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The last time Americans faced the possible spread of Ebola to U.S. territory, in 2014, Donald Trump irresponsibly stoked public fears and barked at Barack Obama while doing nothing useful to protect us. Now the same deadly virus has showed up in the crowded capital of Uganda -- where a nurse has died -- and is threatening to spread further, which means it could eventually arrive here.
And this time Trump has done something far worse, mindlessly ripping down the shield that has defended us from Ebola and similar menaces. If and when the hemorrhagic virus arrives here to kill Americans, he won't be able to point an accusing finger at Obama or anyone else.
Last August marked the 10th anniversary of the Ebola outbreak in Liberia that the Obama administration stopped through the work of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overseen by White House officials, all working in cooperation with other countries and the World Health Organization.
It was a complex undertaking: Led by Ron Klain, who later became Joe Biden's chief of staff, veteran officials mounted what's known as a "whole of government" effort to confine the outbreak in West Africa and bolster the local response with advanced medicine, protective gear, burial teams and experienced clinicians.
The result they achieved was an enormous success that saved many lives and enhanced American prestige abroad. Hundreds of idiotic carping tweets from Trump, then just a celebrity conspiracy monger, were an ignoble footnote.
Flash forward to our current dark moment, when the Trump administration is abruptly eviscerating all kinds of vital government functions -- including our once-unparalleled capacity to suppress a hazard like Ebola before it seriously imperiled our citizens.
Almost as soon as he returned to the Oval Office, the president misused his power to cripple all the agencies whose personnel and expertise are most needed at this moment to guard against the return of Ebola. On his orders, the United States withdrew from the WHO, while his minions took down USAID websites and shut down most CDC functions.
Mark Leon Goldberg, a journalist who superbly covers international organizations and America's role in the world, explained how the system is supposed to work in his Global Dispatches column on Substack:
"Under normal circumstances, there would be no need to panic. Since the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak, local health officials in Africa and the international community have become skilled at containing outbreaks before they spread out of control. There have been at least eight separate outbreaks in the region, but all have been contained. None spread internationally, least of all to the United States.
"At the center of these efforts to stop the international spread of Ebola are the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the United States Agency for International Development. These agencies work with local authorities and provide platforms for international cooperation that help develop and deploy vaccines, conduct disease surveillance, and work directly with local health officials to provide capacity where it may be lacking."
He quotes Stephanie Psaki, a former National Security Council official, outlining the "playbook" that those agencies followed to stem countless disease outbreaks -- implemented at high speed with international partners, emergency funding and trained health professionals in place.
What's suddenly different, says Goldberg, is that "there's no one left to execute that playbook. Trump fired most of them. ... Simply put, the methods and strategy that have successfully kept Americans safe from eight Ebola outbreaks over the last decade are no longer operational."
The same numbskull who once mouthed off about Ebola has left us more vulnerable to it than we've ever been before. Trump's own former surgeon general, Dr. Jerome Adams, recently warned against the vindictive and stupid assault on the nation's public health infrastructure by his old boss.
"Regardless of how you feel about 'public health,' or 'Fauci,' it's a real bad time to have blocked public communications from CDC, and work with WHO," Adams scolded on social media. "Republicans must understand (that) they're gonna own any and all preventable outbreaks / harm moving forward."
He means the Republicans who are letting Trump run wild. But no worries! When the coffins are lined up, I'm sure they will all send thoughts and prayers.
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