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The answer is here:America’s Most Biblically-Hostile U. S. President.Copying and pasting in full.America’s Most Biblically-Hostile U. S. PresidentWhen one observes President Obama’s unwillingness to accommodate America’s four-century long religious conscience protection through his attempts to require Catholics to go against their own doctrines and beliefs, one is tempted to say that he is anti-Catholic. But that characterization would not be correct. Although he has recently singled out Catholics, he has equally targeted traditional Protestant beliefs over the past four years. So since he has attacked Catholics and Protestants, one is tempted to say that he is anti-Christian. But that, too, would be inaccurate. He has been equally disrespectful in his appalling treatment of religious Jews in general and Israel in particular. So perhaps the most accurate description of his antipathy toward Catholics, Protestants, religious Jews, and the Jewish nation would be to characterize him as anti-Biblical. And then when his hostility toward Biblical people of faith is contrasted with his preferential treatment of Muslims and Muslim nations, it further strengthens the accuracy of the anti-Biblical descriptor. In fact, there have been numerous clearly documented times when his pro-Islam positions have been the cause of his anti-Biblical actions.Listed below in chronological order are (1) numerous records of his attacks on Biblical persons or organizations; (2) examples of the hostility toward Biblical faith that have become evident in the past three years in the Obama-led military; (3) a listing of his open attacks on Biblical values; and finally (4) a listing of numerous incidents of his preferential deference for Islam’s activities and positions, including letting his Islamic advisors guide and influence his hostility toward people of Biblical faith.1. Acts of hostility toward people of Biblical faith:December 2009-Present – The annual White House Christmas cards, rather than focusing on Christmas or faith, instead highlight things such as the family dogs. And the White House Christmas tree ornaments include figures such as Mao Tse-Tung and a drag queen. [1]May 2016 – President Obama appoints a transgender to the Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships — an act of overt disdain and hostility toward traditional faith religions. [2]September 2015 – For White House and State Department dinners, the president deliberately invites guests that he knows will be offensive to the Pope and who openly opposed his message, but he and the State Department very carefully avoid inviting guests that oppose or would offended the dictators of countries such as Cuba and China. [3]June 2013 – The Obama Department of Justice defunds a Young Marines chapter in Louisiana because their oath mentioned God, and another youth program because it permits a voluntary student-led prayer. [4]February 2013 – The Obama Administration announces that the rights of religious conscience for individuals will not be protected under the Affordable Care Act. [5]January 2013 – Pastor Louie Giglio is pressured to remove himself from praying at the inauguration after it is discovered he once preached a sermon supporting the Biblical definition of marriage.[6]February 2012 – The Obama administration forgives student loans in exchange for public service, but announces it will no longer forgive student loans if the public service is related to religion. [7]January 2012 – The Obama administration argues that the First Amendment provides no protection for churches and synagogues in hiring their pastors and rabbis. [8]December 2011 – The Obama administration denigrates other countries’ religious beliefs as an obstacle to radical homosexual rights. [9]November 2011 – President Obama opposes inclusion of President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous D-Day Prayer in the WWII Memorial. [10]November 2011 – Unlike previous presidents, Obama studiously avoids any religious references in his Thanksgiving speech. [11]August 2011 – The Obama administration releases its new health care rules that override religious conscience protections for medical workers in the areas of abortion and contraception. [12]April 2011 – For the first time in American history, Obama urges passage of a non-discrimination law that does not contain hiring protections for religious groups, forcing religious organizations to hire according to federal mandates without regard to the dictates of their own faith, thus eliminating conscience protection in hiring. [13]February 2011 – Although he filled posts in the State Department, for more than two years Obama did not fill the post of religious freedom ambassador, an official that works against religious persecution across the world; he filled it only after heavy pressure from the public and from Congress. [14]January 2011 – After a federal law was passed to transfer a WWI Memorial in the Mojave Desert to private ownership, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the cross in the memorial could continue to stand, but the Obama administration refused to allow the land to be transferred as required by law, and refused to allow the cross to be re-erected as ordered by the Court. [15]November 2010 – Obama misquotes the National Motto, saying it is “E pluribus unum” rather than “In God We Trust” as established by federal law. [16]October 19, 2010 – Obama begins deliberately omitting the phrase about “the Creator” when quoting the Declaration of Independence – an omission he has made on no less than seven occasions. [17]May 2009 – Obama declines to host services for the National Prayer Day (a day established by federal law) at the White House. [18]April 2009 – When speaking at Georgetown University, Obama orders that a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name be covered when he is making his speech. [19]April 2009 – In a deliberate act of disrespect, Obama nominated three pro-abortion ambassadors to the Vatican; of course, the pro-life Vatican rejected all three. [20]February 2009 – Obama announces plans to revoke conscience protection for health workers who refuse to participate in medical activities that go against their beliefs, and fully implements the plan in February 2011. [21]April 2008 – Obama speaks disrespectfully of Christians, saying they “cling to guns or religion” and have an “antipathy to people who aren’t like them.” [22]2. Acts of hostility from the Obama-led military toward people of Biblical faith:October 2016 – Obama threatens to veto a defense bill over religious protections contained in it.[23]June 2016 – A military prayer breakfast whose speaker was highly decorated Delta Force Lt. General Jerry Boykin (ret) was cancelled because Boykin was a traditional value Christian who has voiced his support for natural marriage and his opposition to Islamic extremism. (The atheist critic behind the cancellation had complained that Boykin as a “homophobic, Islamophobic, fundamentalist Christian extremist.”)[24]April 2016 – At the orders of a commander, a 33-year Air Force veteran was forcibly and physically removed by four other airmen because he attempted to use the word “God” in a retirement speech.[25]February 2016 – After a complaint was received, a Bible was removed from a display inside a Veterans Clinic.[26]March 2015 – A decorated Navy chaplain was prohibited from fulfilling his duty of comforting the family (or any member of the unit) after the loss of a sailor because it was feared that he would say something about faith and God. He was even banned from the base on the day of the sailor’s memorial service. [27]March 2015 – A highly decorated Navy SEAL chaplain was relieved of duty for providing counseling that contained religious views on things such as faith, marriage, and sexuality. [28]June 2014 – Official U. S. government personnel, both civilian and military, in Bahrain (a small Arabic nation near Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran) must wear clothing that facilitates the religious observance of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. [29]March 2014 – Maxell Air Force Base suddenly bans Gideons from handing out Bibles to willing recruits, a practice that had been occurring for years previously. [30]December 2013 – A naval facility required that two nativity scenes — scenes depicting the event that caused Christmas to be declared a national federal holiday — be removed from the base dining hall and be confined to the base chapel, thus disallowing the open public acknowledgment of this national federal holiday. [30]December 2013 – An Air Force base that allowed various public displays ordered the removal of one simply because it contained religious content. [32]October 2013 – A counter-intelligence briefing at Fort Hood tells soldiers that evangelical Christians are a threat to Americans and that for a soldier to donate to such a group “was punishable under military regulations.” [33]October 2013 – Catholic priests hired to serve as military chaplains are prohibited from performing Mass services at base chapels during the government financial shutdown. When they offered to freely do Mass for soldiers, without regard to whether or not the chaplains were receiving pay, they are still denied permission to do so. [34]October 2013 – The Air Force Academy, in response to a complaint from Mikey Weinstein’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation, makes “so help me God” optional in cadets’ honor oath. [35]August 2013 – A Department of Defense military training manual teaches soldiers that people who talk about “individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place” are “extremists.” It also lists the Founding Fathers — those “colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule” — as examples of those involved in “extremist ideologies and movements.” [36]August 2013 – A Senior Master Sergeant was removed from his position and reassigned because he told his openly lesbian squadron commander that she should not punish a staff sergeant who expressed his views in favor of traditional marriage. [37]August 2013 – The military does not provide heterosexual couples specific paid leave to travel to a state just for the purpose of being married, but it did extend these benefits to homosexual couples who want to marry, thus giving them preferential treatment not available to heterosexuals. [38]August 2013 – The Air Force, in the midst of having launched a series of attacks against those expressing traditional religious or moral views, invited a drag queen group to perform at a base. [39]July 2013 – When an Air Force sergeant with years of military service questioned a same-sex marriage ceremony performed at the Air Force Academy’s chapel, he received a letter of reprimand telling him that if he disagreed, he needed to get out of the military. His current six-year reenlistment was then reduced to only one-year, with the notification that he “be prepared to retire at the end of this year.” [40]July 2013 – An Air Force chaplain who posted a website article on the importance of faith and the origin of the phrase “There are no atheists in foxholes” was officially ordered to remove his post because some were offended by the use of that famous World War II phrase.[41]June 2013 – The U. S. Air Force, in consultation with the Pentagon, removed an inspirational painting that for years has been hanging at Mountain Home Air Force Base because its title was “Blessed Are The Peacemakers” — a phrase from Matthew 5:9 in the Bible. [42]June 2013 – The Obama administration “strongly objects” to a Defense Authorization amendment to protect the constitutionally-guaranteed religious rights of soldiers and chaplains, claiming that it would have an “adverse effect on good order, discipline, morale, and mission accomplishment.” [43]June 2013 – At a joint base in New Jersey, a video was made, based on a Super Bowl commercial, to honor First Sergeants. It stated: “On the eighth day, God looked down on His creation and said, ‘I need someone who will take care of the Airmen.’ So God created a First Sergeant.” Because the video mentioned the word “God,” the Air Force required that it be taken down. [44]June 2013 – An Army Master Sergeant is reprimanded, threatened with judicial action, and given a bad efficiency report, being told he was “no longer a team player,” because he voiced his support of traditional marriage at his own promotion party. [45]May 2013 – The Pentagon announces that “Air Force members are free to express their personal religious beliefs as long as it does not make others uncomfortable. “Proselytizing (inducing someone to convert to one’s faith) goes over that line,” [46] affirming if a sharing of faith makes someone feel uncomfortable that it could be a court-marital offense [47] — the military equivalent of a civil felony.May 2013 – An Air Force officer was actually made to remove a personal Bible from his own desk because it “might” appear that he was condoning the particular religion to which he belonged. [48]April 2013 – Officials briefing U.S. Army soldiers placed “Evangelical Christianity” and “Catholicism” in a list that also included Al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas as examples of “religious extremism.” [49]April 2013 – The U.S. Army directs troops to scratch off and paint over tiny Scripture verse references that for decades had been forged into weapon scopes. [50]April 2013 – The Air Force creates a “religious tolerance” policy but consults only a militant atheist group to do so — a group whose leader has described military personnel who are religious as ‘spiritual rapists’ and ‘human monsters’ [51] and who also says that soldiers who proselytize are guilty of treason and sedition and should be punished to hold back a “tidal wave of fundamentalists.” [52]January 2013 – President Obama announced his opposition to a provision in the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act protecting the rights of conscience for military chaplains. [53]June 2012 – Bibles for the American military have been printed in every conflict since the American Revolution, but the Obama Administration revokes the long-standing U. S. policy of allowing military service emblems to be placed on those military Bibles. [54]May 2012 – The Obama administration opposed legislation to protect the rights of conscience for military chaplains who do not wish to perform same-sex marriages in violation of their strongly-held religious beliefs. [55]April 2012 – A checklist for Air Force Inns will no longer include ensuring that a Bible is available in rooms for those who want to use them. [56]February 2012 – The U. S. Military Academy at West Point disinvites three star Army general and decorated war hero Lieutenant General William G. (“Jerry”) Boykin (retired) from speaking at an event because he is an outspoken Christian. [57]February 2012 – The Air Force removes “God” from the patch of Rapid Capabilities Office (the word on the patch was in Latin: Dei). [58]February 2012 – The Army ordered Catholic chaplains not to read a letter to parishioners that their archbishop asked them to read. [59]November 2011 – The Air Force Academy rescinds support for Operation Christmas Child, a program to send holiday gifts to impoverished children across the world, because the program is run by a Christian charity. [60]November 2011 – President Obama opposes inclusion of President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous D-Day Prayer in the WWII Memorial. [61]November 2011 – Even while restricting and disapprobating Christian religious expressions, the Air Force Academy pays $80,000 to add a Stonehenge-like worship center for pagans, druids, witches and Wiccans at the Air Force Academy. [62]September 2011 – Air Force Chief of Staff prohibits commanders from notifying airmen of programs and services available to them from chaplains. [63]September 2011 – The Army issues guidelines for Walter Reed Medical Center stipulating that “No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading materials and/or facts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.” [64]August 2011 – The Air Force stops teaching the Just War theory to officers in California because the course is taught by chaplains and is based on a philosophy introduced by St. Augustine in the third century AD – a theory long taught by civilized nations across the world (except now, America). [65]June 2011 – The Department of Veterans Affairs forbids references to God and Jesus during burial ceremonies at Houston National Cemetery. [66]January 2010 – Because of “concerns” raised by the Department of Defense, tiny Bible verse references that had appeared for decades on scopes and gunsights were removed. [67]3. Acts of hostility toward Biblical values:October 2015 – The administration attempts to pick opponents for court cases dealing with Obamacare contraception mandate. [68]March 2014 – The Obama administration seeks funding for every type of sex-education — except that which reflects traditional moral values. [69]August 2013 – Non-profit charitable hospitals, especially faith-based ones, will face large fines or lose their tax-exempt status if they don’t comply with new strangling paperwork requirements related to giving free treatment to poor clients who do not have Obamacare insurance coverage. [70] Ironically, the first hospital in America was founded as a charitable institution in 1751 by Benjamin Franklin, and its logo was the Good Samaritan, with Luke 10:35 inscribed below him: “Take care of him, and I will repay thee,” being designed specifically to offer free medical care to the poor. [71] Benjamin Franklin’s hospital would likely be fined unless he placed more resources and funds into paperwork rather than helping the poor under the new faith-hostile policy of the Obama administration.August 2013 – USAID, a federal government agency, shut down a conference in South Korea the night before it was scheduled to take place because some of the presentations were not pro-abortion but instead presented information on abortion complications, including the problems of “preterm births, mental health issues, and maternal mortality” among women giving birth who had previous abortions. [72]June 2013 – The Obama Administration finalizes requirements that under the Obamacare insurance program, employers must make available abortion-causing drugs, regardless of the religious conscience objections of many employers and even despite the directive of several federal courts to protect the religious conscience of employers. [73]April 2013 – The United States Agency for Internal Development (USAID), an official foreign policy agency of the U.S. government, begins a program to train homosexual activists in various countries around the world to overturn traditional marriage and anti-sodomy laws, targeting first those countries with strong Catholic influences, including Ecuador, Honduras, and Guatemala. [74]December 2012 – Despite having campaigned to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, President Obama once again suspends the provisions of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 which requires the United States to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to move the American Embassy there. [75]July 2012 – The Pentagon, for the first time, allows service members to wear their uniforms while marching in a parade – specifically, a gay pride parade in San Diego. [76]October 2011 – The Obama administration eliminates federal grants to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for their extensive programs that aid victims of human trafficking because the Catholic Church is anti-abortion. [77]September 2011 – The Pentagon directs that military chaplains may perform same-sex marriages at military facilities in violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. [78]July 2011 – Obama allows homosexuals to serve openly in the military, reversing a policy originally instituted by George Washington in March 1778. [79]March 2011 – The Obama administration refuses to investigate videos showing Planned Parenthood helping alleged sex traffickers get abortions for victimized underage girls. [80]February 2011 – Obama directs the Justice Department to stop defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act. [81]September 2010 – The Obama administration tells researchers to ignore a judge’s decision striking down federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. [82]August 2010 – The Obama administration Cuts funding for 176 abstinence education programs. [83]July 2010 – The Obama administration uses federal funds in violation of federal law to get Kenya to change its constitution to include abortion. [84]September 16, 2009 – The Obama administration appoints as EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum, who asserts that society should “not tolerate” any “private beliefs,” including religious beliefs, if they may negatively affect homosexual “equality.” [85]July 2009 – The Obama administration illegally extends federal benefits to same-sex partners of Foreign Service and Executive Branch employees, in direction violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. [86]May 2009 – The White House budget eliminates all funding for abstinence-only education and replaces it with “comprehensive” sexual education, repeatedly proven to increase teen pregnancies and abortions. [87] He continues the deletion in subsequent budgets. [88]May 2009 – Obama officials assemble a terrorism dictionary calling pro-life advocates violent and charging that they use racism in their “criminal” activities. [89]March 2009 – The Obama administration shut out pro-life groups from attending a White House-sponsored health care summit. [90]March 2009 – Obama orders taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research. [91]March 2009 – Obama gave $50 million for the UNFPA, the UN population agency that promotes abortion and works closely with Chinese population control officials who use forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations. [92]January 2009 – Obama lifts restrictions on U.S. government funding for groups that provide abortion services or counseling abroad, forcing taxpayers to fund pro-abortion groups that either promote or perform abortions in other nations. [93]January 2009 – President Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of state asserts that American taxpayers are required to pay for abortions and that limits on abortion funding are unconstitutional. [94]4. Acts of preferentialism for Islam:April – September 2015 – The administration negotiates a deal to stop economic sanctions of Iran because of nuclear power development, despite the warnings and concern of Israel. [95]February 2012 – The Obama administration makes effulgent apologies for Korans being burned by the U. S. military, [96] but when Bibles were burned by the military, numerous reasons were offered why it was the right thing to do. [97]October 2011 – Obama’s Muslim advisers block Middle Eastern Christians’ access to the White House. [98]August 2010 – Obama speaks with great praise of Islam and condescendingly of Christianity. [99]August 2010 – Obama went to great lengths to speak out on multiple occasions on behalf of building an Islamic mosque at Ground Zero, while at the same time he was silent about a Christian church being denied permission to rebuild at that location. [100]April 2010 – Christian leader Franklin Graham is disinvited from the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer Event because of complaints from the Muslim community. [101]April 2010 – The Obama administration requires rewriting of government documents and a change in administration vocabulary to remove terms that are deemed offensive to Muslims, including jihad, jihadists, terrorists, radical Islamic, etc. [102]May 2009 – While Obama does not host any National Day of Prayer event at the White House, he does host White House Iftar dinners in honor of Ramadan. [103]2010 – While every White House traditionally issues hundreds of official proclamations and statements on numerous occasions, this White House avoids traditional Biblical holidays and events but regularly recognizes major Muslim holidays, as evidenced by its 2010 statements on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha. [104]Many of these actions are literally unprecedented – this is the first time they have happened in four centuries of American history. The hostility of President Obama toward Biblical faith and values is without equal from any previous American president.