It’s natural to try to understand just what those in power are thinking and planning for America, as we continue to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic. Far too often in the past few weeks, the federal government has utterly failed in its duties to coordinate a national response. Often, it has seemed that the plan is to have no plan.

However, even that requires a level of foresight that doesn’t seem to reflect the reality of who Donald Trump is. Instead, consider this quote, from Amanda Marcotte:

It’s tempting to imagine that Trump is motivated by some clever political strategy — or by any strategy at all — in making this move now. But it’s probably just that he’s getting bored with this whole coronavirus crisis and, now that things are getting really hard, he’s ready to abandon it and move on. That’s exactly what he did during his entire career in the real estate business — and in his marriages — abandoning one failed venture after another the second things turned rocky. Now he’s doing it to the entire country.

Marcotte’s piece for Salon is the most cogent read I’ve yet seen.