Putting a Marginally Literate Racist Reality Show Host in the White House Seemed Like a Great Idea, What Went Wrong?

I have a piece in City & State observing that the judiciary is likely to be very deferential to measures taken by state and federal governments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ordinarily, this would be cause for serious concern, but in this case at least the political constraints on highly disruptive action probably make judicial review largely beside the point. Indeed, while state level leaders like Inslee and Cuomo have acted fairly responsibly, Trump is massively erring in the other direction, because he’s an entirely unfit buffoon obsessed with the stock market and the day’s news cycle, not to mention extremely lazy:

While Pence and other top administration officials coordinated coronavirus mitigation efforts with states and prepared possible emergency economic measures to shore up battered industries, Trump carried on with his plans. The president awoke at his Florida estate, where he had played golf over the weekend, attended a campaign fundraiser and shook hands with supporters before returning to Washington for a coronavirus update from his task force.

[…]

Trump, in one of more than a dozen tweets he sent before noon Monday, wrote, “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”

Inside the White House, some officials privately acknowledged Monday that Trump has exacerbated the problem with his misleading and false statements, as well as his callous comments — such as saying last Friday that he hoped infected cruise passengers would stay aboard the Grand Princess at sea because he didn’t want domestic coronavirus case numbers to rise.

[…]

One reason for Trump’s lack of concern is the stream of information he receives from unofficial channels. Even as government health officials have tried to sound the alarm to the president, he has also heard competing claims from friends he calls between official business and late at night.

Some friends have told Trump that the coronavirus does not seem like a major threat, noting that they don’t know anyone in their communities who has been infected. Some also have sought to flatter Trump by saying that unlike the two septuagenarians running for the Democratic nomination — Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — Trump, 73, is so healthy that he is not personally at particular risk, according to a senior administration official.

Hillary Clinton was, if anything, too prepared.