I heard on Morning Joe that we should have prepared for the pandemic like we prepare for a hurricane. But Trump did the opposite. First, he said the pandemic isn’t going to hit landfall, but dissipate and go out to sea.

Then when it didn’t, he, unlike in a hurricane where a responsible leader throws the full weight of the federal government’s capacity to minimize deaths and destruction, while keeping people informed of the hurricanes path based on scientific models, he continued to minimize the danger and refused to coordinate a national effort to flatten and crush the pandemic’s trajectory. And now, as the pandemic tracks across the country, Trump is telling people to return to work prematurely, which to continue the hurricane metaphor, is akin to instructing people to return to their homes before the eye of the storm has passed.

This is madness. And to make it worse, Republicans, with barely an exception, echo and reinforce this message in their words and legislative actions.