Thread by @davidfrum

For a year, Trump types on Fox etc. have argued: "Public health authorities urge masks and vaccination is so they can tyrannize human beings forever. They will never allow a return to normal life. Instead, ignore them and instead rely on fake cures and magical thinking." 1/x

As red-state governors yielded to demands from Republican-leaning industries to disregard health and safety, they relied on the "Dr Fauci wants shut downs forever" complaint for justification. 2/x

As the Biden vaccination program gains the upper hand over the virus in 2021, we'll see a real-world test: Did public health authorities issue their mask guidance out of a mysterious sudden eagerness to close the US economy for no good reason? Or ... 3/x

... were public health authorities responding to real world facts? Were they implacably opposed to normality for mysterious sinister motives of their own? Or would they advise returning to normality as facts permitted? 4/x

And guess what? Where anti-COVID vaccination has become the norm- normality is resuming! 5/x washingtonpost.com/travel/2021/03…

So - brace yourself for this - the Centers for Disease Control were not in fact embarked on some crazy, quirky frolic and diversion of their own. They were not trolling Trump and DeSantis and Abbott to be mean. They were offering sound but temporary advice in an emergency. 6/x

If ex President Trump and the red-state governors had responded rationally and public-spiritedly to the emergency in 2020, they could have claimed the credit in 2021 as the emergency was overcome. 7/x

Instead, public-health authorities had to battle the Trump administration and the red-state governors every step of the way.

Now as the pace of vaccination accelerates, we can see hope ahead both for public health and for a terrific global economic expansion. 8/x

Second half 2021 and 2022 will be happy, exciting month, one of the great parties in world history.

Israel, the UK, and the US are leading the way.

There's credit a politician can claim - IF IF IF he/she didn't go loudly on record as hostile to public health measures. 9/x

But unfortunately for Trump and the red-state governors, they did go on record against public-health - often in a desperate effort to appease/placate ignorant loudmouths on right-wing media.

So the credit will be scooped instead by the Biden administration ... 10/x

... both the credit that the Biden administration honestly deserves (and they deserve a lot) - and the credit that the Biden administration will scoop up because its predecessors threw the credit away at the command of right-wing voices on cable, radio, and Facebook. 11/x

It's all summed up by Trump securing an early vaccination for himself and his wife - but in secret.

When a president takes a vaccine in public to demonstrate its safety - that's leadership.

When he takes it in private to protect himself - that's cowardice and selfishness. 12/x

The Trump administration got some things right on vaccine development.

The red-state governors made some good points about accepting health trade-offs to reopen schools.

If that had been all, they would deserve better reputations than they're going to carry into history. 13/x

But it was not all, unfortunately.

The little good Trump and the red-state governors did was overwhelmed by their politically self-interested stoking of anti-science prejudice.

If they complain in months ahead of bad press, well - they only got what they fairly earned. END