You would think that a leader like Trump with narcissistic and control tendencies would have welcomed and used the COVID-19 pandemic for his political agenda if he had any competence.
This was an opportunity to rule the U.S. with strong-hand -- shutting down borders, driving his health agenda, demanding the national guard be called up in every state, taking federal control of medically non-compliant cities, and other actions aligned with his agenda. COVID-19 was the perfect opportunity to drive them all. If Trump had done it well he would have looked like a national hero while addressing the worst pandemic in 100 years. People would have forgiven economic damage and the inconvenience of lockdowns as long as they saw clear unifying, strong leadership at the federal level. He could have set the table to win the 2020 election easily.
Instead Trump dithered away, trying to arrange crony capitalism for medical supplies to make his buddies rich while tweeting nonsense showing he was not in any way a leader. This was coupled with his disastrous press conferences that never stayed on topic and only demonstrated that he was completely incompetent to address a crisis. He spent his time trying to minimize the problem while rushing to re-open the economy so he did not have to deal with our national public health crisis.
