Book contents
- The Enablers
- Other Leadership Books by Barbara Kellerman
- The Enablers
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Author’s Note
- Prologue – Enabler
- Part I Trump’s Tribe
- Part II Virus Crisis
- 5 Prequel to the Pandemic
- 6 Sequence of the Pandemic
- 7 Science of the Pandemic
- 8 Politics of the Pandemic
- Part III Trump’s Team
- Epilogue – Enabler Effect
- Notes
- Index
8 - Politics of the Pandemic
from Part II - Virus Crisis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 September 2021
- The Enablers
- Other Leadership Books by Barbara Kellerman
- The Enablers
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Author’s Note
- Prologue – Enabler
- Part I Trump’s Tribe
- Part II Virus Crisis
- 5 Prequel to the Pandemic
- 6 Sequence of the Pandemic
- 7 Science of the Pandemic
- 8 Politics of the Pandemic
- Part III Trump’s Team
- Epilogue – Enabler Effect
- Notes
- Index
Summary
This chapter tracks what happened when America’s virus crisis became heavily politicized, even weaponized. Moreover, the pandemic was politicized not only at home but abroad, specifically regarding Sino-American relations, which deteriorated significantly from what they had been for four decades previous. At home were two obvious casualties. The first was the truth. The president’s proclivity outrageously to lie, now also about Covid-19, and his enablers’ proclivity no matter what to protect him, became increasingly costly. Now the cost was not only public trust but people’s lives. The second casualty to be chronicled was the comity of the American body politic. The growing divisiveness was symbolized by the wearing, or the not wearing, of masks which came to be emblematic of what here is called the politics of the pandemic.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The EnablersHow Team Trump Flunked the Pandemic and Failed America, pp. 149 - 168Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021