There is a very simple reason why you need a national response to a pandemic.

[shockey80]

I will use Obama as an example. Obama would have led a world wide response to the pandemic, I have no doubt. He would have put in place a national response, working with the health experts and governors. All states would be on the same page.

He would have immediately put in place a national response to manufacture masks, gowns, test kits. He would have made testing, tracing a number one priority right from the beginning.

Obama would be the one telling all the states when and what can be opened. Obama would have put a plan in place, backed by science and the experts. Tens of thousands of American's would still be alive today if Obama were president.

[Eyeball_Kid]

1. Obama prided himself in competency. That's precisely what he would do. n/t

[DonaldsRump]

2. Bang on

And I think you could safely say at least 100,000 people would still be alive.

With BHO, you would have the national response and international coordination. With the Lardo-in-chief, you had nothing.

[Nevilledog]

4. Worse than nothing. His cult members affirmatively making it worse.

[plimsoll]

30. They'd be doing the same thing if it were BHO.

Yes, Trump is partially to blame for setting the tone. But many of them occupied an alternate reality before Trump did whatever to get into office, that alternative is continuously re-enforced by the voices in their heads and on the hate radio spectrum to deny an objective reality.

The US may have reached critical stupid.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Obama would have created a Cabinet position for managing the Pandemic.

[DENVERPOPS]

25. And he would have appointed

someone superbly qualified for the position, not a "jackass jared", who probably couldn't pass an elementary school science test......

The only thing Jackass Jared did was to spend all his time organizing ways for his family, republiCON politicians and the Uber wealthy to make money and profits off a International Disaster.......

Trump and Republican's weren't the "let them eat cake" crowd, they were the "let them die" crowd.......

[barbtries]

5. Agreed, except

red state governors would be putting up a fight. think of that, a fight for the right to sicken oneself and others.

it wouldn't be all that smooth but it would be so much better, maybe 100,000 lives better. hard fact is this is a novel coronavirus, it is very contagious and it does unforeseen damage to the human body.

[Pepsidog]

23. Yep- they would be calling him a tyrant, a dictator and more. The sick bastards.

[Ohiogal]

6. All except the part

“All states would be on the same page.”

I’m sure the deep red states would be making a stink over anything Obama ordered them to do, whether it was for the health and well-being of their citizens or not.

[drray23]

8. I am not sure.

they are following Trump's lead because they are scared of him. If It had been another president. Its likely the whole thing would have been treated as a national disaster much like hurricane relief aid when it happens.

[fleabiscuit]

9. A money carrot would calm that down. nt

[Ohiogal]

11. Maybe ...

But it didn’t work for Medicaid expansion ... because it was an Obama idea ...

[Pantagruel]

7. Highlights the bigger issue

of state's rights being an outdated luxury.
The concept of states loosely banding together might have worked 2 centuries back but in the modern world of jets, automatic weapons and global terrorism we need stronger command/control for protections against pandemics, gun proliferation, terrorism, etc. The luxury of each state having to agree on actions is too politicized and cumbersome to be effective. The horrors of the Electoral College and the failure of effective gun control also stand out as the most obvious examples.

[Ohiogal]

12. So true.

[Lock him up.]

10. He would have shut down air traffic from Europe to JFK a lot earlier.

No doubt about that.

That, alone, would have saved thousands of lives in and around New York.

BRING JUSTICE BACK AGAIN
RICO TRUMPs & ACCOMPLICES
THEN LOCK 'EM ALL UP!*&1%!1!

[Dirty Socialist]

13. Post of the year?

Even Alexander Hamilton, an advocate for states' rights would agree. He wrote some things are too big for states to handle.

[Beartracks]

14. Republicans would have said it was all a waste of money because...

... there was "no crisis." Yet, the best evidence of money well spent, and a job well done, is that the crisis was averted.

Republicans are stupid, and not even very conservative when it comes to how best to spend money: proactively invest in prevention, or reactively spend many, many times more trying to respond (poorly, usually, in the case of Republicans) to a crisis that could have been prevented .

=========

[StarfishSaver]

15. It's like why we created a national highway system and didn't just let each city, county and state

build their own roads and hope that somehow they got connected to each other - and if they, didn't, just left it to people to figure out on their own how to get from New York to California using random streets and highways.

[shockey80]

18. That is so true.

[treestar]

16. Absolutely. Dotard closed down the response team

Obama created. Obama would have had that team on it! There were even US people in China already. Obama left all that for Dotard to use and he destroyed it instead!

[mucifer]

17. I hate w bush . But, even he supported a pandemic plan. We would be so much safer with him

as President. ANYONE but trump. I know what w did during Katrina. But, he did have a national pandemic plan.

