Vacation's given me time to catch up on "Frontline" reports...and the three I've watched this week offer troubling insight into the American response to COVID-19. The first two (parts one and two of "The Great Divide") chart the devastating and divisive strategies of elements in the Republican Party over the past 12 years. In that environment, acrimony and derision give birth to the Trump candidacy. And the Trump presidency is fueled by contempt for intelligent discourse, scientific analysis, anything that validates thoughtful, informed policy-making. Anything Obama touched (including a White House task force on pandemic preparedness) is marked for destruction.
And this very political environment -- enabled so willingly by others in Congress -- leaves all of us vulnerable to do-nothing politics in the face of the worst of pandemic of our lifetimes.
The link above is for the report detailing our inability to grapple with the disease early -- when we might have made a huge difference.
But I highly recommend watching "The Great Divide" first (two parts). These reports provide the critical context, the political context, for all that followed. And there are lessons here we have to learn. We must learn. For our sakes. And for the sakes of all who come after.
