Incompetence is a Republican problem, not just a Trump problem
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I’ll grant that Trump is particularly inept, but had the Senate done its job we wouldn’t exactly be in steady hands now:
As hospitals across the country face drastic shortages of masks, respirators and other vital equipment, the White House has sent out a plea for donations that’s left many recipients confused and full of questions.
In at least one instance this week, Vice President Mike Pence, who heads the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force, blindsided private industry by requesting that construction companies donate face masks to hospitals. The White House then failed to provide guidance when directly asked.
The whole story is worth reading. And the bigger issue can be seen in this story about Trump’s unwillingness to use the powers authorized by the Defense Production Act:
But Mr. Trump’s confusing statements played out in the middle of a growing health crisis that within days has abruptly and indefinitely altered the course of American life.
With the number of coronavirus cases in the United States surging above 17,000 — over 40 percent of those concentrated in New York — front-line health care workers have reported a dire shortage of masks, surgical gowns and eye gear to protect them from the virus. State lawmakers have also implored the president to help them get the supplies they need.
Business leaders have said invoking the defense law is not necessary. During his appearance with the members of his coronavirus task force on Friday, Mr. Trump supported that idea and said that private companies, including General Motors, had volunteered to produce supplies without any prompting from the government.
“We are literally being besieged in a beautiful way by companies that want to do the work and help our country,” Mr. Trump said. “We have not had a problem with that at all.”
Some of the president’s advisers have privately said that they share the longstanding opposition of conservatives to government intervention and oppose using the law, and the president again signaled his own ambivalence about it.
Especially at the federal level, incompetence and Republican governance go together like Brownstein and Tucker because incompetence is their governing ethos. With the partial exception of Bush I, post-Ford Republican presidents have basically tried to make “government is the problem” into a self-fulfilling prophecy. In this context, it’s a horrifying prospect.