What if the Chinese had a hypersonic missile that killed over 200,000 Americans. Would Trump be saying “It is what it is?” Would the GOP acquiesce?
Of course not. As with the hypothetical that I posed many months back about climate change, this illustrates the fact that the GOP is not really interested in protecting Americans from external threats. Part of the reason is the need for collective (i.e., governmental) action, which they hate, but they have no objection to big government when it is fighting wars instead of doing contact tracing. No, the real reason for the difference is that there is a suitably macho response to a military attack, but not to a virus or to climate change. If your brand is toxic masculinity, you have no answer to the virus except to downplay it and move on.