Just How Bad Was Trump’s Greatest Test?
As Donald Trump was inaugurated as 47th president of the United States on January 20th, 2025, the circumstances of his last year in office loom large. The Covid-19 pandemic obfuscated the final verdict on the effectiveness of his economic policy. Due to the unprecedented nature of the protective measures taken, it was difficult to determine whether Trump was doing an incredible or abysmal job of handling the pandemic. There was no sample against which to judge his performance. While the extreme response to the disease was unprecedented, five years of dust settling allows the disease itself to be compared to past plagues.
The Spanish Flu Pandemic that began in 1920 had relatively mild symptoms, similar to Covid-19, except for the rapid filling of the lungs with fluid. While both shared flu-like symptoms, the Spanish flu led victims to death within 1-3 days. While the symptoms were not exceedingly different for the general population, the mortality rate and public health tools available made the Spanish Flu a far more concerning disease. Because of its rapid nature, the Influenza of 1918 led to a different sort of cost than Covid-19. Because of technological limitations and less long term sickness, the Spanish Flu was far less costly for the health system to handle, but much more damaging to society. Covid killed at most roughly .1% of the US population in 2020, but the Spanish Flu Pandemic killed at least 5-7 times that. The speed of death with Spanish Flu also allowed it to rearrange society much more drastically. People dying quickly and unexpectedly made businesses collapse under uncertainty and asset reallocation a legal nightmare. Even without the internet, public hysteria reached incredible heights as far more people were directly affected by Influenza deaths.
While Covid was dangerous in terms of modern health, the Bubonic Plague shows the height of the power of disease when paired with more simplistic healthcare. The Bubonic Plague gave the affected the clear warning sign of huge swellings in the lymph nodes, doubtless creating a sense of hopeless dread for all who woke up with lumps. Houses became shut in together when they knew one member had the plague, amplifying the contagious nature of the disease. It was caught through the air and spread rapidly through Europe’s filthy cities. Public sanitation and medical guards against disease helped the spread of Covid slow, for better or for worse. While the Black Death and Covid-19 both eventually made their way through the whole population, the results could not have been more different. In just a few years the Bubonic Plague killed 30-50% of Europe’s total population. Even with modern medicine, the Bubonic Plague still has a mortality rate of 1-15%. The higher danger of the disease along with poorer access to health tools created a recipe for complete rearrangement of European society. Vast swaths of countryside became uninhabited as labor shortages drew more people to urban centers. Land dropped in value and the bar for skill in most trades dropped. The requirements for various competitive industries were waived as even barely trained workers were highly sought after.
While the reaction to Covid-19 was not far different from the mass hysteria the Black Death caused, the job and housing market recently have shown that Covid-19 had infinitesimally less effect than the Bubonic Plague. Workers are fighting desperately to not be under or unemployed. The job market is growing slowly, but Covid’s financial cost came much more significantly from the lost efficiency of the lockdowns than the loss of workers. It can never be fully known how many lives were saved as a result of the lockdowns, but at the very least we can be thankful we have never had to deal with a crisis as deadly as the Black Death.
As Trump steps into his new position, Covid-19 stands as a reminder of the weight that the highest office in the world bears, particularly in times of uncertainty. Trump partially followed his health officials, and partially made his own choices. Some said he was dangerous and an unscientific murderer, others said he was a voice of common sense in a sea of overreacting fearmongers. Some more skeptical citizens even saw him as not extreme enough in his rejection of the medical establishment. It seems as though the next four years will be characterized by an emboldened Trump. The best we can hope for is that he surrounds himself with people who are resilient under the duress of crises of every kind, and that he learns from his past failures and successes.
