Joe Biden: Trump is worst possible leader to deal with coronavirus outbreak
By: Joe Biden -- USA Today
Here is Joe Biden's OpEd, published January 27, 2020, concerning the possibility of a pandemic. I believe Biden ticked all the global neo-liberal checkboxes: international cooperation, global interdependence, reliance on technocratic expertise, deploying global finance, and use of the military. Biden also regurgitates the global neo-liberal 'truth' that the United States must assume the role of leadership, whatever that means, because the United States has the resources and global connections to direct international efforts. Apparently the World Health Organization serves no useful purpose.
Now we have history to assess how well Joe Biden's worldview fits with reality. And the reality is that the ideology of global neo-liberalism did not survive nine weeks. Biden's worldview collapsed very quickly. We now know that Europe, which clung to that global neo-liberal status quo, became the epicenter of the pandemic. As of April 2, 2020, Europe is reporting 497,366 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 33,577 confirmed deaths. Europe has closed borders, restricted travel, drained medical supplies away from the United States, and assumed draconian authoritarian measures. Europe is following the practices of China, not the United States.
Joe Biden's global neo-liberal worldview is intended to prevent war. But when war comes, that worldview collapses very quickly. Joe Biden may be able to revitalize global neo-liberalism after the crisis passes. But that worldview won't prevent the next crisis and will quickly become irrelevant in time of crisis.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The possibility of a pandemic is a challenge Donald Trump is unqualified to handle as president. I remember how Trump sought to stoke fear and stigma during the 2014 Ebola epidemic. He called President Barack Obama a “dope” and “incompetent” and railed against the evidence-based response our administration put in place — which quelled the crisis and saved hundreds of thousands of lives — in favor of reactionary travel bans that would only have made things worse. He advocated abandoning exposed and infected American citizens rather than bringing them home for treatment.
Trump’s demonstrated failures of judgment and his repeated rejection of science make him the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health challenge.
The outbreak of a new coronavirus, which has already infected more than 2,700 people and killed over 80 in China, will get worse before it gets better. Cases have been confirmed in a dozen countries, with at least five in the United States. There will likely be more.
Diseases don't stop at borders or walls
The State Department has scheduled an evacuation flight and advised Americans against traveling to Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, and is evacuating non-essential personnel.
Trump has blithely tweeted that “it will all work out well.” Yet the steps he has taken as president have only weakened our capacity to respond.
Trump has rolled back much of the progress President Obama and I made to strengthen global health security. He proposed draconian cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Agency for International Development — the very agencies we need to fight this outbreak and prevent future ones.
He dismissed the top White House official in charge of global health security and dismantled the entire team. And he has treated with utmost contempt institutions that facilitate international cooperation, thus undermining the global efforts that keep us safe from pandemics and biological attacks.
To be blunt, I am concerned that the Trump administration’s shortsighted policies have left us unprepared for a dangerous epidemic that will come sooner or later.
Pandemic diseases are a prime example of why international cooperation is a requirement of leadership in 2020. Diseases do not stop at borders. They cannot be thwarted by building a wall. We cannot keep ourselves safe without helping to keep others safe as well and without enlisting the help of other nations in return. And here’s the truth — the United States must step forward to lead these efforts, because no other nation has the resources, the reach or the relationships to marshal an effective international response.
That’s how we broke the infection curve on Ebola. In September 2014, CDC projections warned that over 1 million people could be infected if we failed to act. By February 2015, thanks to the leadership of our administration, the number of new Ebola cases was fewer than 400. A few months later, the epidemic was essentially extinguished.
I will uphold science, not fiction or fear
We brought the world together behind a response that only the United States could mobilize — including dispatching our military on a limited mission to help build the urgent infrastructure necessary to coordinate a massive global public health response, deploying American disaster assistance response teams to Africa, unleashing the NIH to help spur the discovery of new treatments and vaccines, protecting our citizens from potential cases of Ebola in the USA, and harnessing civilian expertise from the CDC at home and abroad.
We acted over the chorus of uninformed objections from critics like Donald Trump, and more than 60 countries followed our lead, contributing over $2 billion, thousands of health professionals and personnel, and other critical resources like personal protective equipment. Just as important, we strengthened our focus on preparing for the next crisis.
That’s the kind of leadership a moment like this demands — a leadership Trump could never deliver.
As president, I will reassert U.S. leadership in global health security. My policies will always uphold science, not fiction or fearmongering. I will ask Congress to beef up the Public Health Emergency Fund and give me the power to use the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to declare a disaster if an infectious disease threat merits it.
I will also renew funding — set to expire in May — for the nationwide network of hospitals that can isolate and treat people with infectious diseases, and fully fund the Global Health Security Agenda so the world is ready for the next outbreak. And I will rebuild public trust, make sure we have dedicated resources to help us respond to crises quickly, and better harness the capabilities of the private sector to protect the American people. Our national security requires nothing less.
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The political inertia of the Obama administration means we have been forced to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic on a WAG and a prayer. The models have been wrong from the beginning. And the global neo-liberal worldview based on international cooperation didn't survive nine weeks.
Only profiteers have benefited from Joe Biden's worldview of the US leading international cooperation. Joe Biden's worldview about privatizing profits and socializing costs. And the cost of that global neo-liberal profiteering is going to be very high.
So you're blaming this all on Obama? What a surprise!
If the current 'president' had not disassembled the pandemic response team things would not be where they are now
No, I'm blaming all this on global neo-liberal ideology. The Obama administration didn't create the ideology; the Obama administration was only consistent with the entrenched ideology.
