Elinda wrote:
It's pretty indisputable at this point that trumps non-response was a deadly failure ...
Sorry. I'm going to dispute the heck out of that. First off, if Trump's actions constitute a "non-response" in your opinion, then what the heck do you think of the Dem's actions?
Trump began raising the alarm on this back in early January, saying this was serious and questioning the information coming out of China (and being repeated by the WHO). Turns out he was 100% correct, and China was lying to us when they claimed that the virus could not spread person to person.
What was the Dems response? That he was making it all up. He was exaggerating. That he was just trying to steal media attention away from the impeachment. That was them putting politics ahead of public health.
In late January, once the truth about the virus was known, and more information arose regarding where infections were, Trump began instituting travel restrictions from locations where the virus was in full outbreak mode. Specifically, China, Iran, and Italy.
What was the Dems response? They called him a xenophobe. They tried to turn it into an identity issue, saying he just hated Chinese people or something, and was using this nothing virus as some kind of excuse to do "bad things" (never really got a clear understanding of their thinking, it was just kind of a generic "he's a bigot" response).
In February, Trump began assembling a task force to deal with the virus. He gathered experts in the industry, and had daily meetings to get things going, resulting in late Feb with a set of instructions for the public and guidelines for state governors to follow with regards to managing the virus' spread. He also looked at the economic and trade implications and began contacting the heads of large manufacturing companies in the US to convince them to start switching to making goods that would be needed and may be in short supply if/when the boatload of stuff we're dependent on from China stopped arriving. Turns out he was, once again, 100% correct. China began hoarding goods (especially medical PPE) and doling it out to countries in the APAC region to gain influence with them. While there were some shortages, they were far less severe than they would have been otherwise, directly because Trump took action early.
What were the Dems doing during all of this? They were still denying the virus was a thing. On Feb 24th Nancy Pelosi gave a media show by walking around Chinatown in SF showing how much she wasn't an anti Chinese bigot by hanging out with a bunch of Asian people. No masks of course. Big crowds. No social distancing. She was basically telling everyone that it was perfectly safe to be in large crowds. It was all still a hoax in their minds, no big deal, and they were still playing it off as an identity political issue.
Same deal with Chuck Schumer. Only he did his media walk and talk in Times Square NY. And he did it on March 4th! We'll into the time period when everyone should have been taking precautions in large crowds. What was he doing? Still saying it was perfectly safe to be in crowds. He insisted that St Patty's day parades would go on as usual and no one needed to do anything. In other words, still putting politics ahead of public safety.
And folks wonder why so many people ignored the stay at home and social distancing orders initially. They were being actively told by their political leaders that this was just being made up by Trump. WTF? How do you conclude that it was somehow Trump's fault? If responses were slow to the virus it's because the freaking Democrats were more interested in playing politics with this than with taking a very real health risk seriously. They assumed, as they always do, that nothing bad was really going to happen, so why not gain some political advantage along the way (same thing they did with the economy back in 2009).
We can go on. Trump did what he's supposed to do as a president. Remember, baring him declaring martial law, he can't actually force anyone to do anything in any state. He can only advise and provide assistance. Which is
precisely what he did. It's up to the governors of each state to take that advice and assistance and turn those into policy decisions and then take action based on those things. And that's where many of the failures occurred. Most spectacularly in NY, where the governor seemed more interested in trying to find ways to make it look like Trump wasn't helping enough than to actually make good decisions. He waited too late to shut down. He ordered rest homes to take sick elderly patients rather than treat them in the hospital spaces that Trump freaking provided. Almost half of all deaths in that state were in rest homes due to that one order. He basically killed 10s of thousands of people in his state. And it's not even clear why. He had the resources. I can only guess that if he actually used them, he might have to acknowledge that the facilities that Trump provided for him were useful and saved lives. I guess. Again though, he totally put politics ahead of public health.
That's the pattern here. And if you don't see it, you're just not looking. Do you own research and come to your own opinions. don't just parrot what some idiot talking head said.
I could go further into the politics of teacher unions and public school systems and how that's impacting decisions regarding opening schools (or not). They're not looking at health data btw. It's 100% about politics, money, and control. But this post is long enough already and that's honestly almost a whole new subject.
Edited, Aug 5th 2020 1:26pm by gbaji