[Genuine Realist]

If FDR bungled the World War II, do you not think he should have come under criticism?  Trump is not being criticized for what happened before Coronavirus made it to our shores; he's being criticized for what has happened since then.



BC

I suggested the theory that FDR bungled long before Pearl Harbor. But the theory is nonsense because he did not remotely have the popular consensus to act more aggressively, even though his perception of reality was far more advanced than the largely isolationist public, and historically correct. 



After H1N1 (in 1976) and the light brush with swine flu in 2009, the public's support for drastic measures before March was nonexistent. It was the discovery that C-19 was no swine flu that changed perception. 



And for that belated awakening, we have the CCP to thank.

Lots of steps that Trump could have taken to either increase public support or take steps that the public would have been behind.
1) Stop making it worse by minimizing the significance of the virus and saying it will go away on its own, even as the cases and deaths were piling up.
2) Start socializing the potential of the virus to be very serious.
3) Put in place executive orders to cut through the red tape at FDA and CDC to roll out testing and enable expanded access to medications.
4) Develop a COVID response team that would determine what needs healthcare teams will have.  Identify PPE and ventilators as your weak link before health systems are overwhelmed and centralize purchase and distribution.
5) Develop guidelines for states to implement escalating social distancing orders.  The administration did a decent job in writing the guidelines for reopening; it could have provided states with guidelines on when to impose various restrictions.  That doesn't mean you impose them immediately, but rather you get the states ready to impose them.  Remember, a one day delay results in a ~40% increase in cases in a wave, so if you can get states to move forward their restrictions by a day or two, that makes a significant difference in the end.
6) Expand local health authorities capability to do case tracking.  The CDC announced 600 additional staff today.  It could have pushed this two months ago!
7) Talk to business leaders to socialize them to the possible need of having employees work from home.  For whatever my complaints about Trump are, he is good at talking to business leaders.  Even just "make contingency plans to have your employees work from home" would have been helpful.
8) Work with states to get them read.
9) Start negotiations with congress to get important pieces of legislation together early.  You don't have to pass them, but if you have the outlines of legislation already negotiated and ready to deploy if the proverbial crap hits the fan.
10) Most importantly, the President is supposed to be a leader; lead for frick's sake.  Tell people things they might not want to hear, but that if they hear could save their lives.  Tell people to be ready for the worst, but remind them that we are all in this together, and that if things start to take a turn worse, we will all work together.

None of these steps required anything from the CCP or WHO.  Worst case scenario, the worst doesn't come to pass, and maybe he gets a few complaints about overreaction, but no worse than what he would have endured for the travel ban, for example.  Which is to say, ultimately the usual suspects would complain; his supporters would hail him as a genius, and the majority of americans wouldn't care.

BC

I'm going to write one reply here, and then you guys can take it away. It's impossible to avoid Trump, I  guess, but there are other actors.

(a) The motivation of an embattled President [impeachment] is to ENLARGE, EXAGGERATE, a crisis - and particularly one like this, which is unrelated to any policy or political choice his Administration made. It's a godsend in an election year - a made-to-order rallying point, for which he cannot be held responsible, and as to which he can exhibit leadership. Trump didn't become President because he lacked political acumen. There is absolutely no upside to minimizing the threat. (To keep a stock market rally going a few weeks longer? When the election's in November? Come on.) 

But Trump didn't seize the opportunity. Reason? He didn't know it was there, because through January the CCP and WHO did not alert the world as to how serious this virus is. 

(b) The motivation of opponents of the Administration, faced with a President who unaccountably refuses to respond to a crisis, is to ENLARGE, EXAGGERATE the crisis, and emphasize the inaction. It's a godsend in an election year - a made-to-order rallying point, by holding the President responsible for lack of leadership. Nancy Pelosi didn't become Speaker because she lacks political acumen. (She was not privy to Administration intelligence? Please. There were briefings, and health information is not like military secrets.

But the Democrats did not seize the opportunity, e.g, Pelosi did not criticize the SOTU for speaking too little about C-19. She tore it up. Wjat comments the Party did make were critical of the measures the Administration did take as xenophobic. Reason? They didn't know the opportunity was there, until Western experience with the virus showed that how dangerous it was. 

© The motivation of the chief bureaucrats at the CDC and elsewhere is to ENLARGE, EXAGGERATE, the crisis, for turf reasons, budgetary reasons, and personal fame. I could continue the parallel, but you get the idea. The government is too big for any one person to manage. That's why departments exists. The CDC chief could storm into the Oval Office, demanding changes to procedures to facilitate immediate procurement of tests, equipment, etc. 

But he or she didn't do that. Whoever it was was apparently content with the normal processes and did not regard the situation as a bureaucratic opportunity.

In short, every player in the scenario, and particularly Trump, would be motivated to overstate, rather than understate, the looming crisis. Not one of them did so. My Ockham's razor explanation is that all of them were gulled by misinformation coming out of China. (I'm not an MD, but I think that the acknowledgment that the virus could be transmitted from one human being to another was particularly important. I don't believe that the CCP acknowledged that until late January, the day before Trump's travel ban. My understanding is that it was the divulging of that fact in social chat that caused the Chinese government to sanction the MD's who disclosed it - a disgraceful act. Correct me if I am wrong.)

So that's my case against the CCP. Public awareness increased exponentially with the unfolding catastrophe in Italy. By March the public had accepted the need for quarantine. That's at least six weeks later than it had to be, thanks to the Chinese government. Fire away.

