The Atlantic Op Ed: Pandemic reveals US as failed state

[Tamas]

Sorry but I asked first. If you want to say that the US government's response now has been broadly in line with other countries, please provide details for the class supporting your argument.

Travel restrictions, recommendations to limit contact and work from home, stimulus money, research on a vaccine, distribution of medical supplies.

That last one would have a huge difference.

Trump has been denying medical supplies to blue states and giving it only to red and swing states. Federal agencies have literally hijacked state purchases and confiscated them. Hell, federal agencies have been confiscated from each other.

And all the while Kushner and his buddies flail around, incompetently grifting on the subject.

Still you are going to see a second term, and will be lucky if you won't have Ivanka, or eve a 3rd term, after that.

[Admiral Yi]

]That last one would have a huge difference.

Trump has been denying medical supplies to blue states and giving it only to red and swing states.

The Economist calls that fake news.  Cuomo bitched about not getting enough and everyone ran with that narrative.  Then Donald piled on and said they have to be nice to him to get stuff, but according to The Economist the reality is FEMA is handing out stuff based on formulas, not age of the state's population.

[The Larch]

Can we get specific on the similarities? Feels like a lot can hide behind broad similarities.

Get as specific as you want.  But do keep in mind we're comparing to a hypothetical Clinton response.  Are there obvious things Clinton would have done that Trump didn't?

I dunno, not cancel the pandemic simulation during the transition? Not throw out the pandemic playbook from the previous administration? Not disband the Global Health Security and Biodefense unit — responsible for pandemic preparedness? Not encourage retardedness by proclaiming "FREE TEXAS" or some bullshit? These protests, spurred by the Orange Man, will literally cost lives.

These are just off the top of my head.

Let's not forget the half-dozen idiots who drank bleach or overdosed on hydroxychloroquine, all thanks to your commander in chief.

So yeah. Clinton would have done things differently. Clinton would have saved lives.

Just having a functional federal government would do wonders already.

[Berkut]

I think if you take out all the mad tweeting and name calling the response would have been more or less the same.

Well sure, as long as you accept the basic premise that competency and integrity don't actually matter.

[Valmy]

Still you are going to see a second term, and will be lucky if you won't have Ivanka, or eve a 3rd term, after that.

We'll see. We bloodied them at bit in 2018 and that was when things were going well.

[FunkMonk]

I don't think the US is a failed state, or a "failing state", but I do think it is (has been) suffering from a massive (Yuge even) lack of leadership, both morally and practically, since Trump was elected, and the lack of leadership naturally means others will fill in the void, for better or worse. And Trump's personality naturally exacerbates all the worst things associated with "America".

Also fucking lmao that a Clinton administration would be doing as badly as the Trump administration currently is. Just fucking LMAO

[garbon]

Sorry but I asked first. If you want to say that the US government's response now has been broadly in line with other countries, please provide details for the class supporting your argument.

Travel restrictions, recommendations to limit contact and work from home, stimulus money, research on a vaccine, distribution of medical supplies.

1) Travel restrictions - Well except that we did a bunch of bizarre waffling back and forth after we already had suspected community transmission. Recall when we were banning EU travel but not Ireland and UK?

2) Recommendations to limit contact and work from home - Well except that for a good chunk of time leadership appeared divided on importance of those measures and most recently we've been actively told to revolt against such measures and open up even though cases are surging.

3) Distribution of medical supplies - seems to have been rather problematic at best and we lost a lot of time with CDC waffling - which was only exacerbated by no clear leadership on the seriousness of the pandemic.

[jimmy olsen]

All those small business loans going to states that haven't been hard hit

https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2020/05/where-have-the-paycheck-protection-loans-gone-so-far.html

Have PPP Loans Gone to the Hardest Hit Areas?
Using the number of coronavirus cases as a proxy for the economic impact of COVID-19 in a specific state, we can look at whether the geographical distribution of PPP loans approved per number of small businesses matches that of COVID-19 cases. The number of PPP loans per state translates one-to-one to the number of small businesses receiving loans, since PPP loans are capped at one per business.

