I worry that you're just tossing insults at the wall. A poor pandemic response is surely not a good thing, but it's hard to see how it constitutes irrational populism or intolerance.
The poor pandemic response is just one symptom of our societal malaise. I think that's the point. One might expect a country to pull itself together and work for the common good in a crisis. The U.S. no longer seems capable of doing that. We're like Ahab strapped to the Moby Dick, preferring to die exacting vengeance than to live.
Is there reason to believe that the US's poor pandemic response is due to a general unwillingness to pull together? There are scattered stories of people hosting irresponsible gatherings and being jerks about masks, but those are available in every country I know of.
I think it is (although my comment about populism was not directly solely at the U.S.). As an outsider, I would attribute the poor pandemic response to lack of coherent leadership. The U.S. federal government is obviously incapable of pulling itself together across partisan lines for the greater good of the people it is supposed to serve. Even if you disagree about politics, the numbers do not lie. Just north of the border, Canada is doing literally ten times better (for the moment).
Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with the pandemic response. But everything I see suggests that American leaders truly, honestly believe the health crisis isn't important enough that it should override their other priorities. Many have explicitly argued that other causes they support are just as important as the virus.