If you're trying to tell me that you think we wouldn't be better off with a leader that said this was a present and real threat and put out a mandatory mask order back in Feb/March, shut down travel and enforced travel quarantines, used the Defense Production Act to create and deliver PPE where needed, didn't confiscate PPE from states and re-sell it to the highest bidder, didn't publicly contradict the pandemic response team and CDC, implemented an effective national testing and contact tracing strategy, etc, then I'd say you're not here for an honest dialogue.
Different political leader - we don't know. A different political leader who was not divisive and dismissive of science - yes, it would have been better.
That's true. A counterpoint is Japan or Sweden where citizens changed their behaviour prior to any government action. Social distancing, avoiding bars, public transport, staying away from elderly relatives, face masks, etc etc. I think it's a sad state of affairs if people only take action under the instruction from a government.
I do think more or less any other leader likely would have done at least a little better. But if the same events in late 2019/early 2020 had happened under President Obama in 2015/2016 instead, I think it likely that many people in the opposing party would have ended up taking the same anti-science positions we see now. Federal action would have made the pandemic less bad but individuals and other levels of government could still have caused problems.
Only Nixon could go to China. Imagine how much different things would have been if Trump had embraced the CDC and science like the other nations did. His followers would have gone along with it.
I think there would probably still be systemic problems, but I don't see how anyone could think that it wouldn't be better under another leader. Trump is overtly incompetent.
