Geoffrey MillerVerified account

An honest US federal government would say all of the following (thread, 1/N): 1) We messed up about as badly as any government can mess up when confronting this crisis; 2) We should have planned much better for pandemics in general, and we utterly failed you in that duty;

3) We should have followed the Covid-19 threat much more closely, much earlier, but we were preoccupied with petty partisan squabbles & PR; 4) The emergency measures we've taken violate the US Constitution, violate many of your rights, and violate the Oaths of Office we took;

5) We have no real idea how to balance protecting public health versus protecting the economy; it's a heartbreaking trade-off that we're not equipped to handle; 6) We really don't have the policy tools necessary to handle global pandemics, or pandemic-induced global recessions;

7) Our existing governance systems aren't actually equipped to handle the most likely & severe global catastrophic risks; 8) Citizens have a right to expect governments to help protect them against such risks, and if we can't, something is seriously wrong;

9) Please bear with us while we do the best we can given the constraints we face, under these horrible circumstances that our own obliviousness, partisanship, & failures of imagination have imposed on your lives;