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Comment by nine_zeros | Hacker News Reader

The denial sometimes is just unreal. What do you think other failed states are like?

America is as much a failed state as corrupt democratic governments in Turkey, Thailand and Russia.

... those aren't failed states, though? Failed state doesn't mean "shitty government" or "autocracy".

Yes, how can it not be obvious? Look at our continual failure to make even simple plans for cv19 and execute them nationally? It's partly the president's fault but we have multiple failures, and the situation makes clear our underfunded public health system's weakness. It can be done, look at how well other countries are organizing and dealing with it.

Has this issue been unduely politicized in the context of an election year and a bitterly contested presidency?

Which national plans would be possible within the context of the constitution? The US is literally a collection of states.

When central dictates were issued by the president in the form of travel bans, partisans predictably cried "racism". It seems inconsistent or even hypocritical.

Perhaps the "unraveling" is more a function of bitter partisanship?

Perhaps you aren't familiar with the US separation of powers between the states and the federal government. In the US, just like we have federal food inspectors (and some statewide ones too), a federal dept. of health, federal standards for roads, a federal center for disease control, it's silly to suggest we couldn't benefit from federal standards for covid-19 safety (we have something called OSHA).

We could also make use of the existing federal laws to force companies to make ppe. There's rarely any PPE in the local stores in my area. I'm left to buy random questionably sourced masks on amazon. All it would take is an order from the president to vastly improve this situation on PPE. It will apparently be left to the next one to actually make a plan and deal with it.

under ultra-liberal capitalism, the cost of funding public is not profitable - and by that i mean the value created cannot be captured by an individual/entity, but is instead spread across society (aka, a common goods).

This idea is deeply seated in the minds of those who would bear the highest cost burden (the medium to high tax bracket payers). For them, it is "cheaper" to pay their own way, than to "subsidize" the healthcare of the "poorer" people (even tho it's not that much, and they don't see the value lost to private healthcare companies).

Turkey is the secret ruler of Europe. They have European heads of state send them billions on a moments notice, cowering on their knees and openly denying the Armenian genocide if their leader orders.

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