2020 Political Thread

[Kory]

Even with the peak projections, the number of COVID-19 deaths will not surpass the daily deaths due to abortion (~3,000 per day in U.S.)

 

[Scud]

Folks. We must understand that this is a Globalist attack. It is political. The corporate media will attack any solution. Why? Because that's what they get paid to do. Destroy the US economy, and defeat Trump.

They will not succed.

 

[Kory]

Folks. We must understand that this is a Globalist attack. It is political. The corporate media will attack any solution. Why? Because that's what they get paid to do. Destroy the US economy, and defeat Trump.

They will not succed.

We have a political thread. I think this thread should be for stuff strictly related to COVID-19 and not any other political ramifications.

 

[Kory]

Even with the peak projections, the number of COVID-19 deaths will not surpass the daily deaths due to abortion (~3,000 per day in U.S.)

My apologies. The ~3,000 murdered in the womb per day is a figure from 2011. In recent years, we’ve seen a decline in womb murders. It’s now ~2,400 per day in the U.S. COVID-19 might eclipse it for a few days but only very temporarily before abortion retakes it’s throne.

Number of abortions in U.S. drops to lowest since they became legal nationwide

Figures indicate that the number of abortions are decreasing in all parts of the country.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Jacob]

Folks. We must understand that this is a Globalist attack. It is political. The corporate media will attack any solution. Why? Because that's what they get paid to do. Destroy the US economy, and defeat Trump.

They will not succed.

You know, I'm as disgusted as anybody at the current state of the media, but you have to jump through some pretty gigantic mental hoops to convince yourself that the entire world is going on lockdown, and countries all across the globe are destroying their own economies, all to take down Donald Trump.

 

[Evan]

The media will never do it, but at some point someone needs to examine how mistrust of the media led people into ignoring experts and downplaying COVID-19. And it happened not just because of Trump's frequent salvo of insults against the media, but also because the media has done a very poor job of policing itself, issuing retractions, and making sure the initial draft of a story is ironclad truth.

I don't have to list the examples. I think everyone reading this thread is quite aware of the media malpractice that has occurred over the past 20+ years.

That said, Trump's early downplaying of COVID-19 and his mishandling of the response certainly had an even greater impact than the media's own malpractice. Additionally, many of Trump's allies tried to push a narrative that the virus wasn't that bad and that the Dems/media were exaggerating its danger to undermine Trump and the economy. Because of the media's lack of credibility with many Americans, that narrative unfortunately gained a lot of traction among many people in our country.

My thoughts and opinions about Donald J. Trump are well-known on this forum. But he's who is in charge and responsible for getting us through this crisis. He's never going to change or pivot, so it is beyond useless for the media to waste press conference time trying to get him or his admin to cop to their mistakes and early inaction. At this point in time, the solution is for all the various groups and institutions involved (media, local/state governments, critics, political opposition, etc) to placate Trump as best as possible and use his ego to manipulate him into making the right decisions for our country.

It shouldn't have to come to that, but the more adversarial certain groups and institutions are when dealing with Trump, the more likely he is to lash out, lose focus, and do the wrong thing. I think it is evident from press conferences, their public appearances, and their attitudes that the vast majority of people involved in the federal government's response (think Fauci, Birx, etc) have realized this is the only effective option that exists to control Trump and get him to make the right decisions. Outside of the federal government, certain Governors or lawmakers like Cuomo have also realized this. Again, it's sad that's the game that has to be played, but if we want to get out of this mess we need Trump to do positive things and make the right decisions.

I'm not saying the media should stop being critical of Trump or highlighting his mistakes or inaction, but that has to be balanced against keeping him sane and focused on the job he was elected to do. People can continue to be critical of Trump's mistakes, fact check his lies, and highlight his admin's previous inaction and mistakes, but if they don't praise him and his people when they do the right thing then he's eventually going to revert fully to form and drive us all off of a cliff.

I know this may seem like a silly argument to be making, but Trump craves attention and praise more than anything. Give that to him while continuing to hold his feet to the fire. But, if you do just one or the other, the overall outcome won't be nearly as good as what can happen when Trump is effectively manipulated by his Pavlovian thirst for attention, praise, and adulation.

 

[Kory]

Communist Party of China concerned about US gun ownership by citizens. Well, the world should be worried about the pandemics that come out that country that is then covered up costing tens of thousands of lives.

Frick. Off. And same goes to the leftist blue check marks on Twitter who love to dunk on America and coddle China.

Gun ownership, deaths out of control in US - Global Times

www.globaltimes.cn

Redirect Notice

www.google.com

 

[Kory]

The media will never do it, but at some point someone needs to examine how mistrust of the media led people into ignoring experts and downplaying COVID-19. And it happened not just because of Trump's frequent salvo of insults against the media, but also because the media has done a very poor job of policing itself, issuing retractions, and making sure the initial draft of a story is ironclad truth.

I don't have to list the examples. I think everyone reading this thread is quite aware of the media malpractice that has occurred over the past 20+ years.

That said, Trump's early downplaying of COVID-19 and his mishandling of the response certainly had an even greater impact than the media's own malpractice. Additionally, many of Trump's allies tried to push a narrative that the virus wasn't that bad and that the Dems/media were exaggerating its danger to undermine Trump and the economy. Because of the media's lack of credibility with many Americans, that narrative unfortunately gained a lot of traction among many people in our country.