[weissmam]

19. I am life long Demo

But any president with half a brain, I mean even Jeb or Mitt could have done a better job and that's not saying much

[AwakeAtLast]

20. Hillary, too!

The response would have been the same, because it would have been THE RESPONSE THAT OBAMA LEFT FOR THE NEXT PRESIDENT!

Only a complete moron would try to form a completely new response instead of implement what had already been done. Oh, wait...

[ffr]

21. +1000

[LymphocyteLover]

34. Exactly-- Hillary would have done a great job

I'm thinking Obama or HRC would have kept deaths down to 20-30 thousand (or even much lower)

[ancianita]

22. Yes, Obama would have done most of that. And thousands more would be alive today. And

Republicans, Trump, and some rethug governors and congressional leaders would have gone into ODD hissy fits. Republicans would have held protests over their freeedumbs, called him all kinds of racist epithets, burned even more masks than now, warned he'd confiscate their gunz, and built more civil war statues.

[LiberalLovinLug]

36. Yup. Rebublicans use the "you can't prove a negative" to their advantage

If 50,000 were dead today instead of 150,000, they would be screaming how incompetent he is. And the same with Hillary. Meanwhile Trump would be tweeting how he would have handled everything way better and no one would have died.....and his flock would believe him.

That is to say, Obama or Hillary, would get zero credit from Republican voters. And instead would be further blamed for making it worse, even purposely worse for political gain, by QAnon and Info Wars, Fox News, etc....

And the MSM would be stoking every CT they heard and continuing their false equivalency tactics, even worse than before, especially if a Democrat had won again.

We have to accept that maybe 100,000 more Americans would be alive today, perhaps most of them Trump supporters from Red States, and realize there would be no reward for that, politically. Obama or Hillary would have done it just because it was the obvious, right thing to do.

[yaesu]

24. instead of giving wall street 9 trillion dollars he would have stabilized the real economy

helped on a global scale, had this thing under control in weeks, not months. The fascist let it happen in order to steal money from the poor to give to the rich, this is what they do during emergencies.

[Ferrets are Cool]

26. All that is true....and if 4 people died, the repugs would be screaming for his impeachment.

[usaf-vet]

27. Damn Right!

The history books should have no choice but to lay the deaths on the Resolute Desk and the moron who sits behind it and whines 90% of the time

[CaptainTruth]

28. I would say the same about Hillary Clinton.

[DSandra]

29. Obama is an adult. Trump is a baby menace

[Crunchy Frog]

31. Obama dealt with a pandemic shortly after taking office.

H1N1 was a global pandemic, though the death rate ended up being extremely low-there were only about 8,000 to 12,000 US fatalities from it. And yes, he was very much on top of it.

The Rs, and DONALD TRUMP still raked him over the coals for his "inadequate response" and the "high death toll". Trump was still invoking Obama and his "high" pandemic fatality numbers during the early stages of this pandemic in order to highlight his own supposedly superior response.

So yes, if this happened on Obama's watch, he would have done an extraordinary job dealing with it, and he still would have been crucified by the Rs.

[marieo1]

32. President Obama cared

I couldn't agree with you more. Instead we have an incompetent boob!! Sad time for our country and the people that have lost friends and relatives and those of us who may still lose some. President Obama cared, this AH doesn't, end of story.

[NNadir]

33. Of course. Obama would also have not presided over the destruction of the United States

...constitution, its unity, its polity, its economy and its standing in the world.

[onecent]

35. Ohhhh if we could just have Obama again!!!!

[gademocrat7]

37. President Obama cared about our county

He upheld his oath to protect and defend us.

[Wounded Bear]

38. Obama wouldn't have got caught with his pants down, tweeting on the shitter...

[ancianita]

39. Now that Republican failure is so complete & widespread, ANYthing Dems do will look better.

There will never again be "See?BothSides!" without everyone laughing.

We don't even have to put up with "hurry up with the cleanup!" bullshit anymore.

[hadEnuf]

40. No Cynical,

Obama wouldn't have ordered governors and states to carry out his own wishes like Trump has, but he would have made sure we had a comprehensive plan available from our government, instead of ignoring and lying about Covid and weilding political pressure on governors who refused to bend to his insane will.

[RobertDevereaux]

41. When means, of course that a certain sum-bitch...

is a mass murderer of tens of thousands of American citizens who ought not to have died.

[Ohioboy]

42. Yep, Obama would have done the right things...

but republicans would have complained the whole time? They would have made his job hell. You know it.

[Skittles]

43. I would use Hillary as an example

SHE is the one who SHOULD BE PRESIDENT right now.