Quote (thundercock @ 27 Jul 2021 08:19)
Maybe we should just stick with what actually happened instead of silly hypotheticals?
I'm just trying to put things into perspective. Covid has proven to be a highly polarizing issue all across the Western world. To name just one example: this April, during the third wave, we had a poll here in Germany in which 40% were in favor of tightening restrictions, 20% wanted to keep the current level and 38% wanted to relax them.
Given how bitterly divided America is on basically
everything these days, and how pretty much every new issue tends to be sorted into partisan categories, I think it is a pipedream to assume that the US could have been unified for more than maybe a month or so on covid policy if only the president had struck a different tone.
The pandemic was always going to mercilessly expose the weaknesses and fault lines of American society. Given polarization and hyperpartisanship, the situation was always gonna be really bad. (And yes, Trump made a bad situation even worse...)