[1] Todd Starnes, “No Christmas in White House Holiday Card,” Fox News Radio, 2011; Todd Starnes, “White House “Holiday” Card Spotlights Dog, Not Christmas,” Fox News Radio, 2012; “White House Christmas Decor Featuring Mao Zedong Comes Under Fire,” Fox News, December 24, 2009.[2] Billy Hallowell, “Obama Appoints Transgender Leader to Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships,” The Blaze, May 19, 2016.[3] Jonah Goldberg, “Obama Respects Dictators More Than Popes,” National Review, September 19, 2015.[4] Todd Starnes, “DOJ Defunds At-Risk Youth Programs over “God” Reference,” Townhall, June 25, 2013.[5] Steven Ertelt, “Obama Admin’s HHS Mandate Revision Likely Excludes Hobby Lobby,” LifeNews.com, February 1, 2013; Dan Merica, “Obama proposal would let religious groups opt-out of contraception mandate,” CNN, February 1, 2013.[6] Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Minister Backs Out of Speech at Inaugural,” New York Times, January 10, 2013; Eric Marrapodi, “Giglio bows out of inauguration over sermon on gays,” CNN, January 10, 2013.[7] Audrey Hudson, “Obama administration religious service for student loan forgiveness,” Human Events, February 15, 2012.[8] Ted Olson, “Church Wins Firing Case at Supreme Court,” Christianity Today, January 11, 2012.[9] Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Remarks in Recognition of International Human Rights Day,” U.S. Department of State, December 6, 2011.[10] Todd Starns, “Obama Administration Opposes FDR Prayer at WWII Memorial,” Fox News, November 4, 2011.[11] Joel Siegel, “Obama Omits God From Thanksgiving Speech, Riles Critics,” ABC News, November 25, 2011.[12] Chuck Donovan, “HHS’s New Health Guidelines Trample on Conscience,” Heritage Foundation, August 2, 2011.[13] Chris Johnson, “ENDA passage effort renewed with Senate introduction,” Washington Blade, April 15, 2011.[14] Marrianne Medlin, “Amid criticism, President Obama moves to fill vacant religious ambassador post,” Catholic News Agency, February 9, 2011; Thomas F. Farr, “Undefender of the Faith,” Foreign Policy, April 5, 2012.[15] LadyImpactOhio, “ Feds sued by Veterans to allow stolen Mojave Desert Cross to be rebuilt,” Red State, January 14, 2011.[16] “Remarks by the President at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, Indonesia,” The White House, November 10, 2010.[17] Meredith Jessup, “Obama Continues to Omit ‘Creator’ From Declaration of Independence,” The Blaze, October 19, 2010.[18] Johanna Neuman, “Obama end Bush-era National Prayer Day Service at White House,” Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2009.[19] Jim Lovino, “Jesus Missing From Obama’s Georgetown Speech,” NBC Washington, April 17, 2009.[20] Chris McGreal, “Vatican vetoes Barack Obama’s nominees for U.S. Ambassador,” The Guardian, April 14, 2009.[21] Aliza Marcus, “Obama to Lift ‘Conscience’ Rule for Health Workers,” Bloomberg, February 27, 2009; Sarah Pulliam Baily, “Obama Admin. Changes Bush ‘Conscience’ Rule for Health Workers,” Christianity Today, February 18, 2011.[22] Sarah Pulliam Baily, “Obama: ‘They cling to guns or religion’,” Christianity Today, April 13, 2008.[23] Roger Severino, “President Obama Threatens to Veto Defense Bill That Protects Religious Liberty,” Charisma News,October 28, 2016.[24] Todd Starnes, “Boykin bounced: Fort Riley cancels Delta Force hero’s prayer breakfast speech,” Fox News, June 2, 2016.[25] Debra Heine, “USAF Vet Forcibly Removed from Flag-Folding Ceremony for Mentioning God,” PJMedia, June 20, 2016.[26] Todd Starnes, “Bible removed from POW/MIA display inside VA clinic,” Fox News, February 29, 2016.[27]Todd Starnes, “Navy bans chaplain from ministering to family of dead soldier,” Fox News, March 24, 2015.[28]Todd Starnes, “Former SEALs chaplain could be kicked out of Navy for Christian beliefs,” Fox News, March 9, 2015.[29] Hendrick Simoes, “US personnel in Bahrain prepare for Ramadan,” Stars and Stripes, June 26, 2014.[30] Todd Starnes, “Bible controversy hits Air Force base,” Fox News, March 15, 2014.[31] “Nativity scenes removed from Guantanamo dining halls after complaints,” Fox News, December 19, 2013.[32] Todd Starnes, “Air Force removes Nativity scene,” Fox News, December 9, 2013.[33] Steven Ertelt, “Army Briefing Tells Soldiers Christians and Pro-Lifers are a “Radical” Threat,” LifeNews, October 23, 2013.[34] Todd Starnes, “Catholic priests in military face arrest for celebrating Mass,” Fox News, October 5, 2013; The Brody File, “Priest: Obama Admin. Denied Mass to Catholics,” CBN News, October 8, 2013.[35] Stephen Losey, “Academy makes ‘God’ optional in cadets’ oath,” Air Force Times, October 25, 2013.[36] Adan Salazar, “DoD Training Manual: ‘Extremist’ Founding Fathers ‘Would Not Be Welcome In Today’s Military’,” infowars.com, August 24, 2013.[37] Chad Groening, “‘I cannot answer your question:’ Air Force Sgt. says lesbian commander booted him,” One News Now, August 20, 2013.[38] “Military gives bonuses only to same-sex couples,” WND, August 20, 2013.[39] Melanie Korb, “Air Force Invites Drag Queens to Perform on ‘Diversity Day’,” Charisma News, August 19, 2013.[40] Chad Groening, “Attorney demands answers for Air National Guard sergeant punished for beliefs,” OneNewsNow, July 15, 2013.[41] Todd Starnes, “Chaplain Ordered to Remove Religious Essay From Military Website,” FoxNews Radio, July 24, 2013.[42] Hellen Cook, “Pentagon Censors Christian Art,” Christian News Wire, January 21, 2010.[43] Todd Starnes, “Obama ‘Strongly Objects’ to Religious Liberty Amendment,” Townhall, June 12, 2013.[44] Todd Starnes, “Air Force Removes Video that Mentions God,” Fox News Radio. June 7, 2013.[45] Todd Starnes, “Army Punishes Soldier who Served Chick-fil-A,” Fox News Radio, June 5, 2013.[46] “Liberty Institute Calls On U.S. Department Of Defense To Abandon Shift In Military’s Proselytizing Policy,” PR Newswire, May 7, 2013; Todd Starnes, “Air Force Officer Told to Remove Bible from Desk,” Conservative news, politics, opinion, breaking news analysis, political cartoons and commentary, May 3, 2013.[47] “Pentagon May Court Martial Soldiers Who Share Christian Faith,” Breitbart, May 1, 2013.[48] Todd Starnes, “Air Force Officer Told to Remove Bible from Desk,” Conservative news, politics, opinion, breaking news analysis, political cartoons and commentary, May 3, 2013.[49] Jack Minor, “Military Warned ‘evangelicals’ No. 1 Threat,” WND, April 5, 2013.[50] Todd Starnes, “Army Removes Bible Reference from Scopes,” Fox News Radio, April 22, 2013.[51] “Chaplain endorsers ask Air Force for equal time,” Alliance Defending Freedom, April 30, 2013.[52] Todd Starnes, “Pentagon: Religious Proselytizing is Not Permitted,” Fox News Radio, April 30, 2013.[53] Billy Hallowell, “Obama Opposes NDAA’s ‘Rights of Conscience’ for Military Chaplains & Members, Vows to Protects Rights of Gays,” The Blaze, January 4, 2013; Paul Conner, “Obama calls NDAA conscience clause for military chaplains ‘unnecessary and ill-advised’,” The Daily Caller, January 3, 2013.[54] “U.S. military insignia no longer allowed on Bibles,” CBN News, June 14, 2012.[55] Patrick Goodenough, “White House ‘Strongly Objects’ to Legislation Protecting Military Chaplains from Doing Same-Sex Weddings or Being Forced to Act Against Conscience,” Home | CNSNews, May 16, 2012.[56] Markeshia Ricks, “Bible checklist for Air Force lodges going away,” Air Force Times, April 16, 2012.[57] Ken Blackwell, “Gen. Boykin Blocked At West Point,” Home | CNSNews, February 1, 2012.[58] Geoff Herbert, ” Air Force unit removes ‘God’ from logo; lawmakers warn of ‘dangerous precedent’,” Syracuse NY Local News, Breaking News, Sports & Weather, February 9, 2012.[59] Todd Starnes, “Army Silences Catholic Chaplains,” Fox News Radio, February 6, 2012.[60] “Air Force Academy Backs Away from Christmas Charity,” Fox News Radio, November 4, 2011.[61] Todd Starnes, “Obama Administration Opposes FDR Prayer at WWII Memorial,” Fox News, November 4, 2011.[62] Jenny Dean, “Air Force Academy adapts to pagans, druids, witches and Wiccans,” Los Angeles Times, November 26, 2011.[63] “Maintaining Government Neutrality Regarding Religion,” Department of the Air Force, September 1, 2011.[64] “Wounded, Ill, and Injured Partners in Care Guidelines,” Department of the Navy (accessed on February 29, 2012).[65] Jason Ukman, “Air Force suspends ethics course that used Bible passages that train missle launch officers,” Washington Post, August 2, 2011.[66] “Houston Veterans Claim Censorship of Prayers, Including Ban of ‘God’ and ‘Jesus’,” Fox News, June 29, 2011.[67] Todd Spangler, “U.S. firm to remove Bible references from gun sights,” USA Today, January 21, 2010.[68] Samuel Smith, “Nun Too Crazy? Obama Trying to Hand Pick Opponent in Birth Control Battle, Little Sisters of the Poor Attorneys Say,” The Christian Post, October 14, 2015.[69] Steven Ertelt, “President Obama’s Budget Eliminates Abstinence Education Programs,” Life News, March 5, 2014; Jennifer Liberto, “Sex abstinence program among Obama’s targeted cuts,” CNN Money, March 5, 2014.[70] Patrick Howley, “Obamacare installs new scrutiny, fines for charitable hospitals that treat uninsured people,” The Daily Caller, August 8, 2013.[71] “The Story of the Creation of the Nation’s First Hospital,” University of Pennsylvania Health System (accessed August 14, 2013).[72] Wendy Wright,” USAID Rep Shuts Down Workshop on Abortion Complications,” Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, August 9, 2013.[73] “Obama Administration Ignores Outcries, Finalizes HHS Mandate Targeting Religious Freedom,” Liberty Counsel, July 1, 2013; Baptist Press, “Moore, others: Final mandate rules fail,” Townhall, July 1, 2013.[74] Tony Perkins, “Obama administration begins training homosexual activists around the world,” LifeSiteNews, June 6, 2013.[75] Ken Blackwell, “Guest Opinion: Take a Risk for Peace. Move our Embassy to Jerusalem!,” Catholic Online, June 5, 2013.[76] “Pentagon: Service members now allowed to wear uniforms in gay pride parades,” NY Daily News, July 19, 2012.[77] Jerry Markon, “Health, abortion issues split Obama administration and Catholic groups,” Washington Post, October 31, 2011.[78] Luis Martinez, “Will Same Sex Marriages Pose a Dilemma for Military Chaplains?,” ABC News, October 12, 2011.[79] Elisabeth Bumiller, “Obama Ends ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Policy,” New York Times, July 22, 2011; George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, John C. Fitzpatrick, editor (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1934), Vol. XI, pp. 83-84, from General Orders at Valley Forge on March 14, 1778.[80] Steven Ertelt, “Obama Admin Ignores Planned Parenthood Sex Trafficking Videos,” LifeNews, March 2, 2011.[81] Brian Montopoli, “Obama administration will no longer defend DOMA,” CBSNews, February 23, 2011.[82] Steven Ertelt, “President Barack Obama’s Pro-Abortion Record: A Pro-Life Compilation,” LifeNews, February 11, 2012.[83] Steven Ertelt, “Obama, Congress Cut Funding for 176 Abstinence Programs Despite New Study,” LifeNews, August 26, 2010.