losing the war

      At the heart of America's losing war with Covid 19 are the actions of our president*.   For some reason, Cheetolini, who had virtually nothing to do with the economy he inherited from Obama except to avoid killing it, has decided this is the hill his candidacy will die on.
     Jamal Bouie in today's NYT points out many of our fellow countrymen took a chance on tRump because the economy was in good enough shape they could indulge in the barely concealed racial grievance at the heart of his campaign.  So what if he was a failure at everything he ever did except his scripted reality show, The Apprentice, the thinking goes.   He promised to protect Social Security and Medicare and confirm conservative judges.   That was enough to get him over the line in the electoral college.
      Now, in the final year of his presidency, an actual crisis has occurred which requires good governance and we have found to our dismay the emperor has no clothes, or in Texas parlance, tRump is all hat and no cattle.
      We are losing the war with the coronavirus because of the federal government's bungling of the response.   Instead of the central government leading, tRump encouraged 50 different responses by the states and then cheerleaded the ones he favored.   This is no way to run a company, let alone a country of 330 million people.   Despite recent gains in employment, many jobs lost in the initial confrontation with Covid 19 are never coming back and the economy is still likely to be a shambles in November. 
      The same people who felt they could take a chance on a tyro in 2016 so they wouldn't have to deal with a female president, are going to have a choice between two old white men.   The racial division and misogyny which worked in 2016 is liable to backfire this time around.  Doubling down on that strategy is a recipe for democratic control of the executive and legislative branches in 2021.