[oregontim]

I gotta say, it seems entirely natural that we focus on the US response to Covid-19, since we are sitting right here in the USA. And as we focus on US response, it's perfectly logical to compare our results to all those other countries, because the comparisons show what might have been. And criticizing our own country is the logical result. We focus on what went wrong because that's our reality; so much has gone wrong.

IMO it is not because of the nature of our culture, or our people, that we have such terrible results. It's all hypothetical, so I don't claim to know. But what I do believe is that we too, like just about every other nation on the globe, could have had a unified national response if we'd had even halfway decent national leadership. The absurd extremes of tribal division about masks and such are the result of leadership creating absurd extremes, promoting division, giving people license and encouragement to flout recommendations of experts.

Also IMO it's wrong to blame the media for reporting events. In a free society the news media fact check the president. We have every right to blame that subset of media that reports misinformation on purpose. But presidential failures, in our society, are news. Disparity between expert opinion and presidential statements is news. Sure the impact of reporting on Covid-19 is shedding light on failure of leadership; but that's because of the failure of leadership, not the reporting of it. Message and messenger.

[oregontim]

I gotta say, it seems entirely natural that we focus on the US response to Covid-19, since we are sitting right here in the USA. And as we focus on US response, it's perfectly logical to compare our results to all those other countries, because the comparisons show what might have been. And criticizing our own country is the logical result. We focus on what went wrong because that's our reality; so much has gone wrong.

IMO it is not because of the nature of our culture, or our people, that we have such terrible results. It's all hypothetical, so I don't claim to know. But what I do believe is that we too, like just about every other nation on the globe, could have had a unified national response if we'd had even halfway decent national leadership. The absurd extremes of tribal division about masks and such are the result of leadership creating absurd extremes, promoting division, giving people license and encouragement to flout recommendations of experts.

Also IMO it's wrong to blame the media for reporting events. In a free society the news media fact check the president. We have every right to blame that subset of media that reports misinformation on purpose. But presidential failures, in our society, are news. Disparity between expert opinion and presidential statements is news. Sure the impact of reporting on Covid-19 is shedding light on failure of leadership; but that's because of the failure of leadership, not the reporting of it. Message and messenger.