Editorial | Covid-19 has exposed the flaws of Trump’s move to isolationism
- When faced with a threat like a pandemic, leaders need to be open-minded and able to learn lessons and cooperate with other
Their political leaders have failed them, their health system is wanting and international respect for the self-proclaimed “greatest nation on Earth” has sunk lower. It is evidence that notions of superiority have to be set aside so that lessons can be learned and insularity replaced by cooperation.
American politics has long been driven by the ideology of exceptionalism, the thinking that the history and experience of the US is so different that it has to chart its own course. The reluctance to adopt the policies of other governments or even learn lessons from what they have gone through have sometimes led to approaches difficult for outsiders to understand, such as on gun control and health care.
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‘I’m a little upset with China’, some of Trump’s more memorable quotes on the coronavirus pandemic