there are several well read people that are in these here forums. curious as which U.S. president do you feel would have handled this virus the best way fit?
@mark94 the US Military was at its nadir (post Viatnam) and the disaster was in execution, not in policy. Jimmy Carter was a Naval Veteran and was screened by Hyman Rickover himself.
My selection per the OP was per the present situation and time (not the 70's)
Carter was, and is, a thoughtful, moral man with a high IQ. That makes for a good nuclear engineer or even naval officer. It doesn’t necessarily make a good president. A lot of being president takes instinct, ego, and the understanding of political power.
Jimmy Carter was smart in a nebish scientist sort of way, making him one of the worst Presidents in history. Too smart for his own good, when a street fighter mentality is needed. Reagan would have worked with everyone and delegated authority to the pros. Reagan's best trait was being smart enough to know that he was not smart enough to do the job on his own (Carter and Obama fell to this belief) and making sure he surrounded himself with smart people he could trust.
Probably the best at working with the other side was Nixon or Clinton not necessarily the best presidents but those two along wit Johnson prolly would have gotten more co-operation from the the opposition party which would have been a big help in dealing with this type of a crisis.
LBJ understood raw political power. He was the master of political trading and arm twisting. He was also crude and rude beyond even the standards of Trump. The press just didn’t report on that back in the day.
A lot of historians think FDR kept us in a Depression by not simply allowing the market to self correct. Also, by winning the war the way he did, Stalin and, later, Mao enslaved half the earth under communism. Other than that, he did a helluva job.
Gut instinct was FDR for reasons stated above. However, our society then wasn't broken in the way it was today. FDR + greatest generation = easily defeat covid. In today's idiocracy... were pretty f-ed no matter which prez you pick. I think the key here is really which prez wouldn't do dumb stuff to make it worse. FDR, Lincoln, Kennedy probably are good options.
What did Kennedy accomplish ? Bay of Pigs, Cuban missile crisis, further involvement in Vietnam. History has remembered him as a young charismatic leader whose life was tragically cut short. The reality of his accomplishments, or lack thereof, is very different.
I'm going with John Adams. Thoughtful politician that had a guiding hand in forming our constitution. He was a Federalist, so bypasses the us vs them of our current two party system. He fought a revolution while yellow fever, small pox, typhoid, and dysentery were all endemic, so he probably wouldn't over-react. Plus no one would talk shit about him on twitter unless they were willing to duel with pistols at dawn.
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If course a close second is Obama. He would have blown Xi Jinping !!!
My selection per the OP was per the present situation and time (not the 70's)