It was heartbreaking to see. He sat in front of the television, barely watching baseball (“I’m tired of watching baseball games that are 14 years old,” as he told reporters at a briefing. “But I haven’t actually had too much time to watch. I would say maybe I watch one batter then I get back to work.”), wondering why someone was not working harder to fix the numerous problems the nation, as a whole, faced with the pandemic. Shouldn’t someone be developing a plan? It seemed as though the guidance the states had received about whether to do that had been very mixed!

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“Get out there and get the job done,” he tweeted to the governor of New York. If only he were in a position to offer more than verbal encouragement! He was happy to tell governors around the country whether they were doing good jobs or bad jobs, but it frustrated him to see them running low on supplies. Still, seeing New York behave as though it belonged to some larger entity that might be able to obtain more supplies at better prices gave him hope. Perhaps New York had a Costco membership?

“Some governors have gone too far,” he told reporters Sunday evening. “Some of the things that happened are maybe not so appropriate.” The governors were trying to lead, but it seemed to him that they were not doing it in the right way. If he were in charge, he would do things differently, but in the meantime, he hoped that people would protest.

He felt so powerless, staring at the TV, seeing all the reports of how badly things were going. If this country were so great, why was its response so desultory? Why were supplies being confiscated en route to states? Where were those supplies even going? If only he were not powerless to help. If only there were something he could do.