This Isn’t All Trump’s Fault (But He Isn’t Helping Either)

How much of America’s present coronavirus crisis is President Donald Trump’s fault?

Answering this question is, of course, impossible. We have no way to see some alternative timeline in which another president handles the crisis flawlessly. Thus, we have no way to determine the additional death toll caused by Trump’s mismanagement of the crisis.

Here’s what we can say with some degree of confidence: The coronavirus was always going to hit the United States hard, but it is hitting the country far harder because of the president than it would have otherwise.

Let’s deal with these two points in turn.

First, much about this situation is not the president’s fault. Perfect leadership would likely not have shielded the country from the disease; no government anywhere has been able to do so. Even the countries that are managing the virus best—such as South Korea—have had thousands of cases, though the most successful governments have managed to keep deaths relatively low. Other larger democratic countries—Germany, France, the United Kingdom—have all had more than 20,000 cases. And all are facing exponential growth in cases as well. So there’s no reason to think that the United States was going to avoid a great deal of suffering and death