Did I miss it, or did Donald J. Trump swear an oath to uphold the Articles of Confederation leaving every state to fend for itself?
The United States’ executive branch is headless. The acting president is determined to resurrect the economy before the November election, unmoved by the fact that lifting the economic lockdown without adequate testing and contact tracing could cost “233,000 additional deaths from the virus by the end of June.” His economic advisors believe body bags with real bodies are less harm than “body bags of dead businesses.”
Text traffic at a federal mental health hotline is up roughly 1,000 percent, reports the Washington Post. Self-described patriots seemingly “motivated by a kind of neo-Social Darwinist ideology” refuse to wear masks or observe social distancing guidelines. “Let us work! Let us serve! Let us die!” anti-lockdown protesters demand (not in those exact words).
“I don’t want them in Ontario,” Doug Ford, the right-wing populist premier of Ontario, recently said of Americans. “We need to keep our borders closed.” Canada is doing a measurably better job responding to the pandemic. Orders of magnitude better, writes Zack Beauchamp at Vox:
“We have a federal government that is supporting provinces’ responses,” says David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto. “You have a chief executive who is directly undermining the public health response.”
The comparison is not a flattering endorsement of American exceptionalism.
The Canadian approach has not been perfect. Its death rate is currently much higher than best-in-class performers like Germany and South Korea; Canadian officials have fallen down, in particular, when it comes to long-term senior care and the indigenous population. But given the interdependence between these two large neighboring economies, Canadians are not only vulnerable as a result of their own government’s choices but also because of their southern neighbors’ failures.
Unlike the U.S., Canada’s federal government has centralized procurement and distribution of PPE supplies based on need. (Having a system of universal health coverage makes that easier in Canada.) But while claiming “total” authority under the U.S. Constitution, Trump refuses to do the same, as though operating under the Articles. He has left state governors to play musical chairs with urgently needed supplies, each trying to ensure her/his state is not left out when supplies run out. Meanwhile, Trump’s government interdicts supply shipments to redirect them to his political favorites.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is currently hiding thousands of coronavirus tests, purchased from South Korea, in an “undisclosed location” protected by the National Guard. Hogan, a Republican Trump critic, is worried that the federal government might seize them. After the federal government seized 500 ventilators requested by Colorado’s Democratic governor, Trump sent 100 back to the state — crediting them to Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican up for reelection in 2020.
Canada was ahead of the North American curve on testing because its federal government once again made the right choices. In mid-March, Canadian federal authorities launched a large-scale testing procurement program aimed at ensuring the country could test early and often. By contrast, Trump put his unqualified son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in charge of the country’s testing ramp-up. Kushner proceeded to hype a Google testing website that didn’t exist and spearhead a drive-through push that, as of early April, had built a grand total of five testing centers across the entire country.
Unlike polarized state governors to the south, leaders in Canada’s provinces — Liberals and Conservatives — agreed on implementing extreme measures to halt the virus’ advance. The dysfunctional U.S. response is illustrated in the graph above that compares U.S. and Canadian COVID-19 cases per capita since the outbreak began. “The comparison is a case study in how a dysfunctional political system can quite literally cost lives,” Beauchamp explains.
But at this point in the crisis, the worst you can say about the Canadian response is that it has been basically competent — what you would expect from a country with a functioning political and health care system. The United States, by contrast, hasn’t cleared this lowest of bars. Our lack of attention to public health, poorly designed national health care system, and deep political dysfunction have contributed to the greatest public health crisis of our lifetimes.
The cost of that will be counted in lives. And undercounted at that.
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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way by June, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.