But I genuinely believe all federal government leadership is incompetent - it’s not a matter of it being “OK”, that’s just the default for every administration. Which country on earth is responding to this well without resorting to authoritarian practices?
The fact of the matter is, there’s too many people in America invested in a cynical notion that we should expect the government to “fail,” which makes it easier to keep everything underfunded, which almost guarantees failure (random acts of heroism not withstanding). THAT, more than any single person, is what’s killing America. And that’s a bipartisan cancer.
No, in the US there's only one party that is explicitly anti-government, anti-expert, expecting government to fail. The other party has its own problems (its progressive and centrist factions are are war with each other, for example), but they are different problems.
The Singapore model for tackling the coronavirus that all the American press were blaming the American government for being too incompetent to manage doesn't even work in Singapore, as it turns out - they're going full-on lockdown now, with all non-essential businesses forced to either work from home or close down.
Denmark - shutdown everything march 14th, same week that the US started shutting down, not sure what we could emulate there except more trust in government? I live in a large very liberal city that has voted blue for the last 40 years and we still have our mayor pleading daily with ppl to follow SIP orders.
Norway - See Denmark. They have a slightly stronger federal government then the US and thus were able to use that power in ways that our Fed could not.
Singapore - Whatever they were trying before it all failed and they are now doing a lock down that's actually stricter than ours, also the stuff they implemented initially was draconian and would never fly here, and didn't work there in any case.
New Zealand - An island the size of New Jersey with almost half as many people (5 million), they still have 1000 cases. Not a lot the US could emulate from there. Only reason NJ has so many cases now is because of its proximity to NY and a certain demographic that still refuses to listen to SIP orders (See Bnei Brak for another ex., I'm pretty ashamed).
Taiwan - If you looked at what they were doing to contain this you would know why it's not practical here. 1) they have a national citizen db. 2) That db can be cross referenced with their national healthcare system, 3) which is also cross referenced with everyone at every point of entry. 4) They also used cell phone data to track people's whereabouts. Not a single one of those things is remotely possible in the US. Some are outright unconstitutional others would require bills to be passed and 3-5 years of preparation. If you think the patriot act is wrong... well the fed being able to unilaterally cross-ref different db's and track law-abiding citizens wouldn't pass muster either.
The American people want public services to be funded, but that is not where money comes from. American politicians are far more influenced by big money than they are by their constituents.
If you don’t believe competence can exist in federal government administration, then you don’t believe in our representative democracy. If you don’t believe in that, then spare us your participation, and don’t vote. But please don’t express your lack of belief in competence by intentionally voting an incompetent leader into our most important office.
This pandemic is a world-wide A/B test on the difference between competence and incompetence, and we here in NYC now have to suffer because of votes we did not cast. Indeed, in spite of millions of votes we cast, that simply did not count.
The callous, purposeless, senseless disease came to us first, the lack of coordinated federal response harms us the most, but the contagion marches exponentially along — indifferently laying waste to grand life projects, solid small businesses, and urban vibrancy — and soon, it will come for us all.
> If you don’t believe competence can exist in federal government administration, then you don’t believe in our representative democracy.
I have a different idea of what the federal government should be doing than you. I want the government to be as limited as possible and focus on fundamental issues like national defense. The federal government continually fails - see Hurricane Katrina, Iraq / Afghanistan (Obama made the situation worse!), the Great Recession - these are caused because a centralized all-knowing all-powerful actor can’t fix every problem. It’s my philosophical belief.
How will the pandemic be solved? The individual actions of millions people making their own localized choices. That’s how everything ultimately gets solved.
You can dream of a perfect president who could wave his hands and make everything better. But it’s simply not possible.
It'll be a couple more months before we can say with certainty, but I think Sweden has done an excellent job of balancing economic, life and liberty trade offs.
I heard an interview of someone from the Swedish chamber of commerce. He said "Social distancing is part of Swedish culture." Having spent a decent amount of time in Stockholm, I don't disagree. I remember the custom on mass transit is to stay quiet and as far away from any other passenger as possible...unless there's been drinking.
i been impressed with guatemala’s overall speed and depth. they were on top of the ball in latin america by weeks, to the initial derision of many countries.
