«While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things.»
He has the right instinct in wanting to give it a go with schools this fall.
But as has happened so many times during his presidency, by expressing that instinct in the Trumpiest possible way, he’s going to end up alienating people who might otherwise agree with him.
Start with this graph from a Pew poll last month:
It should not be the case that the CDC is America’s most trusted coronavirus authority given how abysmally they’ve performed since the start of the pandemic. But they amassed decades of goodwill among the public before COVID-19 struck, and many people don’t follow the news closely enough to know how badly the agency botched testing during the critical period in February and March when we might have been able to contain the epidemic. For better or worse, the CDC has public credibility here. More so than the president does.
So here’s the president picking a fight with the CDC over who knows best on when and whether schools should reopen:
In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS. The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U. S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 8,2020
I disagree with @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 8,2020
Here’s the first problem with that reasoning:
New cases, yesterday:
Germany: 298Denmark: 10Norway: 11Sweden: 57
United States: 55,442 https://t.co/g7SlEt4exo
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) July 8,2020
There’d be less anxiety about reopening schools if America was experiencing case counts more like Germany’s. Even Fauci said yesterday that he supports reopening schools in communities with lower spread. Pointing to Europe and saying “Why can’t we be like them?” invites the answer: Because we haven’t been like them. The time to worry about how parents might react to sending their children off to school this fall amid a raging epidemic was back in April, when Trump was insisting that we reopen businesses early despite the risk that it might seed that epidemic. Now we are where we are, and where we are isn’t where Germany is.
The second problem is his instinct to threaten other politicians in order to get his way, in this case by potentially depriving states of funding if governors don’t do what he says.
