In US COVID-19 responses, party polarization has trumped cooperative federalism

From the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the administration of President Trump left much of the task of responding to COVID-19 to the states, largely eschewing cooperative measures between the federal and state and local governments. John Kincaid and J. Wesley Leckrone write that while some commentators have lamented that there was not a more centralized response, cooperation between the federal and state and local governments was restricted by partisan polarization and a president ideologically opposed to many COVID-19 mitigation measures.