We Should Have Seen this Coming (Unformed Thoughts)

          As I write this, I glanced at the Johns-Hopkins University "COVID-19 Global Cases" interactive map. As of right now (26 March, at 9:30 AM EDT, there are 487,648 confirmed cases worldwide, with 22,030 deaths. That is a death rate of about 4.5 percent. The U.S has 69,197 cases, with 938 deaths, a death rate of 1.4 percent. However, it seems clear from tracking the interactive map, the U.S. will overtake first Italy, and then China, in number of cases, in the next week or so. It is significant because China has a population four times larger than that of the U.S.

          Here is the thing--we should have seen this coming. One of the benefits of American federalism is that state governors actually have power. South Korea has a much more top-down form of federalism. Thus, South Korea's government proved quite effective in testing its population for this virus. In the U.S., our brand of federalism is a lot more messy. Governors and state attorneys general regularly take issue with, and sue, the federal government for everything from the form of drivers licenses (the "REAL ID" law) to heath care (The Affordable Care Act). Governors take trips abroad to hawk agricultural goods or entice foreign businesses to build in their states. In this crisis, it is a good thing that governors have this kind of power.

          If we had to rely on top-down leadership, we would be in much more trouble. Governors and mayors, and school district superintendents, have all taken actions to try to "flatten the curve," a term with which we have all become familiar. While they were doing this, the Trump Administration has been issuing unclear and confusing direction. President Trump still has yet to use powers in the Defense Production Act to try to ramp up production of protective equimpment for health care workers or respirators for patients. Instead, corporations are doing this because demand is present. President Trump famously played down the threat of the COVID-19 virsus. He famously said in early February that the U.S. had "shut down" the virus, because we had stopped inbound flights from China. He said on February 26 that the 15 cases detected in the U.S. would soon be down to zero. He has claimed consistently that the media is trying to use this public health crisis to bring down his presidency.

          We should have seen this coming. It is by now quite well-known that a small office of specialists on the National Security Council, whose task was to oversee preparedness for a pandemic, was disbanded in 2018. But, that should not have been a surprise. This is the same president who, as a candidate, claimed in 2015 that "I know more about ISIS than the generals." When asked as president about the slow pace of appointments of American Ambassadors and other State Department officials in late 2017, said, "I am the only one that matters." This is the president who has regularly derided actions of the Federal Reserve, because, of course, he knows more than the economists who populate the Fed's Board of Governors.

          The dismissive attitude toward expertise in government is part and parcel of Trump's appeal to a great many people. If Trump is clever on anything, it is in reading the mood of a room, even a virutal room. The "Apprentice" and later "Celebrity Apprentice" franchises were a creation of Mark Burnett, who essentially invented the image of Trump as international man of business. However, Burnett did not do this alone. He knew that this was the image Trump had tried to consistenly sell for decades. Yes, the board room was fake, but the firings were real (at least as real as reality television gets). But popular reports leaked from the production reveal that Trump never listened to the "experts" on which contestant should be fired, and which kept on the job. This, in spite of the fact that his "experts" were three of his offspring, and a couple of his hangers-on. He simply fired people based on his "gut feel."

          Now, we are faced with a crisis where the President of the United States operates on "gut feel." The White House officially announced, based on Trump's words, that people should consider taking anti-malarial drugs to combat the virus, even though government doctors strongly cautioned that clinical trials were at best inconclusive. Within the past few days, Trump has said we will all be back to work by Easter, and that churches will be packed that day. However, the famous Dr. Fauci, who appears with Trump at pressers, said this is "day by day" and said "we need to know more" before giving some arbitrary date.

          Even in throwing out a date like April 12th (Easter), Trump seems not to realize that governors actually have "police power" in their states. That is, governors, not the president, actually have the power to order restaurants, bars, and other businesses to remain closed. Governors, not the president (short of martial law) have the power to enforce these kinds of bans. Wishing he lived in a unitary, top-down sole proprietorship country does not make it so. This president clearly does not understand how our Constitution works, so why would he understand why having subject matter experts in government is a useful thing?