It would have been so easy, so unbelievably easy, for Donald Trump to have been the hero when it came to coronavirus. He had his chance, his bullhorn on the wreckage, his “tear down this wall.” And it would have been with absolutely minimal effort. With a wave of his hand, the signing of a couple of documents, and a speech to the nation, Trump could have so easily done what was needed to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 before it started its snowballing rampage. He could have quickly hired a pandemic team, as he said he could, then ramped up testing early, used the Defense Production Act to produce what’s necessary if the pandemic got out of hand in the U.S., and instituted a national lockdown policy. If he had told his MAGA hordes to stay at home, they would have done it in a heartbeat and thanked him for his wisdom. Fox “news” would have extolled him for his powerful foresight. Much of the country would have looked at Italy and Spain and breathed an enormous sigh of relief that Trump had listened to the scientists and acted.
