On May 21, 2024, the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership Press published the latest title, The Trump Contagion: How Incompetence, Dishonestly, and Neglect Led to the Worst Handled Crisis in American History by Logos president Helio Fred Garcia. The Trump Contagion documents the consequences of not taking crisis management seriously, using the United States’ failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study to illustrate valuable lessons on effective and ineffective crisis response.
“As president of a crisis management firm and a professor of crisis management – and, at the time, with 40 years in the business – I was familiar with the public health playbook. There is a process for managing infectious disease outbreaks, and Ebola showed that the U.S. was pretty good at it,” Garcia explains. “Therefore, I was astonished in the early months of the pandemic that the U.S. was not following the infectious disease management playbook for COVID-19. Rather, it was making all the predictable mistakes that I and my colleagues always warn our clients against.”
The Trump Contagion demonstrates the American President’s incompetence, dishonesty, and neglect that made the U.S. COVID-19 response the single worst-handled crisis in American history. This book also provides valuable lessons to help leaders avoid similar failures when they manage future crises.
“I did not want to write another book about Donald Trump. However, as I began to document what was happening during the pandemic, I recognized the need to hold up the predictable missteps that led to the worst-handled crisis in our lifetime,“ Garcia shares. “This book is my attempt to bear witness to the decision-making that unnecessarily cost so many lives and disrupted life as we knew it.”
The Trump Contagion is organized in three parts. It begins with an overview of effective best practices in crisis management and details an example of how the Republic of South Korea learned lessons from a previous failed public health response that informed its effective response to COVID-19. The second part of the book highlights the run-up and the actual response to COVID-19 in the U.S., and the many missteps that led to an estimated 800,000 to 1 million preventable COVID-related deaths in the United States. The book closes lessons for leaders to find some glimmer of good out of the tragedy that was U.S. COVID-19 response, as well as an exhortation to take crises and their risks seriously and to do what they can to minimize harm to others as quickly and effectively as possible.
“The Trump Contagion is a must-read,” says Jacqueline F. Strayer, professor, C-Suite leader, and Founder of Sound Advisory Group, Inc., and the Global Brand Convergence®. “Crisis expert Helio Fred Garcia illuminates the consequences of the Trump Administration’s mishandling of the COVID crisis and exposes their mistakes and resulting outcomes. It serves as a cautionary reminder of the imperative of having leaders who are adept at crisis response.”
“The Trump Contagion documents for world history the legacy of Donald Trump,” writes James E. Lukaszewski, America’s Crisis Guru®. “More innocent Americans died or got sick with COVID needlessly during and following Trump’s single term than were lost in all wars Americans fought and died in. Trump intentionally targeted and continues to target the innocent and the victimized, the very definition of evil.”
The Trump Contagion is the fourth book published by the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership Press and the first volume in the Crisis Case Study Series. The Crisis Case Study Series will reflect on the predictable patterns of crises to help leaders make and execute smart choices when they face crises.
“The Trump Contagion is a fascinating story of the mishandling and avoidable mistakes of the U.S. COVID crisis communication and response activities. Importantly, it describes the proven steps for effective crisis communication that should have been followed by the Trump Administration,” reflects Matthew Lee Sawyer, Founder of USAcceleratorä and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and New York University. “Business executives, government officials, and other leaders would be smart to read this book to learn valuable, hard lessons – without living them directly – by studying the missteps that occurred in this defining crisis.”
The Trump Contagion is available in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle editions on Amazon.com.
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