Casting Blame

On Tuesday, The Atlantic magazine published an excellent essay by David Frum (link here) with the blunt title of "This Is Trump’s Fault" and the secondary title of "The President is failing, and Americans are paying for his failures."

Consider this excerpt:

"That the pandemic occurred is not Trump’s fault. The utter unpreparedness of the United States for a pandemic is Trump’s fault. The loss of stockpiled respirators to breakage because the federal government let maintenance contracts lapse in 2018 is Trump’s fault. The failure to store sufficient protective medical gear in the national arsenal is Trump’s fault. That states are bidding against other states for equipment, paying many multiples of the precrisis price for ventilators, is Trump’s fault. Air travelers summoned home and forced to stand for hours in dense airport crowds alongside infected people? That was Trump’s fault too. Ten weeks of insisting that the coronavirus is a harmless flu that would miraculously go away on its own? Trump’s fault again. The refusal of red-state governors to act promptly, the failure to close Florida and Gulf Coast beaches until late March? That fault is more widely shared, but again, responsibility rests with Trump: He could have stopped it, and he did not."

Sadly, Donald Trump cannot buckle down and try harder. He's incapable of doing so. Thus he must be replaced in November.