So President Trump has accused the WHO of being slow to respond to the coronavirus, and dominated by the Chinese. The first is debatable and is quite possibly yet another Trumpian projection of his own failings, while the second is silly. But let’s stipulate that the WHO didn’t perform up to standard.
Does walking away from the WHO make sense?
Is this what a supposedly competent businessman would do? Throw away the tool because it didn’t quite work as well as intended, and replace it with nothing? Especially when faced with health threats that do not respect international borders?
No. Enhancement and reformation is far more sensible, especially for an organization which, until now, has not seen any criticism worth noting; in fact, given President Trump’s consistent strategy of distracting public attention from his own failings, the independent observer must wonder if Trump is merely selling a fantasy – keeping in mind that’s what he did in his hit TV show The Apprentice – in order to keep his base stirred up emotionally.
My conservative friends, if you voted for the “successful businessman” to shake up Washington, well, he’s turning out to be vastly incompetent at running government. There is no doubt about that. From failing to pass effective legislation when Congress was held by his Republican allies[1], to the utter lack of leadership that is arguably contributing to the tragic rioting across the nation today, President Trump is working hard at being the worst Chief Executive this nation has seen.
You still think we should leave the WHO? Well, we’ve seen what the amateur President has managed to do to this nation; it’s time to ask experts. Public health researcher and surgeon Atul Gawande and former UN Ambassador and National Security Advisor Susan Rice:
Unspeakably stupid and self-defeating https://t.co/R3Fbiq5GeL
— Susan Rice (@AmbassadorRice) May 29, 2020
Indeed, I suspect anyone in the public health and epidemiology sectors are aghast. Public health researcher Howard Koh, M.D., of Yale and former Assistant Secretary for Health:
This decision is really so short-sighted and ill-advised, and all it does is put American lives at risk. [NPR]
Defense technology journalist Kelsey D. Atherton:
“[M]aybe the weirdest thing about the right’s strategy of quitting international institutions is they were built, expressly, to give the United States an outsized role in shaping and directing the post-1945 international order, but they can only do that so long as the US stays in.”
It’s a polite way of saying that America is in the process of an immense neutering.
In fact, I’d like journalists at the next press conference ask President Trump why he’s neutering the nation.
Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN):
I disagree with the president’s decision. Withdrawing U.S. membership could, among other things, interfere with clinical trials that are essential to the development of vaccines, which citizens of the United States as well as others in the world need. And withdrawing could make it harder to work with other countries to stop viruses before they get to the United States.
At the same link I used for the Senator are a number of other such opinions from experts and political leaders, condemning this decision.
I’ll not burden my reader by quoting them, though, but, frankly, given the weight of opinion, it’s becoming more and more clear that, whoever President Trump was, he is now incompetent. To my conservative friends, do you really want to blot your honor by voting for such a man? Whether he’s mentally ill, malicious, or merely poorly advised, does it make sense to politically ally yourself with such plain and obviously flawed judgment?
1 No, the tax reformation act of 2017 was not effective, as it never came close to equaling the benefits touted by then-Speaker Ryan (R-WI), et al, and in fact had no long-term benefit to the economy at all. If you disagree, go do the research and find a third party assessment that shows the economy boosted. And, while you’re at it, explain why the monstrous annual deficits caused by that legislation are good for the nation.
