However, this is happening with the pandemic. These examples are the equivalent of an administration trying the opposite way, leaving states and cities and hospitals and households to their own assets – along with these hospitals first, after which morgues, recharges and medical staff serve unlimited shifts, realizing that they may later succumb. And all of this with the pandemic wreaking ruthless and disproportionate havoc on racial minorities and on households that may already be strained by an unequal financial system.

Under these circumstances, a “normal” national leader can deal with a number of issues in an urgent and brutal manner. One is to restore cooperation outside the country – on early detection of recent epidemics; on classes of failed and profitable containment methods, or course checks; unlike vital international responses to global risk. The next step is to restore cooperation within the country, so that the availability of tools, quarantine and distancing plans, vaccine deployments and many other measures do not remain a battle of all against all. What follows can give a transparent, regular and plausible account of the nation’s place in this dark journey: for how long the problems will get worse, when and where they may increase, what wise steps need to be taken in the future. interval . (Think, for example, of delegating president Anthony Fauci or some other credible person having daily briefings, without any politicians at the microphone.) And the sequel can use every little political lever to get new help for businesses, households, universities and city and state governments that may be on the verge of being plunged into new financial desperation. (Instead, the U.S. Senate met to make judicial appointments and do nothing else.)

In fact, none of these problems have happened, nor can, until January 20 at the earliest. The deaths continue and our national leader seems to be the opposite – at Fox and in the mirror.

Another parallel to our current situation concerns thoughts. It is extremely different in its permissible implications, yet evocatively related in its emotional tenor.

This previous summer season, viewers around the world noticed eight minutes and 46 seconds on video that few can ignore. That’s how long a Minneapolis cop tucked his knee over George Floyd’s tilted neck. The officer’s face was emotionless, barely showing curiosity, as his victim pleaded, struggled, choked and died. The officer’s effect was like that of a fisherman, watching his catch crumble helplessly to death as he gasped on the pier. Legally, the courts need only find out what those eight minutes and 46 seconds meant; the officer pleaded not responsible to manslaughter and second degree homicide. But the video had such energy because people all over the world understood what they were seeing. One man was responsible for the other. One man calmly watched the death of another. In the secular sense of the time, they were photos of manslaughter, murder.

The face inside the White House growls moderately than without emotion, in moderately showy makeup than without frills, hungry for the limelight rather than working outside. But because he speaks to the general public, he reveals the same reckless indifference to lives he should have spared.

James Fallows is an employee author of Atlantic and has written for the newspaper since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively outside the United States and has also worked as President Jimmy Carter’s speech editor. He and his wife, Deborah Fallows, are the authors of the 2018 eBook Our Cities: A 100,000-mile Journey to the Heart of Coronary America, which was one of the biggest sellers nationwide and is the premise of an upcoming HBO documentary.