The Little President

Very soon after he was elected, and faced with his unpredictable actions, his disdain for the public interest, and his inability to embrace complexity, people raised the question. How was this president – who lacked government experience, was deprived of any sense of public service, devoid of empathy, incapable of tolerating and benefiting from dissent – going to face the first major crisis that would strike the United States during his term? The answer is here. Right before our eyes. And it stings.

Incompetent

March 11, 2020 feels in a way like 9/11. The same errors, same blindness, same missteps, with an additional layer of having the current crisis play out in slow motion. The U.S. president had two long months to act while intelligence agencies bombarded the government with alarming news. He didn’t do anything. On the evening of March 11, it was amazing to hear him minimize, blame and vilify others for failures going back to the beginning of his presidency during his speech to the nation—the only real one he has given since the beginning of this crisis.

In seeking to clear the deep state, he ended up depriving his government of the ability to react quickly. By muffling divergent viewpoints, he deprived himself of essential expertise. He dismantled competent teams, notably at the National Security Council, and dismissed the results of a simulated pandemic response organized during the transition by Barack Obama’s team. Obsessed with his popularity ratings and reelection, he refuses to orchestrate a coordinated response. However, the president has a key role to play with respect to leadership, coordination and conducting matters, as Tocqueville described when he wrote about democracy in America. Trump should have assumed the stature of a great president. But he is more than incompetent; his behavior is criminal.

Criminal

Today, the commander-in-chief, whose ethics are known to be particularly elastic, has become the criminal-in-chief. There are no other words to describe someone who claimed that he will have done a “good job” if the death toll remains below 100,000. One hundred. Thousand. Humans.

Rejecting the cries for help from the governor of New York follows in the same vein. It’s a death sentence for those who need ventilators from the federal stockpile to survive. It is equally criminal to legitimize the inertia of Republican governors in the South and Midwest, whose inaction will lead to still more deaths, or even to acknowledge the words of the governor of Texas, who claimed grandparents would gladly die so their grandchildren could benefit economically.

Of course, the president does not act alone in this category of response. The senators who sold millions of dollars in stocks after reading intelligence reports are playing for the same team. As is the governor of Georgia, who stated that he did not know that asymptomatic people were contagious. Clearly, minimizing an imminent threat and refusing to act when governors are calling for help falls within the realm of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Except that it is too late to remove him from office.

Pirate

Because, the bottom line is that the country is now led by a pirate who does not hesitate to make others pay the price for his incompetence. An order for masks for France, Canada or other allies? Just divert it. Mask exports to Canada? Blocked. That is on par with the aborted transaction (confirmed by the German chancellor) between the German laboratory CureVac and the U.S. president. Thus, no alliance or free trade agreement has any value in his universe. He is ready to break up Group of Seven international negotiations over a matter of terminology and to make deals with Russia and China to get the equipment he needs.

The United States should have had a great president. The world should have had a country take charge of a multilateral response. Alas, this little president’s inaction will have dramatic consequences. On an individual level, once we have counted our deaths after this wave and the next ones, the Westerners that we are, accustomed to not being shackled to our homes, will suddenly see both real and virtual walls rising. Let’s get used to the idea of an “immunity passport” that subjugates mobility to our health.

At the local level, the bloodless health care systems will have no ability to rebound when the crisis shifts to public finances. At the state level, the credibility of leaders will erode to the point of undermining what remains of democracy. On an international scale, the system of cooperation that the international system is founded on will be shattered, and competition, more damaging than cooperation, will contribute to global impoverishment while we leave the South to die and never look back. Finally, the recalibration of the international system, driven by the “bad Samaritans” of mask diplomacy, will not necessarily lead to the return of stability. This little president will have finally made a big impact.