[84] Tess Civantos, “White House Spent $23M of Taxpayer Money to Back Kenyan Constitution That Legalizes Abortion, GOP Reps Say,” Fox News, July 22, 2010.[85] Matt Cover, “Obama’s EEOC Nominee: Society Should ‘Not Tolerate Private Beliefs’ That ‘Adversely Affect’ Homosexuals,” Home | CNSNews, January 18, 2010.[86] “Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies,” The White House, June 17, 2009.[87] Steven Ertelt, “Barack Obama’s Federal Budget Eliminates Funding for Abstinence-Only Education,” LifeNews, May 8, 2009.[88] Steven Ertelt, “Obama Budget Funds Sex Ed Over Abstinence on 16-1 Margin,” LifeNews, February 14, 2011.[89] Steven Ertelt, “Obama Admin Terrorism Dictionary Calls Pro-Life Advocates Violent, Racist,” LifeNews, May 5, 2009.[90] Steven Ertelt, “Pro-Life Groups Left Off Obama’s Health Care Summit List, Abortion Advocates OK,” LifeNews, March 5, 2009.[91] “Obama Signs Order Lifting Restrictions on Stem Cell Research Funding,” Fox News, March 9, 2009.[92] Steven Ertelt, “ Obama Administration Announces $50 Million for Pro-Forced Abortion UNFPA,” LifeNews, March 26, 2009; Steven Ertelt, “President Barack Obama’s Pro-Abortion Record: A Pro-Life Compilation,” LifeNews, February 11, 2012.[93] Jeff Mason and Deborah Charles, “Obama lifts restrictions on abortion funding,” Reuters, January 23, 2009.[94] “Obama pick: Taxpayers must fund abortions,” World Net Daily, January 27, 2009.[95] “Netanyahu to Obama: Iran deal would ‘threaten the survival of Israel’,” Fox News, April 3, 2015.[96] Masoud Popalzai and Nick Paton Walsh, “ Obama apologizes to Afghanistan for Quran burning,” CNN, February 23, 2012.[97] “Military burns unsolicited Bibles sent to Afghanistan,” CNN, May 22, 2009.[98] “Report: Obama’s Muslim Advisers Block Middle Eastern Christians’ Access to the White House,” Big Peace (accessed on February 29, 2012).[99] Chuck Norris, “ President Obama: Muslim Missionary? (Part 2),” Conservative news, politics, opinion, breaking news analysis, political cartoons and commentary, August 24, 2010; Chuck Norris, “President Obama: Muslim Missionary?,” Conservative news, politics, opinion, breaking news analysis, political cartoons and commentary, August 17, 2010.[100] Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at Iftar Dinner,” The White House, August 13, 2010; “Obama Comes Out in Favor of Allowing Mosque Near Ground Zero,” Fox News, August 13, 2010; Pamela Geller, “Islamic Supremacism Trumps Christianity at Ground Zero,” American Thinker, July 21, 2011.[101] “Franklin Graham Regrets Army’s Decision to Rescind Invite to Pentagon Prayer Service,” Fox News, April 22, 2010.[102] “Obama Bans Islam, Jihad From National Security Strategy Document,” Fox News, April 7, 2010; “Counterterror Adviser Defends Jihad as ‘Legitimate Tenet of Islam’,” Fox News, May 27, 2010; “‘Islamic Radicalism’ Nixed From Obama Document,” CBSNews, April 7, 2010.[103] Barack Obama, “ Remarks by the President at Iftar Dinner,” The White House, September 1, 2009; Kristi Keck, “ Obama tones down National Day of Prayer observance,” CNN, May 6, 2009; Dan Gilgoff, “ The White House on National Day of Prayer: A Proclamation, but No Formal Ceremony,” U.S. News, May 1, 2009.[104] “WH Fails to Release Easter Proclamation,” Fox Nation, April 25, 2011; “President Obama ignores most holy Christian holiday; AFA calls act intentional,” American Family Association (accessed on February 29, 2012).

I have done more thinking about this issue, so here is an additional answer….I speak from outside. I have before. Since Canada is so geographically close to the USA, and English-speaking Canada is so heavily exposed to the American media, we see a lot of that divide. The deep divide causes issues for Canada. Currently, that divide is causing "acting out" behaviour internationally. This forces the Canadian federal and provincial governments, and Canadian business, to divert time, to what is really an internal dispute within the USA.When Is The News, Pointless Nonsense?It takes individuals to sense divides. There may be obvious economic and other divisions within a country, but if individuals do not perceive them, there may not be much in the way of political implications.Then, there can be the converse. Individuals can perceive divides that do not actually exist. Looking at it from outside, the USA has a surfeit of media, almost all of them commercial, almost all of them trying to get the attention of individual Americans, so they can sell them stuff. You can get an individual's attention by exaggerating threats and stroking their feelings of belonging, by overstating group identities. It would help if Americans didn't just believe there is "fake news", but also that there is useless news, and news that is just generated to get attention to some advertisements.Cynicism can be great for a society. I think it would possible for both conservative and progressive Americans to join a cynicism movement, if someone, or some people ,would organize it. If anything, there is too much earnestness and sincerity in the United States. Individual Americans may feel sincere concern about various issues. However, should they? Should they really need to be asking themselves, are there any really sincere politicians or media figures? Are they sincere in saying something is an issue? Should Americans of all political opinions consider whether too many of their politicians and media figures are acting like a bunch of carnival barkers, or, alternatively, circus clowns?I'm In It For MeIt sometimes is not commendable to just look out for number one, but sometimes you really need to, or maybe, most of the time. If you are looking after your loved ones, while you are looking out for yourself, you probably should."Tribal politics" is a sales pitch. If your life is really about you, the you, then there is no tribe you should belong to. (Except for religious reasons.) Say, for example, you see yourself as a progressive. You are an IT worker, urbanized, maybe a resident of suburban Minneapolis-Saint Paul, San Jose, Seattle, but even possibly suburban Atlanta, or South Beach in Miami (If your career is doing very well.) You are watching Bernie Sanders, or Nancy Pelosi, or Joe Biden, or a young, attractive, visible minority, candidate for the House of Representatives. If you are looking at someone you like, or want to identify with, it is pretty easy to get wound up. But, if you did a checklist, how is what you are hearing going to help you? If you see yourself as a nice, kind, person, this can be painful. Will regularizing the immigration status of undocumented immigrants actually be to your personal good? Would it actually hurt your life if, you have kids, the local schools are underperforming badly, and your state government grades the schools, admits the problem, and gives you a voucher to send your kids somewhere better? (In other words, it is nice to support public schools and unionized school teachers, but what if the ones at your local public school, can't, or won't do their jobs?) Will the continuation of equity and affirmative action programming actually be good, for you? What if, as a result, your kid can't get a place in college? If you have a stock portfolio, is it anyone's business to demand you make ethical and environmentally friendly investments only, or should you be making your own priorities?The same for someone who sees themselves as a conservative. You are a farmer in the South and you need field labour to get your crop in. Is that going to happen without foreign labour? Do you have time for people who talk about the evils of Mexican migration, or do you really mind it that much, if they are getting your avocadoes in from your field? What if the federal government consults with the your state Department of Agriculture, concludes no American will do that stoop work, gives out seasonal work permits to agricultural workers, they do their job, and you tell them, "Come back next year". Do you much care if someone who lives in the Upper East side of Manhattan cannot get a handgun permit? Is it really going to make you mad if the federal government does some trade deal with some foreign countries, they accept US agricultural standards, you get to export stuff there without it rotting on the dock while waiting for inspection, but then, the foreigners open a car plant in your county, your kid gets their first job, and you get to buy a Mercedes-made truck for cheap?What Does Ideology, Or Politics, Mean to An Individual Person?I happened to deal with the definition of "Ideology" in my Answer yesterday;The Cambridge Dictionary provides this definition of "ideology" at:https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ideologyThis definition is their property:" a set of beliefs or principles, especially one on which a political system, party, or organization is based"If one takes this definition as correct, then an individual is not the keeper of an ideology. Were I an individual American, I would ask, what political system, party, or organization in the USA is based on an identifiable ideology, how much can they really implement it, and do I want to support it, fully or at all?The Cambridge Dictionary gives a few different definitions of politics, at:https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/politics" the activities of the government, members of law-making organizations, or people who try to influence the way a country is governed"" the job of holding a position of power in the government"" the study of the ways in which a country is governed"" someone's opinions about how a country should be governed"" the relationships within a group or organization that allow particular people to have power over others"Only one of these five definitions relates to an average "someone". American "Politics" go far beyond the desires of any one American.Simply as an opinion, it would help American unity a lot, if individual Americans of all viewpoints installed a psychological "firewall", between their own existence, and the world of "ideologies" and "politics". The USA is not a collectivist society. The objective of American life is meant to be "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". That means, an individual's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, not the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of a collectivity. American ideologies and American politics are meant to be a byproduct of that search, not the objective or perfection of it.Being Honest About American Mass LifeI speak from having travelled and worked in the USA. I have family there. Being an alien Canadian, I can offer a personal contrast.Like any individual human being, I have needs, preferences and desires. Mine aren't all that special, unless you define being Jewish, divorced, single, and getting old, as totally weird. (Being bisexual gives you a sort of relationship flexibility, so to speak.)Canada is geographically huge, but in terms of population, it is small, and that small population is scattered. The result is, that there are maybe six or seven cities in the country, at the most, where I would be in screaming for help range of a Jewish old folks home. Not that much choice, eh?But then, there is the USA, with ten times the population. What if I had sixty or seventy cities where I would be a short ambulance ride from a kosher maximum care ward? What is left of my head would be spinning, trying to make a choice!And, so much the more for the young adults. In Canada, most job opportunities for well-educated young people are concentrated in a handful of cities. If you already live in one, you might be just as well to stay where you are.I worked in Seattle. The pearl of the Pacific Northwest is a pretty big town. And, Americans come there from all over, as they do to various, far from where they used to be, places in the USA. A not uncommon Seattleite is someone