The figure below suggests that some of the hardest hit areas—such as New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—are getting fewer loans than some Mountain and Midwest states on a per-small-business basis. In New York, the epicenter of the coronavirus in the United States, less than 20 percent of small businesses have been approved to receive PPP loans. In contrast, more than 55 percent of small businesses in Nebraska are expecting PPP funding. The between-state variation of loans has generated heated political discussions.

[Ancient Demon]

I have not read a single article about Donald Trump in four years. I usually just listen to him and he is pretty hysterical. I guess it is best to hold a weird conglomerate of hundreds of people "the media" responsible for that and not the person at the top? I mean I am supposed to be holding him responsible being the President and all.

I am not even sure what you people want from me, you wanted me to stop listening to the media so I stopped. Donald Trump doesn't look much better when all you listen to is his words.

Maybe look at what's actually being done.

We would? So now I have to accept the failures of this President because of some hypothetical situation you dreamed up about how I would respond to hypothetical massive failures by Clinton?

No, and I don't think there'd be massive failures by Clinton either.

Oh? You mean you cannot dream up hypothetical scenarios and then claim you know the exact outcome? Odd since you just did that.

Not really. Those were two different things.

[Malthus]

The 'failing state' aspect is ameliorated by the fact that there are multiple levels of government in the US, so as the federal government becomes nonfunctional, other levels are available to pick up the slack. That's why we are seeing a much greater emphasis than ever before on state governors during the pandemic emergency.

The problem is, usually the relationships between the states are mediated by the federal government. With that level mired in corruption and incompetence, state governors are increasingly communicating directly among themselves, rather than through the federal level.

Problem is that this is very much a jury-rigged system. How well it will perform under pressure is unknown. Given that the political discourse in the US has become poisoned, it isn't clear whether there is enough goodwill for the states to give and take in a mutually cooperative way, particularly across the red / blue state divide.

It is normal in any state that there be regional tensions and disputes between levels of government. What is not normal, is for one level of government to be so distrusted and incapable of adequately performing basic coordination. There is a gaping absence at the centre.

What you would predict, if this goes on, is regional blocks of states to form and to start acting increasingly autonomously, just to get necessary stuff done.

This will not be a "failed state" as in Somalia, or even Civil War Mark ll. But if the current trajectory continues, it would be a fundamental diminution of the "United" States - much to the joy of its current great-power rivals.

[grumbler]

3) Distribution of medical supplies - seems to have been rather problematic at best and we lost a lot of time with CDC waffling - which was only exacerbated by no clear leadership on the seriousness of the pandemic.

Nonsense.  Trump was so convinced of the seriousness of the situation that he put seven people separately in charge of overseeing the federal response - including the guy who ended the Israel-Palestinian dispute.

[fromtia]

Nonsense.  Trump was so convinced of the seriousness of the situation that he put seven people separately in charge of overseeing the federal response - including the guy who ended the Israel-Palestinian dispute.

Hillary Clinton has a daughter as well, therefore she will also have appointed her own well connected waxy automaton to oversee international conflicts and form co-pandemic response-response teams. Indistinguishable.

[fromtia]

Most governments in the West seem to have been caught fairly flat footed by the Pandemic, but If you assume flat footed and panicked as a default then I suppose you would assume that the Trump administration has done okay so far, notwithstanding the exciting new phase we are entering. I think the United States is capable of a much better response, a world leading response, and I think it would have had that with really any of the candidates for President or actual Presidents from at least the last 20 years. McCain, Romney, Kerry, Hillary Dubya notorious Kenyan Communist Barack Obama etc etc. I think the US should have at least been a Germany, and it is by no means a foregone conclusion that it's inevitably an Italy. Probably about to be much more than an Italy.

[crazy canuck]

What support do you have for that claim?

The fact that the measures taken in the US were broadly in line with what other countries did (except our stimulus seems to have been much more generous).  That Italian and Spanish style lock downs are the domain of state governments.

Wow, I have heard of Americans being completely out of touch with what is happening in the rest of the word. But wow!

[garbon]

What support do you have for that claim?

The fact that the measures taken in the US were broadly in line with what other countries did (except our stimulus seems to have been much more generous).  That Italian and Spanish style lock downs are the domain of state governments.

Wow, I have heard of Americans being completely out of touch with what is happening in the rest of the word. But wow!

What word?