My thoughts and opinions about Donald J. Trump are well-known on this forum. But he's who is in charge and responsible for getting us through this crisis. He's never going to change or pivot, so it is beyond useless for the media to waste press conference time trying to get him or his admin to cop to their mistakes and early inaction. At this point in time, the solution is for all the various groups and institutions involved (media, local/state governments, critics, political opposition, etc) to placate Trump as best as possible and use his ego to manipulate him into making the right decisions for our country.

It shouldn't have to come to that, but the more adversarial certain groups and institutions are when dealing with Trump, the more likely he is to lash out, lose focus, and do the wrong thing. I think it is evident from press conferences, their public appearances, and their attitudes that the vast majority of people involved in the federal government's response (think Fauci, Birx, etc) have realized this is the only effective option that exists to control Trump and get him to make the right decisions. Outside of the federal government, certain Governors or lawmakers like Cuomo have also realized this. Again, it's sad that's the game that has to be played, but if we want to get out of this mess we need Trump to do positive things and make the right decisions.

I'm not saying the media should stop being critical of Trump or highlighting his mistakes or inaction, but that has to be balanced against keeping him sane and focused on the job he was elected to do. People can continue to be critical of Trump's mistakes, fact check his lies, and highlight his admin's previous inaction and mistakes, but if they don't praise him and his people when they do the right thing then he's eventually going to revert fully to form and drive us all off of a cliff.

I know this may seem like a silly argument to be making, but Trump craves attention and praise more than anything. Give that to him while continuing to hold his feet to the fire. But, if you do just one or the other, the overall outcome won't be nearly as good as what can happen when Trump is effectively manipulated by his Pavlovian thirst for attention, praise, and adulation.

A professor of law at George Washington University made that point too.

 

[Evan]

This is the most comprehensive timeline and explanation of what went wrong with the government's response to COVID-19 that I have seen. It is absolutely worth the read.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...ronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true

The conclusion is that the federal government failed at multiple levels because of early mistakes and we weren't able to recover from those mistakes until it was too late. Bureaucratic infighting, a lack of cohesion and clear command structure, and competing priorities exacerbated the earlier mistakes and prevented them from being reversed during the critical pre-epidemic period of planning and resource deployment.

Additionally, POTUS was initially dismissive of COVID-19 concerns, and he floundered around with how to balance economic vs health concerns before finding his footing. Unfortunately, Trump's reliance on Jared Kushner has yet again let to redundant strategies being employed by the federal government and that has pulled experts away from their assigned tasks to "play government" with Jared.

Seems like a number of mistakes that the federal government made would've likely occurred under most administrations unless you had a strong leader who had pushed for pandemic preparation and backup panning since they came into office. Trump has definitely added to the list of problems, and has caused missteps of his own, but he's not solely responsible for the federal government's mistakes and inaction. At least not from a root cause perspective. Politically, it will always be that Presidents are the ones ultimately responsible for the federal government's response and actions.

We previously lucked out with Ebola, the swine flu, and other such modern disease pandemics. Our luck didn't hold up this time, we weren't truly prepared, and now all of us are suffering the consequences. While I think a different POTUS could've absolutely made a difference in managing this crisis, the cake was baked at many levels before Trump even came into office. By no means am I excusing his overall performance or ultimate responsibility for the federal government, but the mistakes, bureaucracy, and lack of preparation are all things that show why DC continues to the colossal mess that it is regardless of who is POTUS or which party has control.

There's going to be plenty of other crisises in our lifetimes, and until we totally revamp and modernize our federal government we're going to continue to see events like 9/11, Katrina, the Financial Crisis, and COVID-19. I'm not pretending any or all of those events could've been prevented -- but we definitely could've mitigated their impacts or been more prepared for when they did occur. The mistakes keep layering on top of previous mistakes and that's why we're still in Afghanistan and that's why yet again we weren't prepared for a black swan event that is destroying our economy. Sadly, it doesn't really appear that any government throughout the World has done THAT much better although some have definitely been more effective than our own government -- at least thus far.

 

[Kory]

Yeah, I don’t even know what to say anymore. No wonder he’s being kept under wraps.

 

[Kory]

I have to applaud Rand Paul for volunteering at a hospital to help care for COVID-19 patients.

 

[Kory]

Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.

 

[gangstonc]

He lies about EVERYTHING.

 

[Kory]

Bernie's press secretary...I am OH so surprised!

 

[ghost]

So there you have it. Because the WSJ, a respected conservative leaning paper, doesn’t publish the ratings of how many people watch the WH Press Briefings.. they’re now fake news. Folks... this is what concerns our president while a national crisis is going on.

 

[Jacob]

This doesn't quite seem like the treatment that Kavanaugh received, but maybe I'm just misremembering?

 

[Kory]

Folds like a cheap communist made lawn chair.

 

[gangstonc]

President Trump: "When somebody's the president of the United States, the authority is total."

 

[ghost]

Trump just publicly stated what many of us have known for a long time... he sees himself as king, emperor, tyrant, dictator.. take your pick

 

[gangstonc]

Forgive me.