Trump insists, “nobody saw this coming.” On January 20th, two countries confirmed their first cases of COVID-19: South Korea and the United States. Within days of the first confirmed case, President Moon Jae-in began mass testing and social distancing orders. President Donald Trump spent those days golfing at Mar-a-Lago, attacking Adam Schiff on Twitter, and calling the concerns about COVID-19 a “Democrat hoax.” Since those vitally important days of the initial spread, South Korea has seen 10,661 confirmed cases of the virus — allowing them to safely return to normal life already. The US, on the other hand, has seen 741,230 as the pandemic rages on. The contrast of leadership gives us a painful reminder:

This disaster was avoidable, not inevitable.

If you haven’t been paying attention to the global impact of COVID-19, there’s something you should understand: the rest of the world has not been impacted by this virus as catastrophically as the United States. Our disaster is an outlier; we have become the epicenter of the pandemic. Our hospitals are so overwhelmed that China (the original epicenter) had to step in to provide us ventilators. The United States is facing historic economic hardship and our healthcare system is in peril. We’re in this position because Donald Trump delayed action, spread misinformation, and objectively failed to flatten the curve. Trump didn't create the COVID-19 virus — but his dishonesty and incompetence turned it into a crisis that could have been averted.

Denial and Inaction

The effort to “flatten the curve” requires early action to keep the spread of cases below our healthcare system’s capacity to treat everyone — whether they’ve been infected by the virus or broke their leg falling off a ladder. It’s essential to keep in mind we didn’t have to lose tens of millions of jobs or tens of thousands of loved ones. Our crisis wasn’t an inevitable accident that happened overnight — it is the result of Trump’s failure to respond swiftly and effectively. While Trump was downplaying the severity of the crisis, he missed the window of opportunity to slow the spread and keep the number of cases below our healthcare system’s capacity. He downplayed the early concerns and fought to convince the public that the virus was “totally under control,” even suggesting employees who were infected by the virus were safe to go to work and spread it to others. He spent weeks pushing back on pressure to take the virus seriously because he didn’t want to disrupt the stock market and hurt his chances of re-election.

(CDC)

In the early outset of the outbreak in China, Donald Trump — desperate to secure a trade deal to make up for the losses caused by his failed trade war —repeatedly praised Xi Jinping’s handling of the virus. After COVID-19 arrived and spread across the United States, Trump imposed a failed “travel ban” on visitors from China. The ban was improperly implemented, and 279 flights carrying 40,000 visitors from China have arrived in the U.S. since Trump’s travel restrictions were announced. The early weeks of the spread were preciously valuable to prepare the country for what could come and slow the spread before we’re overwhelmed. Every day Trump spent lying to the public about the virus directly worsened the outcome for everyone in the long term to protect himself in the short term.

A key tenant of Trumpism is to discredit the media, ignore the experts, and control the narrative by any means necessary. Donald Trump downplayed the virus and lied his way through the early weeks of it’s spread simply to survive the news cycle and move forward with a self-flattering narrative. That decision caused tens of thousands of Americans to die.

The Emperor Has No Clothes

As the impact of Trump’s early failures resulted in mass infection, Governors declared statewide shelter-in-place orders, tents began to pop up outside of hospitals, and grocery stores began to look apocalyptic. The virus could no longer be dismissed and Donald Trump found himself in a corner. In typical Trump fashion, he claimed he took this seriously all along — even adding that he knew it was a pandemic before anyone. Lieutenant Bone Spurs stormed the beaches of Twitter and declared himself a wartime President. Not only did he miss the window of opportunity to keep the spread below our healthcare capacity, he continues to grossly mismanage the effects we’re facing as a result of his mistake. He botched the federal management and distribution of ventilators to Governors, leaving China to step in and save our hospitals. He spent days fighting over his reasoning to call COVID-19 “the Chinese Virus”, then dropped it and moved on to quarrel with Governors. When Congress passed a stimulus package that included $1,200 payments to 80 million Americans, the physical checks were stalled because Donald Trump insisted that the Treasury Department print his signature on every single one. Throughout this crisis, Trump has proven that he is totally incapable of rising to the occasion and demonstrating the leadership we desperately need.

Days before his declaration of war (via tweet), as thousands became infected with the virus, he tweeted that he was considering a full pardon for Michael Flynn, his former National Security Advisor, on charges of lying to the FBI. That doesn’t exactly sound like a necessary measure to win this “war”, but it clarifies one fact: Donald Trump is fundamentally unfit for the Oval Office. Trump ran for President fresh off season 15 of The Celebrity Apprentice. He had zero government experience and this pandemic shows why experience matters at the highest levels of government.

The Obama-Biden administration rebuilt our economy from the ground up and created a trend of economic growth that gave Trump a stable country and strong economy to brag about. Obama’s administration put in place extra safeguards to predict, prevent, and deal with pandemics. Trump closed the pandemic office and cut CDC funding used to prevent pandemics because his trade war and tax cuts (for the rich) ballooned our federal deficit. He has failed every test of leadership that has come across his desk, and this failure needlessly cost tens of thousands of American lives. The minute he had to do the hard work of a President — guiding our country through unexpected instability — he was exposed as a fraud.

The Bottom Line

Donald Trump and his Republican allies want you to believe this disaster was inevitable and nobody saw this coming. The fact is: everyone saw this coming but Trump deliberately ignored the experts’ warnings and delayed action to avoid hurting his chances of re-election. This virus has reached 210 countries; Trump’s incompetence and dishonesty is the reason why the U.S. was hit the hardest. His self-interested procrastination caused the United States to miss our window of opportunity to flatten the curve and secured our fate as the epicenter of the pandemic.

This is directly his fault. Donald Trump has proven that he is completely incapable of fulfilling the duties of his office. He wanted to be President of the United States; the buck stops with him. When we needed the President to step up to the plate and protect us, he chose to step back and protect himself. Remember this on November 3rd, 2020.