from way far away, who came there to make a living, and who doesn't know a soul there. No one cares about the real you and your regional heritage.Whether you want it or not, you have become an economic unit in search of a life, and some kind of identity. That can be really, really lonely and very hard. But then, there is some star of the social media, offering you a pre-packaged you product, tribal identity, membership in a lifestyle stance and viewpoint, some online friends to get reinforced by, the whole works. Play your cards right and you might get to come out to a demonstration, and hit the bars after, with some actual people.I believe this may have as much or more to do with American divides, as different American ideologies and politics. There are a lot of Americans looking for political-based love in all the wrong places. It would help the USA a great deal, if they faced it, and transferred their passions to online dating sites and church socials.A Budgetary Bottom Line, One For Each, Individual American, And Another One, For AmericaPeople have budgets. The United States of America has a budget.I don't think it is crass to say it. If you don't have enough to eat, then everything else in life is extremely unimportant.I believe it would help if every adult, individual American, who isn't already in kosher maximum care, had a budgetary spreadsheet, with line item entries. That is, how much am I spending, and how much I am bringing in, including taxes, deductions and delivery charges. Then the next question is why, what is making it that way? Not for a tribe, not for some group you want to identify with, but for you, yourself, alone.If your bottom line is nice and positive, the next question is, how can I keep things the way they are? If your bottom line is ugly, the next question is, who, or what, can assist me in getting out of this mess?No, I don't think this is a mean, self-centered approach to life. Once you have an adequate cash flow, your self-interest can get enlightened. You can donate money to charity, to your favourite social media firebrand, to your favourite social justice movement, to your favourite pastor, your choice. You can think about your opinions about how the USA should be governed, without that governing resulting in your own personal bankruptcy.And, while you are doing that, a patriotic American could do the USA well by demanding to see the national balance sheet. Francophone Canadians have a term which translates as, "dreaming in technocolour." Politicians, anywhere, like to market you dreams. It is nice to talk about making America great again, or making the USA a social justice paradise, but how many explosive drones, overseas bases, aircraft carriers and advanced avionics can the USA afford, and where should the USA deploy them? How many tariffs can the USA impose, and how many trade wars can it subsidize, before American manufacturers have to close? How many grants can the USA give out, how much tuition-free college education, how much subsidized housing, before the American tax base is tapped out? Then, think about your political opinions.Cynicism, Doubt, Skepticism, And Lead Your Own LifeI think that a lot of the deep divide could be resolved if Americans, of all political bents, made these common commitments, to say about politics, and to politicians and media influencers:-We start by not believing anything that any politician or media personality says.-If you want us to believe it, tell us just why we should, and how the USA is going to pay for it, and, more specifically, who, exactly, in the USA?-Can you prove to me that something in the government is broke, and why you are the one to fix it?-Call me out, and I will call you out, just as much or more.-If you are giving me advice, show me how you know more than I already do?-Justify why you have a right to change anything in my life, and what I do?-That's interesting what you are telling me, but what's in it for me and mine, and just how much is that going to happen, and, just when?-How is this going to help, or obstruct me, when I make choices about my personal life?-When was the last time you walked a mile in my shoes?-Don't sell me any identities. I am a grown-up American. I'll make my own.Martin LevineYou can have a deep divide in a country's politics and ideologies the country goes on anyhow. Britain and some of the European democracies have deep social class divisions. On top of that Britain is deeply divided on foreign trade policy. Austria has an enormous gap between the extreme right and people who have no issue with multiculturalism. Italy and for that matter, even my lovable Canada, have very large, and sometimes disputatious, regional differences.These divides don't necessarily matter very much as long as the structure of the political system isn't under threat. As far as anyone knows, the United States military isn't organizing a right-wing coup d'etat. The Constitution-based political system has survived slavery, lawlessness in the post-war South, the disenfranchisement of women, gross types of racial discrimination, presidential assassinations, robust corruption, Joseph McCarthy, governments that lie with enthusiasm, covert involvement in overseas wars, Richard Nixon, presidents who were plain dumb and incompetent, and so on.Donald Trump's Emotions Versus Republican Self-PresentationSome American concerns about “division” have to do with Donald Trump's emotional style, and maybe not so much substantive politics. We have an old guy who got to be President, who enjoys using tactics from the commercial reality industry. It appears that he is pursuing a late in life, last search, for the good favour of young attractive women. ( Donald, I hear ya'! ) He has a bizarre style of communicating.However, what if the President was a much more traditional, elite Republican? Say he has never tweeted once in his entire life, has a happy marriage and got an education at an Ivy League college. Maybe he has a distinguished military service record. He is a regular church goer.So, this not so emotion provoking President has a steady group of White House advisers who he doesn't feel the urge to fire. Say he reads briefing notes and proposals from them, and then delegates analysis out to the appropriate federal government departments, and tells the Cabinet Secretaries to get on with their work, and gives them deadlines to get back to him when they are done. Say this patrician communicates with the American public by means of speeches, town halls and having his representatives give detailed, fact-based presentations of things at White House news conferences.So, in a series of these rather more traditional modes of communications the Proper Bostonian President enunciates the policy priorities of the Republican Party of the United States of America:-After consultations with the Department of Homeland Security and, in particular the Border Patrol, it has been established that there is a very serious issue of undocumented entries into the United States. The volume of undocumented arrivals is such that there is a substantial risk to the labour market and that, given that the identity of the border crossers is not known, potentially a serious risk to national security. Consequently, he has instructed his officials, on a prioritized basis, to devise a greatly enhanced system of physical and electronic barriers on the border. Further, because regularizing undocumented immigration creates a “pull factor” for more undocumented migrants, he cannot agree to it.-After discussion with various economists, in and out of government, he has concluded that some of America's trade and tariff agreements have caused very substantial job loss for working class Americans. He has concluded that reindustrialization is vitally important to America's economic future. Consequently the United States will, on a good faith basis, insist on renegotiating certain trade agreements, raising tariffs and non-tariff barriers and, with regret, may cancel some trade agreements if a more satisfactory result cannot be obtained.-Evidently the situation on the Korean peninsula is a threat to world peace. The USA has made it clear to Kim Jong-un that it has no intention of trying to produce regime change or of mustering sufficient resources to attack North Korea. They have also advised Kim Jong-un that, denuclearization will result in full recognition of his regime, the security of his investments overseas, trade negotiations, and a reduction of United States forces in the Korean Peninsula.-After carefully examining the available intelligence, his advisors have concluded that, regrettably, Iran is not prepared to comply with its non-nuclear agreement. Also, there is plentiful evidence that Iran is conducting a campaign of destabilization in the Middle East. Consequently the United States will withdraw from the agreement and will engage in an active campaign to disrupt these initiatives by Iran. Further the United States will attempt to negotiate a defence agreement with countries in the Middle East that are also concerned by the threat from Iran.So, no histrionics, no grandiosity and it is pretty much what Donald Trump has already said. Without the emotionality these policies would be recognizable Republican ones and not culture war material.Donald Trump has not suggested he will do the following and it doesn't seem he will organize a plot to do it either:-Send a task force to attack North Korea.-Attempt to overthrow Congress and the Supreme Court by means of a military coup attempt.-Cancel social security.-Not even cancel medicare, although he resents Obamacare.-Refuse to vacate the White House if he loses the next presidential election.Who Really Calls the Shots in Divided America?Not your average American. The USA has extremely wealthy and powerful business and banking elites. They do a very large amount of all the significant American talking.And this elite doesn't seem all that divided within itself. The general consensus is, what's good for business is good for America. They are able to make huge amounts of campaign contributions, not just to the Presidential race but to Congressional candidate and even candidates for state legislatures and local mayors. They are very good at what they do.And, no, I am not decrying America. Canada has a very prosperous and confident business elite. Ottawa has highly-competent lobbyists, if you can pay them, and a very active, elite, cocktail party circuit. The Canadian elites aren't divided and they do call a lot of the shots in Canada.Preaching Division from Mom and Dad's BasementThe economy of the United States has not been kind to young men who don't have professional education. And, for these guys, there is no apparent hope on the horizon.The USA has always had guys like this, but the wrenching the American economy has taken in the last few years, probably means that there are currently a lot of them.If you look at movies and TV shows from the 1950's (e.g. the Original Twilight Zone) these young guys were consigned to black and white boarding houses and fleabag hotels. The expectation was that they would push broom, work as short order cooks, go into the military, try boxing for a living and engage in petty crime, and that was pretty much it.But now, these young men don't have to put up with being defined by the Twilight Zone. It doesn't cost much to have a used laptop computer and basic Internet in Mom and Dad's basement.And, from Mom and Dad's safe, secure basement, a young guy can cry out their infuriated critique of American life, rage against political correctness that must have pushed them out of the jobs they rightly deserve, express their fury at undocumented immigrants, who now steal even the push the broom jobs, and engage in some collective narcissism. Yes, my life is in the delete bin, I have limited or next to no personal prospects, but I am a American, dammit, so