At some point in this pandemic it will be possible, based on accumulated data to date, to estimate the cost in human lives of the weeks of indifference, denialism and delay displayed by the grotesquely inadequate man in the White House.  Such estimates will necessarily be very rough, and will inevitably be dismissed as partisan, but I have no doubt that Donald Trump is already responsible for many thousands of unnecessary future deaths.

The Atlantic’s Peter Wehner provides an excellent discussion of the unique unfitness of this president to deal with this crisis.  (I had harsh words for the author, a conservative, when I first encountered his writing, but I give credit where credit is due.) Read the whole thing, but here are the opening paragraphs:

 For his entire adult life, and for his entire presidency, Donald Trump has created his own alternate reality, complete with his own alternate set of facts. He has shown himself to be erratic, impulsive, narcissistic, vindictive, cruel, mendacious, and devoid of empathy. None of that is new.

But we’re now entering the most dangerous phase of the Trump presidency. The pain and hardship that the United States is only beginning to experience stem from a crisis that the president is utterly unsuited to deal with, either intellectually or temperamentally. When things were going relatively well, the nation could more easily absorb the costs of Trump’s psychological and moral distortions and disfigurements. But those days are behind us. The coronavirus pandemic has created the conditions that can catalyze a destructive set of responses from an individual with Trump’s characterological defects and disordered personality.”

Tony-greco.com