Every day, heroic health care workers show up on the front lines, risking their lives, to take care of the sick, while the lunatic in the Oval Office takes to the airwaves to tell the American people, "No, I am not responsible," for any of this. Not a good look.
It didn't need to be like this. If we had a leader in the White House instead of the equivalent of a slow third grader, we'd have been better equipped to deal with the coronavirus. Donald Trump's criminal negligence, cruelty and ignorance make him ill-equipped to deal with a crisis, but his habitual lying makes him dangerous to all Americans.
He claimed the virus was contained in America when it was actually spreading. He called it a “hoax.” He claimed we’d “shut it down.” He claimed that testing was available when it wasn’t. He claimed a vaccine would be available in months. It won’t. He just can’t stop lying, and it’s going to get a lot of people killed.
You can also lay this hot mess at the feet of Republicans. Ronald Reagan told us "government isn't the solution, it's the problem" and, since then, year after year, they've been dismantling government programs meant to help Americans. Disbanding the CDC's special unit that responds to pandemic threats and cutting CDC's funds left us wide open to this kind of crisis, damaging the ability of the government to act in any meaningful way.
Susan Christensen, Salt Lake City