US Politics Thread

[Jelenafan]

The only sport available these days is watching Fauci calmly walk back everything Trump says, then betting on whether or not Trump thinks he can fire him.

It makes a great drinking game; in a press conference every facial twitch on one of the people surrounding the POTUS when he makes a statement you take a shot. I dare anyone not be blitzed by the end of the briefing.

 

[Federberg]

Anyone think the American electorate will consider over 1,000 deaths to be a significant number? I wondering what happens if that number exceeds 9/11. A horrific thought, but this is the politics thread. Anyone think this has implications for Trump's chances?

 

[mrzz]

Anyone think the American electorate will consider over 1,000 deaths to be a significant number? I wondering what happens if that number exceeds 9/11. A horrific thought, but this is the politics thread. Anyone think this has implications for Trump's chances?

As long as there are not too many horrific scenes and stories, and the US does not get to a place particularly worst than other countries, this will be either neutral or positive. Partisan people have an outstanding capacity to spin basically anything in a way that confirms their world view, neutrals are exposed to both armies, so only extreme results -- and unfortunately anything less than 50.000 or even 100.000 dead is not extreme -- will change the election results.

 

[Federberg]

As long as there are not too many horrific scenes and stories, and the US does not get to a place particularly worst than other countries, this will be either neutral or positive. Partisan people have an outstanding capacity to spin basically anything in a way that confirms their world view, neutrals are exposed to both armies, so only extreme results -- and unfortunately anything less than 50.000 or even 100.000 dead is not extreme -- will change the election results.

so high? I've always thought that Americans have very little tolerance for death. I would have thought that something like having the highest number of dead would be enough to have serious repercussions. Let's hope we never find out..

 

[Federberg]

No, it doesn't. It's very clear. Look at the quotes you cited again:

“Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus, you know that, right?” he said. “Coronavirus, they’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa.”

Then the president, who often dismissed special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation as a hoax, continued, “They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything. They tried it over and over. They’d been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning. They lost. It’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax.”

I didn't really pay attention to this before, but how are we supposed to read this? What does everyone think is "their new hoax"?

 

[Jelenafan]

As long as there are not too many horrific scenes and stories, and the US does not get to a place particularly worst than other countries, this will be either neutral or positive. Partisan people have an outstanding capacity to spin basically anything in a way that confirms their world view, neutrals are exposed to both armies, so only extreme results -- and unfortunately anything less than 50.000 or even 100.000 dead is not extreme -- will change the election results.

There is another thing to consider besides absolute numbers in people dying. The scenario of a growing number of infected people who overload/strain the healthcare system in this country, precarious at best (despite the drumbeating that it's the "best") which spotlights that the POTUS mission was to dismantle OBAMAcare without replacing it with anything else. A lingering pandemic over months with diminishing hospital beds exacerbates the national health care "network" crisis that exists and impacts people in a way where they won't want what little healthcare they have to disappear.

 

[mrzz]

There is another thing to consider besides absolute numbers in people dying. The scenario of a growing number of infected people who overload/strain the healthcare system in this country, precarious at best (despite the drumbeating that it's the "best") which spotlights that the POTUS mission was to dismantle OBAMAcare without replacing it with anything else. A lingering pandemic over months with diminishing hospital beds exacerbates the national health care "network" crisis that exists and impacts people in a way where they won't want what little healthcare they have to disappear.

I agree with that, that's why I mentioned the "as long as there are not too many horrific scenes" or something to that effect, which are direct consequences of the incapacity of a health system to deal with the demand. Even that, to some level, can be spun by partisan minds, at least to some extent.

 

[mrzz]

so high? I've always thought that Americans have very little tolerance for death. I would have thought that something like having the highest number of dead would be enough to have serious repercussions. Let's hope we never find out..

Low tolerance for death is a good point, but at least what I am seeing here shows me that people's capacity to see what they want to see is almost infinite. The problem is not the deaths, is who you blame for it. Also, if for some reason, most of the damage to the US ends up being contained to NY, Trump will come out completely clean.

There is something utterly unfair in all this (regarding all governments in all countries). Nowadays people in charge are judged by the outcome and the outcome only -- even if, in the end of the day, it is completely out of their hands. A great leader might go down for dealing well with a huge catastrophe, while some lucky bastard can end up as the hero while he only did idiotic things. How many voters do you think will sit down , inform themselves, and calmly make an assessment of their own leader's actions?

 

[Federberg]

Low tolerance for death is a good point, but at least what I am seeing here shows me that people's capacity to see what they want to see is almost infinite. The problem is not the deaths, is who you blame for it. Also, if for some reason, most of the damage to the US ends up being contained to NY, Trump will come out completely clean.

