The Atlantic

Trump Has Abdicated in the Face of Disaster

The nation faces an unprecedented crisis, and the president has left a void.
Source: Brooks Kraft / Corbis / Getty

Almost a quarter million Americans have died from COVID-19. Some 77,000 are now hospitalized, about a fifth of those in the ICU. The country has been reporting roughly 150,000 cases a day for a week, and the numbers seem likely to rise. Hospitals, and the people who work in them, are overwhelmed. The pandemic has been a catastrophe for months, but it seems to be reaching its worst moment in the United States, despite promising advances in vaccine development.

The nation cries out for leadership, yet amid one of the worst crises to face the country in decades, President Donald Trump is nowhere to be found. He is hunkered down in the White House, not giving interviews or speaking to the public except through his Twitter account, where

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was
The Atlantic4 min read
When Private Equity Comes for a Public Good
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. In some states, public funds are being poured into t
The Atlantic4 min readAmerican Government
How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t
Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking

Related Books & Audiobooks