[Genuine Realist]

If FDR bungled the World War II, do you not think he should have come under criticism?  Trump is not being criticized for what happened before Coronavirus made it to our shores; he's being criticized for what has happened since then.



BC

I suggested the theory that FDR bungled long before Pearl Harbor. But the theory is nonsense because he did not remotely have the popular consensus to act more aggressively, even though his perception of reality was far more advanced than the largely isolationist public, and historically correct. 



After H1N1 (in 1976) and the light brush with swine flu in 2009, the public's support for drastic measures before March was nonexistent. It was the discovery that C-19 was no swine flu that changed perception. 



And for that belated awakening, we have the CCP to thank.

Lots of steps that Trump could have taken to either increase public support or take steps that the public would have been behind.
1) Stop making it worse by minimizing the significance of the virus and saying it will go away on its own, even as the cases and deaths were piling up.
2) Start socializing the potential of the virus to be very serious.
3) Put in place executive orders to cut through the red tape at FDA and CDC to roll out testing and enable expanded access to medications.
4) Develop a COVID response team that would determine what needs healthcare teams will have.  Identify PPE and ventilators as your weak link before health systems are overwhelmed and centralize purchase and distribution.
5) Develop guidelines for states to implement escalating social distancing orders.  The administration did a decent job in writing the guidelines for reopening; it could have provided states with guidelines on when to impose various restrictions.  That doesn't mean you impose them immediately, but rather you get the states ready to impose them.  Remember, a one day delay results in a ~40% increase in cases in a wave, so if you can get states to move forward their restrictions by a day or two, that makes a significant difference in the end.
6) Expand local health authorities capability to do case tracking.  The CDC announced 600 additional staff today.  It could have pushed this two months ago!
7) Talk to business leaders to socialize them to the possible need of having employees work from home.  For whatever my complaints about Trump are, he is good at talking to business leaders.  Even just "make contingency plans to have your employees work from home" would have been helpful.
8) Work with states to get them read.
9) Start negotiations with congress to get important pieces of legislation together early.  You don't have to pass them, but if you have the outlines of legislation already negotiated and ready to deploy if the proverbial crap hits the fan.
10) Most importantly, the President is supposed to be a leader; lead for frick's sake.  Tell people things they might not want to hear, but that if they hear could save their lives.  Tell people to be ready for the worst, but remind them that we are all in this together, and that if things start to take a turn worse, we will all work together.

None of these steps required anything from the CCP or WHO.  Worst case scenario, the worst doesn't come to pass, and maybe he gets a few complaints about overreaction, but no worse than what he would have endured for the travel ban, for example.  Which is to say, ultimately the usual suspects would complain; his supporters would hail him as a genius, and the majority of americans wouldn't care.

BC

I'm going to write one reply here, and then you guys can take it away. It's impossible to avoid Trump, I  guess, but there are other actors.

(a) The motivation of an embattled President [impeachment] is to ENLARGE, EXAGGERATE, a crisis - and particularly one like this, which is unrelated to any policy or political choice his Administration made. It's a godsend in an election year - a made-to-order rallying point, for which he cannot be held responsible, and as to which he can exhibit leadership. Trump didn't become President because he lacked political acumen. There is absolutely no upside to minimizing the threat. (To keep a stock market rally going a few weeks longer? When the election's in November? Come on.) 

But Trump didn't seize the opportunity. Reason? He didn't know it was there, because through January the CCP and WHO did not alert the world as to how serious this virus is. 

(b) The motivation of opponents of the Administration, faced with a President who unaccountably refuses to respond to a crisis, is to ENLARGE, EXAGGERATE the crisis, and emphasize the inaction. It's a godsend in an election year - a made-to-order rallying point, by holding the President responsible for lack of leadership. Nancy Pelosi didn't become Speaker because she lacks political acumen. (She was not privy to Administration intelligence? Please. There were briefings, and health information is not like military secrets.

But the Democrats did not seize the opportunity, e.g, Pelosi did not criticize the SOTU for speaking too little about C-19. She tore it up. Wjat comments the Party did make were critical of the measures the Administration did take as xenophobic. Reason? They didn't know the opportunity was there, until Western experience with the virus showed that how dangerous it was. 

© The motivation of the chief bureaucrats at the CDC and elsewhere is to ENLARGE, EXAGGERATE, the crisis, for turf reasons, budgetary reasons, and personal fame. I could continue the parallel, but you get the idea. The government is too big for any one person to manage. That's why departments exists. The CDC chief could storm into the Oval Office, demanding changes to procedures to facilitate immediate procurement of tests, equipment, etc. 

But he or she didn't do that. Whoever it was was apparently content with the normal processes and did not regard the situation as a bureaucratic opportunity.

In short, every player in the scenario, and particularly Trump, would be motivated to overstate, rather than understate, the looming crisis. Not one of them did so. My Ockham's razor explanation is that all of them were gulled by misinformation coming out of China. (I'm not an MD, but I think that the acknowledgment that the virus could be transmitted from one human being to another was particularly important. I don't believe that the CCP acknowledged that until late January, the day before Trump's travel ban. My understanding is that it was the divulging of that fact in social chat that caused the Chinese government to sanction the MD's who disclosed it - a disgraceful act. Correct me if I am wrong.)

So that's my case against the CCP. Public awareness increased exponentially with the unfolding catastrophe in Italy. By March the public had accepted the need for quarantine. That's at least six weeks later than it had to be, thanks to the Chinese government. Fire away.