Argument“A Crippling Blow to America’s Prestige”: The Government Struggles to Meet the Moment
The global coronavirus crisis crashed into the United States in Washington state in January and quickly brought the richest and most powerful nation in the history of the world to its knees. Ben White writes that, so far, the federal response has been too small in scope and short on creative solutions to meet the greatest challenge since the Second World War. “The United States was once known for its can-do culture. We built the Panama Canal and we put a man on the moon,” said historian Douglas Brinkley of Rice University. “And now we can’t get a swab or a face mask or a gown and we have no real chain of command. And we have two Americas, a Republican one and a Democratic one, and they won’t collaborate. We are not leading in the pandemic response, we are trailing other countries by a long shot. This is a crippling blow to America’s prestige around the world.”
The global coronavirus crisis crashed into the United States in Washington state in January and quickly brought the richest and most powerful nation in the history of the world to its knees. Ben White writes in Politico that, so far, the federal response has been too small in scope and short on creative solutions to meet the greatest challenge since the Second World War.
“The nation needs upward of 30 million tests per week to properly track the virus, health experts say. The country is testing only about 1 million a week now,” White writes. In total, the U.S. fiscal response badly trails that of European nations like Germany. Gaps in the U.S. health care system — an issue of partisan fighting for decades — are now fully exposed.
And a bitterly polarized political and media culture — born at least two decades ago and jacked up on steroids during the Donald Trump era — has left governors battling the president and citizens battling one another over how and when everyone should emerge from their bunkers and begin to engage in something resembling normal life.
“The United States was once known for its can-do culture. We built the Panama Canal and we put a man on the moon,” said historian Douglas Brinkley of Rice University. “And now we can’t get a swab or a face mask or a gown and we have no real chain of command. And we have two Americas, a Republican one and a Democratic one, and they won’t collaborate. We are not leading in the pandemic response, we are trailing other countries by a long shot. This is a crippling blow to America’s prestige around the world.”
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“The seams of our country have frayed and there is nobody like Walter Cronkite around anymore that everyone listens to and trusts,” Brinkley said. “One hopes the country will come out of this unified in preparations for the next pandemic, but I’m afraid that because this is happening in the 2020 election year that all the partisan divides are just deepening.”
