I'm appreciating how ironically we are in agreement. There are people who can influence people, and those who can't. The former are real and credible leaders, t

I'm appreciating how ironically we are in agreement. There are people who can influence people, and those who can't. The former are real and credible leaders, the latter are not, and this is the danger. That the U.S. has almost a popular majority who do not believe their mandarin class has the national interest in mind (hence their preoccupation with so-called "globalists") is the evidence of this danger. It's not enough to be merely correct, you need to be able to prevail on the population to wear masks or make greater personal sacrifices to stop the pandemic. I live in Canada, where our prime minister is amusing to the sort of people he flatters, but the level of tolerance people have for sacrifice based on his word is very low. He'd be called a "lame duck president," in the U.S. My point is that leadership weakness is what puts the whole country in danger if it in fact ever had to unite to do anything. I agree that the U.S. president could get the entire country onside if he chose to, but clearly he is not convinced it's worth destroying the small businesses that would cost the country a generation of growth. If this were a partisan argument, I'd just bait you into reinforcing more of your prejudices and aspirations, but there is a serious conversation to be had about the the credibility of leadership in bringing people through a crisis like a pandemic. It's not enough for us to blame the outgroup, the virus doesn't care, so we need to look at what adapting to beat it might look like.