Written In Growing Anger: The Coronavirus Blame Game

The pain is starting

This morning when the radio alarm fired up at 6 am as usual, I listened to stories of Californians who lived on the edge before losing jobs and/or getting evicted from their homes. The state passed a law to block evictions, but it came too late for at least some people. The stories included details of how these people work one, two or three jobs to just barely break even, or for a few, start to put a few dollars in savings. One woman who worked three jobs had accumulated $2,000 in savings. She lost all three jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic and statewide social lockdown here in California. After the $2,000 is gone, she will run out of food and stop paying rent for lack of income. The other stories were equally heart breaking.

This wasn't their fault. They were working hard and trying their best. They were deceived and betrayed by incompetent federal level leadership.

Grossly incompetent leadership claims brilliant competence

A discussion I posed here on March 17, Coronavirus Update 3: We Still Fly Blind, But at Least Trump Seems to be Awake Now, noted that it was on March 16, 2020 that our president appeared to finally take the coronavirus pandemic seriously for the first time. By then, it was too late to proactively respond to the virus. America finally started reacting in serious ways.

As one commenter noted in the discussion here yesterday, Some Personal Thoughts on Various Things, the president fired the head of the US pandemic response team in 2018. She was fired one day after publicly stating that the US was unprepared for a pandemic. In the 5 minute segment below, commentator Fareed Zakaria describes the general level of incompetence of the federal pandemic response. Zakaria mentions the firing of the head of the US pandemic response team.

It is undeniable that Trump fired the head of the US pandemic response unit after she publicly said the US was unprepared for a pandemic. That firing directly reflects Trump’s belief that telling the public inconvenient truths is disloyal and will result in firing the offender. In terms of federal governance, Trump values deceit and blind loyalty far more than he values truth or service to the public interest. There is no other plausible way to see this other than as staggering incompetence by a vindictive, chronic liar president and the team of incompetent enablers he has surrounded himself with.

But to be fair, the president recently trotted a real scientist or two out to speak to the public about the situation based on science and reality instead of self-serving, boastful rhetoric that was previously mostly lies and deceit, e.g., 'this is Obama's fault’, 'we’ve done the best job ever’, etc.

Yesterday’s discussion mentioned that some members of congress from both corrupt parties sold some or most of their stock holding before the stock market crashed in February. They had been warned in secret by the CIA that the coronavirus pandemic would lead to severe economic consequences. The reaction of these fine pillars of the community and members of the US congress? Sell their stock but don't warn the public about what's coming. Again, self-interest trumps the public interest in the now defunct but still corrupt relic called America’s two-party, pay-to-play political system.

One can see why many Americans are not only walking away from both parties. Some are also seriously questioning the merit, or lack thereof, of for-profit capitalism, for-profit governance, a grossly overpriced for-profit health care system, and even democracy itself. Is that reassessment of our situation unfair or unwarranted? I don’t think so.

Also worth noting is the fact that some places such as South Korea were able to deal with the pandemic without the massive economic and social pain and loss that America is going to experience. It if fair to believe that had the federal response been proactive and competent from the beginning, American could have been spared much or most of the pain and loss that is to come.

Apportioning blame

Who, if anyone is to blame? What portion of blame should they get? What is fair and reasonable? Is it counterproductive or stupid to even think about apportioning blame now while the disaster in still unfolding?

One way to analyze this: In my opinion, the president (1) bears much blame for the failures here. His administration (2) is also partly responsible for being unable to make the president see reality for what it was before it was too late. People should not be left off the hook just because they were hired to be lickspittle yes people unwilling to speak truth to a power who refuses to accept or even hear truth. People who voted for the president in 2016 and still support him (3) cannot be ignored and share some blame. That said but group 3 can be forgiven for not knowing that the president would wind up firing all the competence around him and replacing that with licksptittles. I sure didn’t see that coming in 2016. And what about people who opposed the president from the start and still oppose him (4), e.g., people like me? Group 4 includes some who put corrupt, spineless Trump Party enablers in congress. Congress (5) is not without blame here either. Neither is the hyper-expensive, for-profit US health system (6). Neither is the for-profit US business sector(7). Neither is the heavily tax-sheltered and subsidized American religious sector (8). Neither is everyone else not in groups 1-8, and that includes non-voters (9). Here is blame could be apportioned among those nine groups:

Group 1 - Trump: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60% responsible (the buck stops at the top)
Group 2 - Trump lickspittles: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7% responsible 
Group 3 - Trump voters and supporters:  . . . . . 6% responsible 
Group 4 - Trump opponents: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1% responsible
Group 5 - Congress: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8% responsible
Group 6 - US for-profit health care: . . . . . . . . . 5% responsible
Group 7 - US for-profit business sector: . . . . . . 5% responsible
Group 8 - US religion: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6% responsible
Group 9 - everyone else: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2% responsible 

Is that fair and reasonable?

Is it counterproductive or stupid to even think about apportioning blame now while the disaster in still unfolding?

Can a competent response that is too late negate the earlier failures?