respect and defer to me!Say if they had black and white Internet on cathode ray TV in the 1950's. These very same guys would probably be rebutting the last Twilight Zone episode with outrage. The appearance of division wouldn't be that much different from now. On top of that the 1950's had the Red Scare, which was extremely divisive and made Americans fear and distrust each other.Histrionic Division Versus Real DivisionDivisions stir the emotions. They get people to watch your newscast and read your blog and then send donations.At the risk of being a socio-lefty-lib Canadian, but acknowledging the superiority of something American, the USA has the highest media production standards in the world. Americans know very well how to create a media product, make it and the people in it look beautiful, package it and sell the production into both American domestic and foreign markets.Venting feels so good. It feels even better when a beautiful person is doing it for you. It's the emotions that are closing the sale, not some sort of fact-based, rational presentation about some matter in the public sphere. America gets stirred up.Division is Very Satisfying When There is Little To No Really Serious ThreatThe Union won the Civil War and that was the last of the cataclysmic American divisions. The South is still a collective personality in the American division world, but, as far as anyone knows, the Old Confederacy isn't planning another run on Fort Sumter. An American can identify with the State of Alabama just as much as they want to, but they and Alabama will keep marching on.I believe that, one of the reasons that America seems so divided, is that Americans with extreme views can spew them out and nothing really bad will happen. So, exercise your freedom of speech, and cry out from Mom and Dad's basement.The USA has always had deep divisions. As long as Americans know it will hold together anyhow, there isn't that much of a need to mitigate them.Division Reduction Anyhow?Look at how it is when the Boston patrician President expresses his program, instead of the Donald. He has talked to his advisors, received some at least apparent facts, and explained what he proposes to do, without shouting out a tirade of insults, lies and bullying.If a President can lose any priority on emotionality, so can the average American. Liberals and Conservatives both know that the elites have power that they don't, so, their views may not effect much anyhow. Lose the Internet venting. Consign your emotional needs to your relationships, and to the really excellent entertainment that the USA produces. Accept that a undivided America never has happened and you can't make it happen either. Then, you have grounds for a civilized discussion.Martin Levine

The best answer I can muster is not written by me, but by 6 intrepid reporters telling it like it is. I’ve copied it all here for you, so that it gets read and not via a link:He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus - NY TimesAn examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response.WASHINGTON — “Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad,” a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote on the night of Jan. 28, in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. “The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe.”A week after the first coronavirus case had been identified in the United States, and six long weeks before President Trump finally took aggressive action to confront the danger the nation was facing — a pandemic that is now forecast to take tens of thousands of American lives — Dr. Mecher was urging the upper ranks of the nation’s public health bureaucracy to wake up and prepare for the possibility of far more drastic action.“You guys made fun of me screaming to close the schools,” he wrote to the group, which called itself “Red Dawn,” an inside joke based on the 1984 movie about a band of Americans trying to save the country after a foreign invasion. “Now I’m screaming, close the colleges and universities.”His was hardly a lone voice. Throughout January, as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.The president, though, was slow to absorb the scale of the risk and to act accordingly, focusing instead on controlling the message, protecting gains in the economy and batting away warnings from senior officials. It was a problem, he said, that had come out of nowhere and could not have been foreseen.Even after Mr. Trump took his first concrete action at the end of January — limiting travel from China — public health often had to compete with economic and political considerations in internal debates, slowing the path toward belated decisions to seek more money from Congress, obtain necessary supplies, address shortfalls in testing and ultimately move to keep much of the nation at home.Unfolding as it did in the wake of his impeachment by the House and in the midst of his Senate trial, Mr. Trump’s response was colored by his suspicion of and disdain for what he viewed as the “Deep State” — the very people in his government whose expertise and long experience might have guided him more quickly toward steps that would slow the virus, and likely save lives.Decision-making was also complicated by a long-running dispute inside the administration over how to deal with China. The virus at first took a back seat to a desire not to upset Beijing during trade talks, but later the impulse to score points against Beijing left the world’s two leading powers further divided as they confronted one of the first truly global threats of the 21st century.The shortcomings of Mr. Trump’s performance have played out with remarkable transparency as part of his daily effort to dominate television screens and the national conversation.But dozens of interviews with current and former officials and a review of emails and other records revealed many previously unreported details and a fuller picture of the roots and extent of his halting response as the deadly virus spread:·The National Security Council office responsible for tracking pandemics received intelligence reports in early January predicting the spread of the virus to the United States, and within weeks was raising options like keeping Americans home from work and shutting down cities the size of Chicago. Mr. Trump would avoid such steps until March.·Despite Mr. Trump’s denial weeks later, he was told at the time about a Jan. 29 memo produced by his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, laying out in striking detail the potential risks of a coronavirus pandemic: as many as half a million deaths and trillions of dollars in economic losses.·The health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II, directly warned Mr. Trump of the possibility of a pandemic during a call on Jan. 30, the second warning he delivered to the president about the virus in two weeks. The president, who was on Air Force One while traveling for appearances in the Midwest, responded that Mr. Azar was being alarmist.·Mr. Azar publicly announced in February that the government was establishing a “surveillance” system in five American cities to measure the spread of the virus and enable experts to project the next hot spots. It was delayed for weeks. The slow start of that plan, on top of the well-documented failures to develop the nation’s testing capacity, left administration officials with almost no insight into how rapidly the virus was spreading. “We were flying the plane with no instruments,” one official said.·By the third week in February, the administration’s top public health experts concluded they should recommend to Mr. Trump a new approach that would include warning the American people of the risks and urging steps like social distancing and staying home from work. But the White House focused instead on messaging and crucial additional weeks went by before their views were reluctantly accepted by the president — time when the virus spread largely unimpeded.When Mr. Trump finally agreed in mid-March to recommend social distancing across the country, effectively bringing much of the economy to a halt, he seemed shellshocked and deflated to some of his closest associates. One described him as “subdued” and “baffled” by how the crisis had played out. An economy that he had wagered his re-election on was suddenly in shambles.He only regained his swagger, the associate said, from conducting his daily White House briefings, at which he often seeks to rewrite the history of the past several months. He declared at one point that he “felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic,” and insisted at another that he had to be a “cheerleader for the country,” as if that explained why he failed to prepare the public for what was coming.Mr. Trump’s allies and some administration officials say the criticism has been unfair. The Chinese government misled other governments, they say. And they insist that the president was either not getting proper information, or the people around him weren’t conveying the urgency of the threat. In some cases, they argue, the specific officials he was hearing from had been discredited in his eyes, but once the right information got to him through other channels, he made the right calls.“While the media and Democrats refused to seriously acknowledge this virus in January and February, President Trump took bold action to protect Americans and unleash the full power of the federal government to curb the spread of the virus, expand testing capacities and expedite vaccine development even when we had no true idea the level of transmission or asymptomatic spread,” said Judd Deere, a White House spokesman.There were key turning points along the way, opportunities for Mr. Trump to get ahead of the virus rather than just chase it. There were internal debates that presented him with stark choices, and moments when he could have chosen to ask deeper questions and learn more. How he handled them may shape his re-election campaign. They will certainly shape his legacy.The Containment IllusionBy the last week of February, it was clear to the administration’s public health team that schools and businesses in hot spots would have to close. But in the turbulence of the Trump White House, it took three more weeks to persuade the president that failure to act quickly to control the spread of the virus would have dire consequences.When Dr. Robert Kadlec, the top disaster response official at the Health and Human Services Department, convened the White House coronavirus task force on Feb. 21, his agenda was urgent. There were deep cracks in the administration’s strategy for keeping the virus out of the United States. They were going to have to lock down the country to prevent it from spreading. The question was: When?There had already been an alarming spike in new cases around the world and the virus was spreading across the Middle East. It was becoming apparent that the administration had botched the rollout of testing to track the virus at home, and a smaller-scale surveillance program intended to piggyback on a federal flu tracking system had also been stillborn.In Washington, the president was not worried, predicting that by April, “when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” His White House had yet to ask Congress for additional funding to prepare for the potential cost of wide-scale infection across the country, and health care providers were growing increasingly nervous about the availability of masks, ventilators and other equipment.What Mr. Trump decided to do next could dramatically shape the course of the pandemic — and how many people would get sick and die.With that in mind, the task force had gathered for a tabletop exercise — a real-time version of a full-scale war gaming of a flu pandemic the administration had run the previous year. That earlier exercise, also conducted by