There is something utterly unfair in all this (regarding all governments in all countries). Nowadays people in charge are judged by the outcome and the outcome only -- even if, in the end of the day, it is completely out of their hands. A great leader might go down for dealing well with a huge catastrophe, while some lucky bastard can end up as the hero while he only did idiotic things. How many voters do you think will sit down , inform themselves, and calmly make an assessment of their own leader's actions?

I don't know how this doesn't rationally fall back on Trump when he has continuously minimised this. Even now he's suggesting people should go back to work. On the very day deaths reach a big number. Anyway if American's don't blame him they truly deserve him

 

[Federberg]

by tomorrow the US will have more confirmed cases than any other country. I keep going back to how South Korea started at almost exactly the same day as the US. Trump was saying it would "miraculously" go away...

 

[GameSetAndMath]

by tomorrow the US will have more confirmed cases than any other country. I keep going back to how South Korea started at almost exactly the same day as the US. Trump was saying it would "miraculously" go away...

View attachment 3556

Olympics may have been cancelled, but this chart reminds me of Olympics with USA and China trying to take the top honors.

 

[Federberg]

Olympics may have been cancelled, but this chart reminds me of Olympics with USA and China trying to take the top honors.

makes one wonder where Russia is in all of this!

 

[tented]

by tomorrow the US will have more confirmed cases than any other country. I keep going back to how South Korea started at almost exactly the same day as the US. Trump was saying it would "miraculously" go away...

View attachment 3556

Europe is getting hit hard. The numbers for Spain, France, and of course Italy are scary.

 

[tented]

makes one wonder where Russia is in all of this!

Exactly. This is fodder for the Conspiracy Theories thread.

 

[Moxie]

I don't know how this doesn't rationally fall back on Trump when he has continuously minimised this. Even now he's suggesting people should go back to work. On the very day deaths reach a big number. Anyway if American's don't blame him they truly deserve him

Yes, but you said "rationally," and that's where it falls apart, and I say that only partially tongue-in-cheek. A lot of good points made above that I'd like to address, and won't bother to quote, just add onto your last post. I do think you're right that when we get a large number of deaths here in the US, that will hit people harder here. The comparison to 9/11 is interesting and also different in a way I'd like to point out. (I know you were only comparing numbers of deaths, as an example.) That happened in one day, and the images were horrific and impactful. But once the horror of it wore off for some who were farther away from the zones of real impact of those deaths and the aftermath, what took over was a hyper-patriotism, a kind of jingoistic outrage and an embracing of "first-responders" for a lot of the rest of the country. That was what they could hold on to. So as @mrzz says, if the deaths and impact are more confined to NY/CA/MA/WA, (though I don't think they will be,) maybe the rest of the country will apportion blame as they chose. However, I think @Jelenafan makes a very interesting point: that this will likely start affecting everyone in tangential ways because their healthcare may suffer from the affects of an overwhelmed healthcare system. I wonder if we will start to see sort of a second-tier of deaths from other causes, due to over-stressed hospitals, healthcare workers and healthcare funds. This is where it might impact everyone, and where the blow-back could come from. When it hits you where you live, that's when people change their minds and care about mismanagement.

 

[Moxie]

Some governors are resisting the notion that ordering people to stay home is the best course. Florida and Mississippi are two examples. Florida's governor is insisting that it's too much of a burden on business. Some healthcare experts feel that that makes FL set for a huge outbreak. Some towns in Mississippi had put in place stay-at-home orders and were making decisions to protect their local citizens. (Tupelo is an example, birthplace of Elvis.) But when the governor issued an order overriding their local choices, they had no option but to send everyone back to work. I guess it will remain to be seen if these were wise choices or foolish ones.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

According to latest poll, 60% of Americans approve of the Orange Man's handling of the crisis.

 

[Moxie]

According to latest poll, 60% of Americans approve of the Orange Man's handling of the crisis.

Somehow I suspect this has something to do with Trump telling people what they "want" to hear, not what they need to hear. I'd be curious how Fauci's numbers are looking, by comparison.

 

[Jelenafan]

The problem with pointing out

According to latest poll, 60% of Americans approve of the Orange Man's handling of the crisis.

If this was truly a "war" situation, wouldn't a POTUS approval be in the 90's, ie through the roof?

 

[calitennis127]

For people saying that Trump downplayed the coronavirus threat (even though he enacted a travel ban at the end of January while the Democrats were consumed by impeachment talk and even though Trump was simply repeating Dr. Fauci's words), take a look at these tweets. This is why New York City is the epicenter of the outbreak. The words of these idiots speak for themselves. Mayor Billy De Blasio and NYC Councilman/Chair of the Council Committee on Health Mark Levine both downplayed the threat to NYC. They emphatically up to the last minute made the case that any concerns about coronavirus were xenophobic toward Chinese-Americans: