Exactly. He was gambling that he could basically short-change all the responsibilities of the executive branch and use the money saved to buy himself a legacy as the 'Strong Stock Market President'. And he got too ambitious. Things started visibly falling apart before he was free and clear, and able to blame the next guy.
He totally deserves the 'Damnatio Memoriae' treatment for his utter abdication of duty.
I've been looking at the British government's
planning documents for a flu pandemic, on which their current strategy is based, on the Cabinet Office website.
The Civil Contingencies Secretariat works under the Cabinet Office, developing plans with different government departments, local governments, businesses and other stakeholders to have contingency plans in place for all manner of eventualities -- pandemics, terrorist attacks, wars, earthquakes.... the lot.
Anyway, I was struck by the way that, quite apart from the measures needed to deal with the pandemic itself and try to ensure hospitals aren't overwhelmed, the planners have had to ensure that the relevant organisations have in place plans to cope with not only dealing with a far larger number of funerals and cremations than usual, but also that (for example) all utilities companies (including telecommunications and broadband) are already as prepared as they can be to deal with urgent repairs at a time when many of their staff are off sick, that the emergency services have similar plans, that the justice system is prepared for the disruption that's bound to occur, since self-isolation and social distancing don't work well with public jury trials, after all, that banks can continue to process payments with reduced staff levels... the list is very lengthy.
I'm not saying our plans or strategies are good ones, but at least they're there, and have been worked on and revised and updated over the last 9 years.
In contrast, as far as I can make out, the US government is having to make it up on the fly (very Trumpian), as are individual states' governors, who seem to be far better organised, in many cases, than the federal government.
It's going to be bad for everyone, obviously, but I fear that Trump's complete irresponsibility and abdication of its duties over the last three years is going to mean the US has a far harder time than it need do.
Keep safe, folks!
www.theguardian.com
