Thread by @ericgeller

.@lawrence_wright's New Yorker article about this pandemic-ravaged year is a must-read. newyorker.com/magazine/2021/…

I want to highlight a few of the things that stood out to me.

Hopefully we'll learn these lessons in time for the next crisis.

First, it's impossible to overstate the damage wrought by ignorance, incompetence, and antipathy. Trump appointees simply didn't do what the country desperately needed them to do.

The states haven't needed a strong, engaged federal government this badly since World War II, and yet the Trump administration routinely failed to help or actively made things worse.

Beyond Trump, the U.S. simply hasn't prepared well enough for low-probability, high-impact events — an especially serious issue as the probabilities of these events happening have increased.

We and our leaders aren't willing to think, plan, and spend long-term.

Another uniquely American problem: There's a stark partisan divide over basic facts. Many conservatives simply refuse to acknowledge scientific reality or heed experts' advice.

No other country's right wing is as vehemently or comprehensively radicalized against truth.

America's founding myths also make us uniquely hostile to strong government intervention, even when it can mean the difference between life or death on a colossal scale.

We see this in the public sphere (unenforced restrictions) and the private sphere (unregulated businesses).

It must be said that part of the problem this year was the evolving nature of scientific knowledge. We gained crucial insights as the pandemic progressed, but that sometimes meant revising public-health guidance, which bad-faith actors exploited to undermine trust in authorities.

It's really hard to put into words the intense despair that you feel as you read about how the pandemic has crushed health-care workers. They performed unfathomable feats for us — and many of them paid with their lives or their emotional wellbeing. They all deserved better.

But the pandemic also highlighted America's unique strength: our unparalleled army of humble, brilliant innovators, many of them government scientists toiling in anonymity for our collective benefit.

Biden should give Barney Graham & Jason McLellan the National Medal of Science.

I'll leave you with this passage from the end of Wright's article.

We don't have to lag behind the rest of the industrialized world next time.

But implementing the lessons of this year will require a political transformation that, for now, sadly seems beyond our reach.