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The cost of incompetence
Unemployment could reach 20 percent this year.
I only mention this because aside from the loss of life caused by poor planning and response by public officials, we are in for long term harm. Politicians joke that no laws get passed unless someone dies. We had no government coordination to prevent terrorists attacks on U.S. soil prior to 9/11. Now we have the Department of Homeland Security and TSA. We had minimally competent pandemic coordination with COVID-19, and I think we will find lessons that will warrant the creation of a new bureaucratic department.
Our desire to ignore COVID-19 as a foreign threat was consistent with President Trump’s desire to shirk American leadership and response to global crisis. Instead of gutting institutions designed to address the threats with the hopes of consolidating loyalty and power, he could have considered the purpose of functional institutions.
I’m not so much worried about the virus, as we seem to be making some efforts to address it now. What I am most concerned about is what comes next.