Barack Obama didn't change anything. That was a choice.
How many times must I repeat myself?
So you're blaming liberals. Got it.
You've been doing it with all of your comments today. Some real golden oldies. Rough time working from home huh? Or are you back at work and thus gracing us with your presence?
Ignore it. Just like the media did with H1N1 when he was in office.
Trump is not a media darling like Obama. He also doesn't have that all powerful D behind his name. So the media feels free to hold him accountable for everything.
Love that Biden would be doing the exact same thing as Trump. He can't state anything he would do different; or how he would execute Trump's plan better. Just that he is not Trump- that is his only proof things will get better. I am sure the media agrees- they would flip the numbers into a positive light for Biden.
The truth isn't pretty to supporters of this incompetent bumbling moron 'president'
I am gracing you with my presence that is true.
I am home for months unable to work yet still getting a full salary.
LOL!
To an extent, yes. Liberals, particularly in the United States, are relying upon taxing profiteers to make their social programs work.
Liberals need profiteers and, for that reason, will protect profiteers. Profiteers benefit most from global neo-liberalism. And liberals promise to impose trickle down redistribution onto profiteers. Letting the profiteers run things is a stupid way to achieve any sort of prosperity. But that stupid approach is at the core of the liberal worldview.
[[Not the topic of discussion.]]
There's really no evidence at all that that's true. What's the problem in Europe, then? Did they also fire Obama's Impossible Missions Force?
It's true tacos. I never expect tRump supporters to deal with truth
January 2020 - Trump administration sets up a task force on Covid-19
Also January 2020 -Democrats continue to push hissy fit "impeachment" and hand out pens.
You really like that Kool-aid don't you?
Oh, FFS, Nerm. Blaming Obama, the guy who warned the incoming moron about pandemics? Didn't have enough equipment? Exactly when did Obama hold the purse strings again? Who held the house most of his terms? Paul Ryan and John Boehner. Who has been senate majority since 2015? Moscow Mitch. Why didn't the Trump administration do what they thought was necessary to plan for this kind of thing, which had plans drawn up by Obama for just this, and told the incoming about it. Why did Trump get rid of the experts? Why did Trump ignore the intel leading up to this? Why did he continue to DOWNPLAY it for months? Why does he continue to lie about all kinds of things at his briefing rallies? Why do you continue to excuse the current clusterfuck?
Lol, you are saying this about Biden? This is the main friggen feature of pure unadulterated capitalism! The gop trickle down bullcrap. Never a corporation too greedy to make taxpayers pick up the tab for their incompetence while they underpay their workers and over price their products every time they get the chance. Bailouts? The gop always has an open purse with no strings. One need only look at the virus bailout to see their priorities, the corporation slush fund with no oversight and as little as possible for Americans with as much oversight as they could stick us with.
Deal with the total Trump fuck up before you try to do the Trump thing of blaming everybody else.
I'm not blaming Obama; I'm blaming the ideology of global neo-liberalism. Barack Obama didn't change anything; Obama maintained the status quo. That was his choice. Joe Biden is making the same choice.
Global neo-liberalism is more akin to piracy than capitalism. Monetary economics is about protecting prices and inflation caused by profiteers. The United States has not been a capitalist economy since World War I.
This is about Biden and the pandemic, but if you are trying to equate neo-liberalism with liberals, explain that one. Neo-liberalism is free market capitalism - deregulation, against welfare state, free trade- like Reaganomics, that markets are self regulating and efficient, cutting taxe. Not Keynesian. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make in relation to the pandemic and Biden.
Liberals aren't Keynesian. Liberals are also touting international trade partnerships, global open markets, and financially underwriting international cooperation and global interdependence. That's the backdrop for Joe Biden's OpEd.
That's the ideology that Joe Biden is promising to revitalize. That's the ideology that Joe Biden is claiming Trump threatens. Biden is asserting that Trump is unfit because Trump doesn't subscribe to globalism.
Joe Biden has made a choice. And Biden's choice should inform the choices we are expected to make when voting.
tRump is incapable of managing anything
He's an incompetent bumbling brain dead moron
Correct, crooked donnie is a moronic imbecile that only knows how to golf and file for bankruptcy. He needs praise and people to bow down to him. He is the WORST
So a typical politician then? That is the best you can come up with?
Not really. I don't know anybody, politician or not that is as disgusting as Trump when it comes to trying to dodge responsibility and blame for his screw ups. Like this, blaming the people on the front lines of this disaster, the ones dying and putting their own lives (and families) at risk every day, without help from the federal government for the most part. He actually disses them.
Trump is providing ZERO true leadership. He forced the states to compete with each other for vital equipment instead of being the leader of the UNITED states. His lies will cause many more deaths. Stop trying to excuse him. Or rather, why do you? Why do you find this level of incompetence acceptable?
Again, as Ronin2 stated. He's just like every other politician. And I know I can name a few that have been in the political arena much longer than Trump.
I blame tRump absolutely for keeping it quiet and delaying information and for disassembling the pandemic response team that President Obama put in place
Well, you can relax because that's not how it went down.
Yes it is
Yeah, cuz that's all happening.
Everybody wanted to clutch their pearls at the idea of Trump putting America first (not only, just first). But when a pandemic hits, you better believe everyone on the planet is going to be putting their little corner of the world above everyone else. Nothing wrong that except for the hypocrisy.