We are ruled by quitters. As Andy Slavitt pointed out a few days ago, the US finally started to implement a real strategy to cope with Covid-19 — then Republicans just gave up 1/
The same thing is now happening on the economic side. After initially making a start on real aid to workers and businesses hit hard by the slowdown, Trump and allies have basically put a hold on policy 2/ nytimes.com/2020/05/09/bus…
To the extent that there's a coherent strategy here, it is to rely on a spontaneous economic rebound that will take place even though the coronavirus isn't remotely contained 3/
This is partly about ideology, but I also think it reflects Trump's deep psychological insecurity (which is reflected more broadly in his presidency). All the evidence suggests that he has no faith in his own ability to make actual policy 4/
That is, he's deathly afraid of being called on to actually be a president, as opposed to playing one on TV. So rather than try to deal with the crisis, he's retreating into denial and passivity 5/
Very little prospect that this will change, especially with stocks partly back up. So we're going to stumble into epidemiological and economic catastrophe 6/
