QOTD -- Undermining And Downplaying

"Trump was not called to greatness. He wasn’t even called to above-average competence. He was called to implement a game-plan we’d already written with a disease control bureaucracy that was the envy of the world, the administrative infrastructure and personnel of the world’s most dominant and powerful state, and a practically bottomless well of resources. (None of our peer countries has the massive advantage of minting the world’s reserve currency.) If Trump had merely said, “Tell me what to do!,” had done it, and otherwise had stayed out of the way, I believe it’s almost certain that at least 100,000 dead Americans would now be alive.

"But Trump didn’t just fail to do what needed to be done. He didn’t just refuse to do what needed to be done. He actively and aggressively undermined both federal and state efforts to contain the virus..." -- Wil Wilkinson, Niskanen Center, on "Trump's COVID-19 Culpability."  The must- read article is pushback against some right- wing Trump soothers who have recently been arguing that, while his response to COVID-19 was incompetent, malicious, depraved, and deadly, hey, let's give him a gentleman's C and call it a day!

What you read above is how history will remember this dark chapter and COVID Donnie's response.