Farhad Manjoo has long considered himself to be an optimist, but thanks to President Trump's time in office, that quality has started to wane. Writing in The New York Times this Wednesday, Manjoo says that despite a period of hope that Democrats seemed to be making inroads against Trump's policies, that all is lost now thanks to the coronavirus.
"The coronavirus and our disastrous national response to it has smashed optimists like me in the head. If there is a silver lining, we’ll have to work hard to find it," he writes.
It's not just the fact that almost 100,000 Americans have died from the virus so far, that the federal government bungled its response, or that global cooperation during the pandemic.
"It is all these things and something more fundamental: a startling lack of leadership on identifying the worst consequences of this crisis and marshaling a united front against them," Manjoo writes. "Indeed, division and chaos might now be the permanent order of the day."
Read his full op-ed over at The New York Times.