We know who’s done the most damage to America’s coronavirus-fighting efforts. But he’s far from alone. Many of the elements that landed us in this mess have been percolating for decades. Ed Yong in The Atlantic: How the Pandemic Defeated America: “Almost everything that went wrong with America’s response to the pandemic was predictable and preventable. A sluggish response by a government denuded of expertise allowed the coronavirus to gain a foothold. Chronic underfunding of public health neutered the nation’s ability to prevent the pathogen’s spread. A bloated, inefficient health-care system left hospitals ill-prepared for the ensuing wave of sickness. Racist policies that have endured since the days of colonization and slavery left Indigenous and Black Americans especially vulnerable to COVID‑19. The decades-long process of shredding the nation’s social safety net forced millions of essential workers in low-paying jobs to risk their life for their livelihood. The same social-media platforms that sowed partisanship and misinformation during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa and the 2016 U.S. election became vectors for conspiracy theories during the 2020 pandemic.” Leadership failures, broken health system, racism, removing the safety net, the internet…

+ … and our weird proclivity for getting angry at policies that will save lives. That it turns out is nothing new either. NYT: The Mask Slackers of 1918. “Resisters complained about appearance, comfort and freedom, even after the flu killed an estimated 195,000 Americans in October alone.”

+ We have changed in some ways. For example, we have a lot more firepower now. Man fires at cops with AK-47 after refusing to wear a mask.