Mr. Kadlec and called “Crimson Contagion,” predicted 110 million infections, 7.7 million hospitalizations and 586,000 deaths following a hypothetical outbreak that started in China.Facing the likelihood of a real pandemic, the group needed to decide when to abandon “containment” — the effort to keep the virus outside the U.S. and to isolate anyone who gets infected — and embrace “mitigation” to thwart the spread of the virus inside the country until a vaccine becomes available.Among the questions on the agenda, which was reviewed by The New York Times, was when the department’s secretary, Mr. Azar, should recommend that Mr. Trump take textbook mitigation measures “such as school dismissals and cancellations of mass gatherings,” which had been identified as the next appropriate step in a Bush-era pandemic plan.The exercise was sobering. The group — including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci of the National Institutes of Health; Dr. Robert R. Redfield of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Mr. Azar, who at that stage was leading the White House Task Force — concluded they would soon need to move toward aggressive social distancing, even at the risk of severe disruption to the nation’s economy and the daily lives of millions of Americans.If Dr. Kadlec had any doubts, they were erased two days later, when he stumbled upon an email from a researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who was among the group of academics, government physicians and infectious diseases doctors who had spent weeks tracking the outbreak in the Red Dawn email chain.A 20-year-old Chinese woman had infected five relatives with the virus even though she never displayed any symptoms herself. The implication was grave — apparently healthy people could be unknowingly spreading the virus — and supported the need to move quickly to mitigation.“Is this true?!” Dr. Kadlec wrote back to the researcher. “If so we have a huge whole on our screening and quarantine effort,” including a typo where he meant hole. Her response was blunt: “People are carrying the virus everywhere.”The following day, Dr. Kadlec and the others decided to present Mr. Trump with a plan titled “Four Steps to Mitigation,” telling the president that they needed to begin preparing Americans for a step rarely taken in United States history.But over the next several days, a presidential blowup and internal turf fights would sidetrack such a move. The focus would shift to messaging and confident predictions of success rather than publicly calling for a shift to mitigation.These final days of February, perhaps more than any other moment during his tenure in the White House, illustrated Mr. Trump’s inability or unwillingness to absorb warnings coming at him. He instead reverted to his traditional political playbook in the midst of a public health calamity, squandering vital time as the coronavirus spread silently across the country.Dr. Kadlec’s group wanted to meet with the president right away, but Mr. Trump was on a trip to India, so they agreed to make the case to him in person as soon as he returned two days later. If they could convince him of the need to shift strategy, they could immediately begin a national education campaign aimed at preparing the public for the new reality.A memo dated Feb. 14, prepared in coordination with the National Security Council and titled “U.S. Government Response to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus,” documented what more drastic measures would look like, including: “significantly limiting public gatherings and cancellation of almost all sporting events, performances, and public and private meetings that cannot be convened by phone. Consider school closures. Widespread ‘stay at home’ directives from public and private organizations with nearly 100% telework for some.”The memo did not advocate an immediate national shutdown, but said the targeted use of “quarantine and isolation measures” could be used to slow the spread in places where “sustained human-to-human transmission” is evident.Within 24 hours, before they got a chance to make their presentation to the president, the plan went awry.Mr. Trump was walking up the steps of Air Force One to head home from India on Feb. 25 when Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, publicly issued the blunt warning they had all agreed was necessary.But Dr. Messonnier had jumped the gun. They had not told the president yet, much less gotten his consent.On the 18-hour plane ride home, Mr. Trump fumed as he watched the stock market crash after Dr. Messonnier’s comments. Furious, he called Mr. Azar when he landed at around 6 a.m. on Feb. 26, raging that Dr. Messonnier had scared people unnecessarily. Already on thin ice with the president over a variety of issues and having overseen the failure to quickly produce an effective and widely available test, Mr. Azar would soon find his authority reduced.The meeting that evening with Mr. Trump to advocate social distancing was canceled, replaced by a news conference in which the president announced that the White House response would be put under the command of Vice President Mike Pence.The push to convince Mr. Trump of the need for more assertive action stalled. With Mr. Pence and his staff in charge, the focus was clear: no more alarmist messages. Statements and media appearances by health officials like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Redfield would be coordinated through Mr. Pence’s office. It would be more than three weeks before Mr. Trump would announce serious social distancing efforts, a lost period during which the spread of the virus accelerated rapidly.Over nearly three weeks from Feb. 26 to March 16, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States grew from 15 to 4,226. Since then, nearly half a million Americans have tested positive for the virus and authorities say hundreds of thousands more are likely infected.The China FactorThe earliest warnings about coronavirus got caught in the crosscurrents of the administration’s internal disputes over China. It was the China hawks who pushed earliest for a travel ban. But their animosity toward China also undercut hopes for a more cooperative approach by the world’s two leading powers to a global crisis.It was early January, and the call with a Hong Kong epidemiologist left Matthew Pottinger rattled.Mr. Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser and a hawk on China, took a blunt warning away from the call with the doctor, a longtime friend: A ferocious, new outbreak that on the surface appeared similar to the SARS epidemic of 2003 had emerged in China. It had spread far more quickly than the government was admitting to, and it wouldn’t be long before it reached other parts of the world.Mr. Pottinger had worked as a Wall Street Journal correspondent in Hong Kong during the SARS epidemic, and was still scarred by his experience documenting the death spread by that highly contagious virus.Now, seventeen years later, his friend had a blunt message: You need to be ready. The virus, he warned, which originated in the city of Wuhan, was being transmitted by people who were showing no symptoms — an insight that American health officials had not yet accepted. Mr. Pottinger declined through a spokesman to comment.It was one of the earliest warnings to the White House, and it echoed the intelligence reports making their way to the National Security Council. While most of the early assessments from the C.I.A. had little more information than was available publicly, some of the more specialized corners of the intelligence world were producing sophisticated and chilling warnings.In a report to the director of national intelligence, the State Department’s epidemiologist wrote in early January that the virus was likely to spread across the globe, and warned that the coronavirus could develop into a pandemic. Working independently, a small outpost of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Center for Medical Intelligence, came to the same conclusion. Within weeks after getting initial information about the virus early in the year, biodefense experts inside the National Security Council, looking at what was happening in Wuhan, started urging officials to think about what would be needed to quarantine a city the size of Chicago.By mid-January there was growing evidence of the virus spreading outside China. Mr. Pottinger began convening daily meetings about the coronavirus. He alerted his boss, Robert C. O’Brien, the national security adviser.The early alarms sounded by Mr. Pottinger and other China hawks were freighted with ideology — including a push to publicly blame China that critics in the administration say was a distraction as the coronavirus spread to Western Europe and eventually the United States.And they ran into opposition from Mr. Trump’s economic advisers, who worried a tough approach toward China could scuttle a trade deal that was a pillar of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign.With his skeptical — some might even say conspiratorial — view of China’s ruling Communist Party, Mr. Pottinger initially suspected that President Xi Jinping’s government was keeping a dark secret: that the virus may have originated in one of the laboratories in Wuhan studying deadly pathogens. In his view, it might have even been a deadly accident unleashed on an unsuspecting Chinese population.During meetings and telephone calls, Mr. Pottinger asked intelligence agencies — including officers at the C.I.A. working on Asia and on weapons of mass destruction — to search for evidence that might bolster his theory.They didn’t have any evidence. Intelligence agencies did not detect any alarm inside the Chinese government that analysts presumed would accompany the accidental leak of a deadly virus from a government laboratory. But Mr. Pottinger continued to believe the coronavirus problem was far worse than the Chinese were acknowledging. Inside the West Wing, the director of the Domestic Policy Council, Joe Grogan, also tried to sound alarms that the threat from China was growing.Mr. Pottinger, backed by Mr. O’Brien, became one of the driving forces of a campaign in the final weeks of January to convince Mr. Trump to impose limits on travel from China — the first substantive step taken to impede the spread of the virus and one that the president has repeatedly cited as evidence that he was on top of the problem.In addition to the opposition from the economic team, Mr. Pottinger and his allies among the China hawks had to overcome initial skepticism from the administration’s public health experts.Travel restrictions were usually counterproductive to managing biological outbreaks because they prevented doctors and other much-needed medical help from easily getting to the affected areas, the health officials said. And such bans often cause infected people to flee, spreading the disease further.But on the morning of Jan. 30, Mr. Azar got a call from Dr. Fauci, Dr. Redfield and others saying they had changed their minds. The World Health Organization had declared a global public health emergency and American officials had discovered the first confirmed case of person-to-person transmission inside the United States.The economic team, led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, continued to argue that there were big risks in taking a provocative step toward China and moving to curb global travel. After a debate, Mr. Trump came down on the side of the hawks and the public health team. The limits on travel from China were publicly announced on Jan. 31.Still, Mr. Trump and other senior officials were wary of further upsetting Beijing. Besides the concerns about the impact on the trade deal, they knew that an escalating confrontation was risky because the United States relies heavily on China for pharmaceuticals and the kinds