America - Still # 1

Do you want to know the most telling statistics of this pandemic? The United States has 4% of the world's population and approximately 32% of the reported cases of Covid 19. We are, as of April 26 quickly closing in on a 1,000,000 infected and 50,000 dead.

We have almost five times the cases as Spain, number two on a list of the best of the worst. But even more astounding is that New York State, at almost 300,000, has far more Covid 19 patients than any other COUNTRY in the world. 

By any metric we have failed miserably in our attempts to control the spread of this disease. The reports are replete with our missteps, our lack of vision, our inability to marshall assets, to restrain movement early enough, always two steps behind, always reacting instead of acting.

As we watch some of those other nations halted in their tracks by this virus begin their first steps towards reemerging, in America we are left to contemplate how the exceptionalism we have taken for granted our entire lives has now completely vanished. 

How our understanding of our superior capacity was but a mirage. That no matter the size of our army, or the monies we are capable of spending, we are far weaker, far more lumbering than we ever admitted. Far less prepared for the unimaginable that we ever imagined.

Donald Trump has exposed the vulnerabilities in our system through his petty grievances, his hubris, his ignorance, his incompetence. And a disease which understands nothing about America's supposed greatness, which distinguishes not between poor and rich, has made us look terribly small.

America still #1 by orders of magnitude. Only on the wrong chart. Exceptional now for all the wrong reasons.