In short: We failed because our country wasn't capable of controlling the virus. We're just not good enough at being a nation right now. A corrupt system tha

In short: We failed because our country wasn't capable of controlling the virus. We're just not good enough at being a nation right now. A corrupt system that's been in decline for years has produced an artifact that makes us aware of our decline: a President who is incapable of leading, but got elected anyway because corruption limited both the number and variety of leadership choices. As our governmental system has declined, it was inevitable that we would eventually encounter some crisis we could not handle, like an aging man that one day discovers he can no longer perform certain activities without injuring himself. We're probably lucky that the problem that came along wasn't one that would have quickly resulted in death for everyone on the planet. Had we been unlucky enough to have another Cuban missile crisis like situation with Trump to handle it, we might have ended up in a nuclear winter with the majority of humanity dead or dying. There's no secret as to why we failed to control the virus. The answer is that our government and society have decayed enough that they're not up to the task. We used to be, and I think a lot of people are surprised by this "sudden" change... but it's not sudden. We've been on this path for decades. The momentum from the post world war II years and the values of the generation that have been in power since the late 60s have masked the problems, but they've been there. Trump is a symptom of a much larger problem, one that won't be solved quickly or easily. We not only have to undo decades of slow corrosion, but we have to change the government and our society so it doesn't happen again. Whether we're capable of that in our current state, only time will tell.