I watched Rachel Maddow last night (April 10, 202) and nearly screamed out loud. She did several segments in which she just permitted exhausted medical personal to speak uninterrupted about their day, worries, fears, frustrations, etc. Most all mentioned the frustration and fearfulness of working without the proper equipment and protective clothing.
Here’s what angers me so much. Since 1950 every American president has had at their call the Defense Production Act that gives them the power to order companies to manufacture goods or provide services necessary for the national defense and protection of the American people.
Donald Trump didn’t bring the first Coronavirus patient to America’s shores, he didn’t start this pandemic. But what he did was make light of it, called it a hoax, declared it would be over in no time, blamed it on others, and so much more. He ignored his intelligence services and his closest advisors about the seriousness of it and took zero actions to begin preparing for what the experts told him was coming.
The severe shortage of personal protection equipment, medicines, ventilators, body bags, adequate food supplies, antiseptic cleaning supplies, COVID-19 tests, and testing equipment, and more are absolutely and squarely his fault. He refused to enact his presidential power to address the needs of the medical profession throughout America and it appears that in spite of his saying he had ordered companies to comply, he has either lied or not followed through. While he has the power of the DPA to fill the voids he has instead left it up to the states to find their own and in doing so compete in the competitive marketplace against other states, other nations, and even the US government itself.
America doesn’t have the factories it did when WWII broke out but, it still does have significant capacity. Both NYC and Los Angeles have major garment industries that could be ordered with a finger snap to switch production over to protective clothing, surgical masks, n-95 respiratory masks, and more. Companies that injection mold automobile parts could be making medical face shields and parts for ventilators.
As far as I’m concerned, every person in America who has died since shortages began lies directly at the feet of Trump. I’ve read a lot of American History and never has there been a person so poorly prepared for a job as important as being president. Donald Trump has failed and it wouldn’t surprise me that history records him as today’s Vlad the Impaler.