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Agree with the clear assessment here, but..."mostly satisfactory" covid response?? I seem to remember a president first praising China for doing a great job containing it (they werent) while denying it would come here, and then, when it arrived, saying it would quickly go away, when he had *data telling him the exact opposite*. He was in unsupported downplaying mode for months. He undermined testing and tracking efforts. He scoffed even at reasonable late pandemic requests to wear masks to indo…

Despite his very obvious personality flaws during the pandemic, it’s not obvious to me that the outcome would have been very different with someone else in charge in 2020. That may be why the "mostly satisfactory" rating makes sense to many.

"Someone else", ok. I suppose another leader could've dragged their feet, downplayed, and willfully undermined, in their own ways. No one could've handled it perfectly of course. Then imagine someone who simply knew early on to take it seriously and acted accordingly, who had a plan in place, who hit the ground running and didn't undermine efforts to get it under control (but rather boosted them), who rallied industry and public sentiment, who rejected misinformation and image concerns (This do…