Aside from that, I always say that nothing in life is reduced to a single variable. People like to reduce causality to a single variable because it's convenient and far simpler to think about. Life is a complex multivariate problem and what we are talking about isn't an exception.

Everyone in our government performed poorly during this crisis.

Democrats chose to wage war during a pandemic rather than get things done.

The media helped them.

Trump was an absolute idiot in public and truly inspired projectile vomiting almost every time he spoke.

Prior administrations --going back decades-- compromised our ability to respond to such emergencies through a range of actions, again, dating back decades.

And, of course, there's the American people, who seem to love to stop thinking critically, take sides, refuse to recognize when the common good is more important than our own little selfish impulses, etc.

I could not possibly list the variables that went into getting us to where we are today. Nobody could. It would, however, be nice if we could stop the nonsense for long enough for an honest root cause analysis and attempt to take action to not ever do this again.

Here's something that's very clear to me: If we continue to behave this way we are ensuring China's supremacy in the world order for one hundred to two hundred years. And they know it. More power to them, they are kicking our ass and executing flawlessly. I don't agree with their politics, but you have to be in awe of what they've been able to accomplish in about fifty years. That takes focus, unity and dedication we do not have and will likely never regain until everyone is wondering why a bag of rice is $100 and we have 25% unemployment.