HOW THE VIRUS WON
A painstaking look at the myriad COVID failures in leadership, culture
THE NEW YORKER
I love Lawrence Wright. He wrote one of my favorite non-fiction books The Looming Tower about our inability to stop 9/11 despite our various agencies having most of the knowledge of at attack in different pieces.
This is his grand opus on COVID.
It gets partisan toward the end, but by and large it is much of what I loved about Tower. Bureaucracies are impossible. It takes vision, leadership and drive to get anything through during a normal moment in time. But during a crisis, making the right decisive move is nearly impossible.
Some of those moves are made in this retelling. But far too few.
Everything else is a failure.
The CDC had it’s worst moment in developing a test. The FDA dithered (in the case of the vaccines, one might say they’re still dithering) in approvals big and small. Our experts fell victim to dangerous herd mentality on issues that ultimately could have made a big difference like masks.
All the while, each tribe inside the big machine squabbled like a panel debate stream on Twitch. Sneering at each other to provide data and then twisting the numbers for their own ends.
There is no big villain (although Trump obviously gets decimated) just a series of people unable to save us from ourselves.
The key paragraph comes from former aid Matt Pottinger:
Pottinger’s White House experience has made him acutely aware of what he calls “the fading art of leadership.” It’s not a failure of one party or another; it’s more of a generational decline of good judgment. “The élites think it’s all about expertise,” he said. It’s important to have experts, but they aren’t always right: they can be “hampered by their own orthodoxies, their own egos, their own narrow approach to the world.” Pottinger went on, “You need broad-minded leaders who know how to hold people accountable, who know how to delegate, who know a good chain of command, and know how to make hard judgments.”
After reading and ruminating on exactly how much a lack of national unity, messaging and commitment cost us. I can’t help but wonder…
Would we have saved lives if we postponed the election?
If each day Trump and Biden offered a message of unity on the things they could agree on?
It’s telling that I am only asking this now. Now that Biden won. Asking before might have been seen as an act of capitulation to a Trump dictatorship. Might have inspired protests. Certainly a #THREAD or two.
Is it possible we became so focused on politics we killed each other?
Report: China offered bounties on US military in Afghanistan
AXIOS
Congressman-elect Luke Letlow dies of COVID complications
CNN
Very sad story.
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US will fall far short of 20 million vaccination goal by end of year
BLOOMBERG
This seems to be a combination of last-mile problems. Vaccines are getting to hospitals but they are currently dealing with a surge in patients. AND they need to be selective about who they are vaccinating at what time so they don’t all go out at once if they have side effects AND there are prioritizations on who should be getting them first.
It’s a problem that I do think needs more federal leadership than “Get Moving” but isn’t as simple as throwing more federal money at it.
McConnell: Stand-alone bill for $2000 in COVID relief won’t pass Senate
THE HILL
Meanwhile… here is how an expert on Georgia GOP politics thinks that will play with runoff voters in the Peach State next Tuesday:
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There is a really big battle in the LP right now between people like the former Chair, Nick Sarwark, who think the party should be more like the Democrats or Republicans and get behind the party's nominee, even if it was someone like Donald Trump (Sarwark actually used Dick Cheney as an example in a debate), and people like Dave Smith who argue that running stunt candidates ultimately hurts the party by watering down its message. Libertarians have had a presidential candidate on all 50 states ballots (and DC) for the last several election cycles, so they don't *need* Trump to get that for 2028 (though getting federal matching funds for going over 5% would be nice). I don't think Trump could get the nomination, though, for a couple of reasons.
1) He is a divisive figure in Libertarian circles, between those who find most of his policies disgusting, and those who can overlook his disgusting policies for the few things he's not terrible on, and the way he pisses of progressives. The latter group is waning as his promises of bringing troops home, and more libertarian minded judicial appointments (in the vein of Gorsuch) are abandoned.
2) Bill Weld endorsed Hillary. In 2016, in one of his last interviews before the election the Libertarian Vice Presidential candidate used his time to endorse Hillary Clinton, and a lot of Libertarians are still pissed off over that. Weld also tried to mend fences with the LP (for a potential Presidential run) only to bolt back to the GOP, and, ultimately, endorse Biden.
Also, Trump toyed with a run on the Reform Party ticket (when that was a thing) in 2000, but decided third parties couldn't succeed. - JD
Trump thinking about an LP ticket run would be like Lebron James trying to re-enroll in college to play in the NCAA Tournament. He’s just past that point in his career.
The Libertarians are a very self-destructive party that ultimately seems very proud of themselves that they exist.
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Is it a poison pill or food Mitch lace the coke? - SEAN W
Ultimately, is it -technically- a poison pill? We wouldn’t be talking about $2000 if not for Trump. Trump did -also- want to talk about these other things. The Democrats would like to pick and choose (as would a majority of the American people) but now they won’t be able to to.
So yeah, if you think this is poisoned it might just be a poisoned cake with a delectable cherry that many want to pluck off the top.
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Happy Co-versary! One full year. For anyone interested, this was the first report I saw of it. It seemed just as ominous the first time I saw it. - OLD MAN SCOOPY