When I was casting my vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, the bottom-line decision point was clear: which person would I want leading the nation in a crisis of grave proportions.  During the first three years of the Trump Administration, I often commented that we were fortunate not to have had a major, life-threatening crisis that was not of the president’s own making.  Sure, we endured historical blunders like the scuppering of the Trans Pacific Partnership, pulling out of the Paris Accord, and nullifying the Iranian Nuclear Deal.  We had the ridiculous or absurd meetings with Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin.  And, of course, the Mueller Report and the impeachment ordeal.  But most of these were largely political in nature.  The stakes were undoubtedly high on issues such as climate inaction, the dismantling of our environmental protections, or the explosion of the deficit with a cynical tax bill, not to mention the ubiquitous corruption and nepotism.  But there was nothing that posed a serious health or safety risk to the general populace.  Until now.

In any kind of crisis situation, the type of leader that you want—be it a general, CEO, or team captain—is someone who is steady, reliable, and trustworthy.  President Trump is the antithesis of all of these traits.  You want someone on whom you can depend on to tell it like it is and give you the difficult yet necessary information while at the same time offering a vision for a way forward.  Someone who will promote unity and a sense that by pulling together, we can overcome the obstacles placed before us.  Someone like FDR during the Great Depression.  Or Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Or even George W. Bush after 9/11.  President Trump offers none of these assurances and inspires absolutely no confidence.

It’s one thing to lie about relatively trivial things.  Like the size of your inauguration crowds.  Or the military being out of ammunition.  Everyone knows that Trump either exaggerates or just plain lies about the most trivial of details.  However, when the president is supposed to be a font of rock-solid information in uncertain times, when he is looked to as a source of assurance in a crisis, when it is up to him to address the nation in the most serious of circumstances, his fundamental mendacity is source of tremendous weakness, uncertainty, and genuine concern.  Can he be relied upon to tell the truth?  Clearly, he cannot.  He lied about the seriousness of the coronavirus.  Lied about the extent of its spread.  Lied about the preparedness and actions of his administration in response to it.  The inaction and incompetence of his administration, in addition to its unwillingness to tell the American people hard truths, has and will cost lives.

And now we hear that Jair Bolsonaro, the president of Brazil with whom Trump met last week, has apparently tested positive for COVID-19 (in addition to other officials with whom Trump and VP Mike Pence met over the last week or two).  Will Trump get tested for the coronavirus?  He has refused up to this point to do so.  Will he self-quarantine himself to protect those around him as many others have selflessly done?  He hasn’t as of yet.  If he does agree to be tested and the results of the test are positive for coronavirus, will he release this information to the American public?  He didn’t release his tax returns, and people shook it off.  Then he wouldn’t release his health records.  Not a big deal.  Do people really believe he has changed his stripes?  If he does in fact have the disease, will he serve as an example to the American people of what to do if infected?  Will he isolate himself?  Will he show the population that an infection is not a death sentence for many (though it certainly will be for many without health insurance or access to quality care)?  Will he push for a robust, impactful government response with measures like paid leave, free testing for all, and more generous food and unemployment benefits that could actually help people in need?

The fact that I don’t have to answer these questions—because they are obviously rhetorical—is saddening, maddening, and frightening.  We have an unfit leader in charge who is not up to the task.  And we all stand to suffer the horrifying consequences.  Thankfully, COVID-19 is not Spanish Influenza.  It’s not as lethal, and we have better medical and health care technology.  But it is potentially deadly and some experts estimate that it could ultimately kill one million Americans, in addition to potentially millions of others around the world (whom we should be helping and aiding as we can to prevent broader spread and more deaths).  Those are huge and dismaying numbers.  We need strong leadership at home and abroad, and we’re left with this rump of a man, scurrying about trying to shift the blame and preserve his chances for re-election, rather than offering any sort of true and reliable leadership.

It’s not that we could have avoided the coronavirus entirely.  We couldn’t have and people would always have died from this disease.  But we didn’t have to dismantle the office for dealing with pandemics.  We didn’t have to cut the CDC’s funding both at home and abroad, where we could have dealt with the disease more effectively before it reached our shores (as the Obama Administration did with Ebola).  We didn’t have to suspend travel from Europe to the US, which makes no sense when the disease has already reached our country in massive numbers; this symbolic yet ineffective action only aggravates our allies at a time when we should be cooperating more closely on sharing data and developing a vaccine.  And we didn’t have to lie about the seriousness of the virus or try to cover up the ineptitude of the this administration’s bungled response.

What should we learn from all this?  That elections have very real consequences.  And if you want four more years of the same buffoonery, the same gross negligence, the same bald incompetence, by all means vote for Trump.  But if you want a serious leader.  Someone who will take national and global problems seriously.  Someone who will cooperate with our allies and our enemies, if need be, in times of crisis to foster collaborative solutions instead of shrinking like a peter in a pool, offering asinine, reactionary solutions like building a moronic wall with Mexico (when they have fewer confirmed cases than the US does), then think hard before you cast your ballot.  Think what you want in your president.  Think who they will surround themselves with.  Think who you want making those difficult decisions.  Because it sure as shit isn’t this fucking guy.