Editor's note: Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst. The article reflects the author's opinion, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The Democrat-allied mainstream media is going into overdrive trying to blame Trump for COVID-19's surprise summer comeback, but while it's tempting to believe this narrative, it simply isn't true. David Frum, a staff writer at The Atlantic, published a hard-hitting piece last week titled "This Is Trump's Plague Now" where he attempts to pin the blame solely on the President. Frum claims that Trump's over-eagerness to reopen the economy and his disdain for masks make him personally responsible for the latest stage of the pandemic.

The Washington Post's David Von Drehle feels similarly, as he expressed in his piece speculating that "Trump's real estate background helps explain his baffling coronavirus response." He basically claims that real estate developers must sell their dreams to others so that they take tangible stakes in their projects' success. So too, the writer believes, is Trump doing the same about COVID-19 by downplaying this disease. His opinion is that Trump thinks that he can convince everyone that the virus isn't a big deal anymore despite its rapid spread.

There's no denying the official statistics showing that COVID-19 is surging in the U.S., but the questions on everyone's mind are why and whether anyone in particular can be blamed for this. Trump is the easiest target since he was so eager to reopen the economy and infamously detests wearing a mask, which his opponents blame for the disease's surprise summer comeback. To be fair, however, neither of those stances make him personally responsible for what's happening since the fault lies with the U.S. government and its grand strategy.

It's psychologically comforting for some people to attribute blame to a particular person or group of people whenever something goes wrong, especially if it's such an epic disaster as COVID-19's rapid spread across the country this summer. It's also true that Trump, as the President of the U.S., is expected by many to bear responsibility for this. He has thus far refused to do so since he fears that it would doom his re-election campaign if any relevant statement was seen as an admission of guilt for the 130,000-plus deaths of American citizens.

In any case, the psychological reflex to blame Trump for this ignores the likelihood that a Democrat President would have probably reacted in a similar way as he has. Most countries across the world are gradually reopening, and the U.S. can't afford to fall behind its perceived economic rivals like China, which started reopening before anyone else by virtue of the fact that it was the first to lock down and contain the disease. America's influence abroad is upheld by its economic strength at home, without which it loses its power.

No matter what the Democrats say to try to score political points at his expense, Hillary would have probably also sought to reopen the economy just like Trump has (albeit possibly at a slower pace) in order to avoid the scenario of the U.S. surrendering its superpower status without a fight by indefinitely locking down its economy. The U.S.' grand strategic ambitions to retain its unipolar hegemony at all costs mean that the president, irrespective of their political party, doesn't mind sacrificing American lives in pursuit of this goal.

In response to the claims that Trump is setting a dangerous example by not wearing a mask, that also doesn't really matter much since there aren't enough law enforcement officers in America to enforce relevant municipal and state decrees mandating that people wear one. COVID-19 seems to spread faster if people don't take that hygienic precaution (whether voluntarily or per law) for safety's sake, but it would inevitably spread nonetheless in any scenario of a country as large as the U.S. reopening without first totally containing the virus.

The gradual reopening of even Democrat-controlled states suggests that the U.S. government's unofficial policy is to experiment with so-called "herd immunity" whereby it's hoped that enough people catch the disease and recover so that the rest of the population can become immune. This is an extremely risky policy if there ever was one, but the fact that it's being tacitly employed even by Democrat governors proves that the problem isn't with Trump personally but with the American system itself for the previously mentioned hegemonic reason.

To put it another way, the U.S. government is letting COVID-19 spread and hoping that "not too many" people die since the state would rather have this happen than peacefully surrender its superpower status as a result of indefinitely locking down its economy until the virus is completely contained. This suggests that the U.S.' economic fundamentals and overall competitiveness aren't as impressive as it previously portrayed them to be otherwise it wouldn't fear losing its superpower status by imposing a strict multi-month lockdown for safety's sake.

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