[Goose]

All that said, it is hard to imagine anyone doing worse than Trump since March 10th. (Those of you who want to blame him for lacking a clairvoyance in January-February that no one in the Western world possessed can continue to do so.) All you really have to do is reassure the public that you're doing your best, and to have confidence in the energy and effort of conscientious and well-trained medical scientists . . .  and he couldn't even do that. He managed to enmesh the whole public dialog in his own sense of confrontation. A disaster.

I would add that he added a whole bunch of "read herrings" to the discussion (HCQ as an answer) and undermined confidence in his experts by publicly deprecating them and questioning their competence. Exactly the wrong things to do. If you want to replace Fauci, do it, but don't question his competence and then not do it. Worst of both worlds.

[Goose]

All that said, it is hard to imagine anyone doing worse than Trump since March 10th. (Those of you who want to blame him for lacking a clairvoyance in January-February that no one in the Western world possessed can continue to do so.) All you really have to do is reassure the public that you're doing your best, and to have confidence in the energy and effort of conscientious and well-trained medical scientists . . .  and he couldn't even do that. He managed to enmesh the whole public dialog in his own sense of confrontation. A disaster.

I would add that he added a whole bunch of "read herrings" to the discussion (HCQ as an answer) and undermined confidence in his experts by publicly deprecating them and questioning their competence. Exactly the wrong things to do. If you want to replace Fauci, do it, but don't question his competence and then not do it. Worst of both worlds.