of protective equipment most needed to combat the coronavirus.But the hawks kept pushing in February to take a critical stance toward China amid the growing crisis. Mr. Pottinger and others — including aides to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — pressed for government statements to use the term “Wuhan Virus.”Mr. Pompeo tried to hammer the anti-China message at every turn, eventually even urging leaders of the Group of 7 industrialized countries to use “Wuhan virus” in a joint statement.Others, including aides to Mr. Pence, resisted taking a hard public line, believing that angering Beijing might lead the Chinese government to withhold medical supplies, pharmaceuticals and any scientific research that might ultimately lead to a vaccine.Mr. Trump took a conciliatory approach through the middle of March, praising the job Mr. Xi was doing.That changed abruptly, when aides informed Mr. Trump that a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman had publicly spun a new conspiracy about the origins of Covid-19: that it was brought to China by U.S. Army personnel who visited the country last October.Mr. Trump was furious, and he took to his favorite platform to broadcast a new message. On March 16, he wrote on Twitter that “the United States will be powerfully supporting those industries, like Airlines and others, that are particularly affected by the Chinese Virus.”Mr. Trump’s decision to escalate the war of words undercut any remaining possibility of broad cooperation between the governments to address a global threat. It remains to be seen whether that mutual suspicion will spill over into efforts to develop treatments or vaccines, both areas where the two nations are now competing.One immediate result was a free-for-all across the United States, with state and local governments and hospitals bidding on the open market for scarce but essential Chinese-made products. When the state of Massachusetts managed to procure 1.2 million masks, it fell to the owner of the New England Patriots, Robert K. Kraft, a Trump ally, to cut through extensive red tape on both sides of the Pacific to send his own plane to pick them up.The Consequences of ChaosThe chaotic culture of the Trump White House contributed to the crisis. A lack of planning and a failure to execute, combined with the president’s focus on the news cycle and his preference for following his gut rather than the data cost time, and perhaps lives.Inside the West Wing, Mr. Navarro, Mr. Trump’s trade adviser, was widely seen as quick-tempered, self-important and prone to butting in. He is among the most outspoken of China hawks and in late January was clashing with the administration’s health experts over limiting travel from China.So it elicited eye rolls when, after initially being prevented from joining the coronavirus task force, he circulated a memo on Jan. 29urging Mr. Trump to impose the travel limits, arguing that failing to confront the outbreak aggressively could be catastrophic, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths and trillions of dollars in economic losses.The uninvited message could not have conflicted more with the president’s approach at the time of playing down the severity of the threat. And when aides raised it with Mr. Trump, he responded that he was unhappy that Mr. Navarro had put his warning in writing.From the time the virus was first identified as a concern, the administration’s response was plagued by the rivalries and factionalism that routinely swirl around Mr. Trump and, along with the president’s impulsiveness, undercut decision making and policy development.Faced with the relentless march of a deadly pathogen, the disagreements and a lack of long-term planning had significant consequences. They slowed the president’s response and resulted in problems with execution and planning, including delays in seeking money from Capitol Hill and a failure to begin broad surveillance testing.The efforts to shape Mr. Trump’s view of the virus began early in January, when his focus was elsewhere: the fallout from his decision to kill Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s security mastermind; his push for an initial trade deal with China; and his Senate impeachment trial, which was about to begin.Even after Mr. Azar first briefed him about the potential seriousness of the virus during a phone call on Jan. 18 while the president was at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Mr. Trump projected confidence that it would be a passing problem.“We have it totally under control,” he told an interviewer a few days later while attending the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. “It’s going to be just fine.”Back in Washington, voices outside of the White House peppered Mr. Trump with competing assessments about what he should do and how quickly he should act.The efforts to sort out policy behind closed doors were contentious and sometimes only loosely organized.That was the case when the National Security Council convened a meeting on short notice on the afternoon of Jan. 27. The Situation Room was standing room only, packed with top White House advisers, low-level staffers, Mr. Trump’s social media guru, and several cabinet secretaries. There was no checklist about the preparations for a possible pandemic, which would require intensive testing, rapid acquisition of protective gear, and perhaps serious limitations on Americans’ movements.Instead, after a 20-minute description by Mr. Azar of his department’s capabilities, the meeting was jolted when Stephen E. Biegun, the newly installed deputy secretary of state, announced plans to issue a “level four” travel warning, strongly discouraging Americans from traveling to China. The room erupted into bickering.A few days later, on the evening of Jan. 30, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff at the time, and Mr. Azar called Air Force One as the president was making the final decision to go ahead with the restrictions on China travel. Mr. Azar was blunt, warning that the virus could develop into a pandemic and arguing that China should be criticized for failing to be transparent.Mr. Trump rejected the idea of criticizing China, saying the country had enough to deal with. And if the president’s decision on the travel restrictions suggested that he fully grasped the seriousness of the situation, his response to Mr. Azar indicated otherwise.Stop panicking, Mr. Trump told him.That sentiment was present throughout February, as the president’s top aides reached for a consistent message but took few concrete steps to prepare for the possibility of a major public health crisis.During a briefing on Capitol Hill on Feb. 5, senators urged administration officials to take the threat more seriously. Several asked if the administration needed additional money to help local and state health departments prepare.Derek Kan, a senior official from the Office of Management and Budget, replied that the administration had all the money it needed, at least at that point, to stop the virus, two senators who attended the briefing said.“Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, wrote in a tweetshortly after. “Bottom line: they aren’t taking this seriously enough.”The administration also struggled to carry out plans it did agree on. In mid-February, with the effort to roll out widespread testing stalled, Mr. Azar announced a plan to repurpose a flu-surveillance system in five major cities to help track the virus among the general population. The effort all but collapsed even before it got started as Mr. Azar struggled to win approval for $100 million in funding and the C.D.C. failed to make reliable tests available.The number of infections in the United States started to surge through February and early March, but the Trump administration did not move to place large-scale orders for masks and other protective equipment, or critical hospital equipment, such as ventilators. The Pentagon sat on standby, awaiting any orders to help provide temporary hospitals or other assistance.As February gave way to March, the president continued to be surrounded by divided factions even as it became clearer that avoiding more aggressive steps was not tenable.Mr. Trump had agreed to give an Oval Office address on the evening of March 11 announcing restrictions on travel from Europe, where the virus was ravaging Italy. But responding to the views of his business friends and others, he continued to resist calls for social distancing, school closures and other steps that would imperil the economy.But the virus was already multiplying across the country — and hospitals were at risk of buckling under the looming wave of severely ill people, lacking masks and other protective equipment, ventilators and sufficient intensive care beds. The question loomed over the president and his aides after weeks of stalling and inaction: What were they going to do?The approach that Mr. Azar and others had planned to bring to him weeks earlier moved to the top of the agenda. Even then, and even by Trump White House standards, the debate over whether to shut down much of the country to slow the spread was especially fierce.Always attuned to anything that could trigger a stock market decline or an economic slowdown that could hamper his re-election effort, Mr. Trump also reached out to prominent investors like Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of Blackstone Group, a private equity firm.“Everybody questioned it for a while, not everybody, but a good portion questioned it,” Mr. Trump said earlier this month. “They said, let’s keep it open. Let’s ride it.”In a tense Oval Office meeting, when Mr. Mnuchin again stressed that the economy would be ravaged, Mr. O’Brien, the national security adviser, who had been worried about the virus for weeks, sounded exasperated as he told Mr. Mnuchin that the economy would be destroyed regardless if officials did nothing.Soon after the Oval Office address, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and a trusted sounding board inside the White House, visited Mr. Trump, partly at the urging of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law. Dr. Gottlieb’s role was to impress upon the president how serious the crisis could become. Mr. Pence, by then in charge of the task force, also played a key role at that point in getting through to the president about the seriousness of the moment in a way that Mr. Azar had not.But in the end, aides said, it was Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the veteran AIDS researcher who had joined the task force, who helped to persuade Mr. Trump. Soft-spoken and fond of the kind of charts and graphs Mr. Trump prefers, Dr. Birx did not have the rough edges that could irritate the president. He often told people he thought she was elegant.On Monday, March 16, Mr. Trump announced new social distancing guidelines, saying they would be in place for two weeks. The subsequent economic disruptions were so severe that the president repeatedly suggested that he wanted to lift even those temporary restrictions. He frequently asked aides why his administration was still being blamed in news coverage for the widespread failures involving testing, insisting the responsibility had shifted to the states.During the last week in March, Kellyanne Conway, a senior White House adviser involved in task force meetings, gave voice to concerns other aides had. She warned Mr. Trump that his wished-for date of Easter to reopen the country likely couldn’t be accomplished. Among other things, she told him, he would end up being blamed by critics for every subsequent death caused by the virus.Within days, he watched images on television of a calamitous situation at Elmhurst Hospital Center, miles from his childhood home in Queens, N.Y., where 13 people had died from the coronavirus in 24 hours.He left the restrictions in place.