Trump's Virus

The White House has treated the coronavirus epidemic as more of a political problem for the president than a public-health one. Experts have been muzzled, the White House has consolidated control of the messaging campaign, and Trump himself has made numerous false statements about the progress of the disease. As for the administration’s response, budget and personnel cuts in key health offices have left the country unprepared for the likely scale of what’s to come. In this sense, the Trump administration’s approach has resembled more closely that of autocratic countries such as Iran than it has that of democratic countries such as South Korea. For the first time, the broad public might feel the direct consequence of Trump’s war on American institutions.
-George Packer