Kurieuo wrote: ↑Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:18 pmI just wonder how people like yourself will be, will there be another four years of anti-Trumpism? So much time wasted over the course of 8 years.
Totally. The golf, the TV, the tweeting, the feuds...
To answer your offensively dismissive question-statement, if Trump continues to be a corrupt, incompetent, hyperpartisan criminal then I'll continue to point it out, but if he pulls his head out of his ass and actually makes an effort to appeal to anyone behind his base and if he actually manages to provide the new healthcare system and the massive infrastructure bill that he promised (or even makes an organized, competent, good faith effort) then I'll give him the credit he's due. My concerns aren't petty, and they're not really even partisan. Donald Trump is a corrupt, incompetent, dangerous moron who lacks the ability to accomplish the hard, desperately necessary tasks (healthcare, infrastructure) and lacks the character to rise above politics to unite the nation.
Kurieuo wrote: ↑Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:18 pmAs for condoning, I don't know much about it, and really, don't much care. I do know it's spin from MSM, and perhaps like most people today, I have very little trust in such so hold it in very little regard. Whatever protests happened without Trump's comments, so... it'd be more enlightening for MSM to have them spell out the substance of the peoples' grievance against what I'm gathering was governor overreach (??), than to try and do some negative spin off onto Trump.
Ok, so you don't actually know what's going on or much about what's being reported, but because it comes from the media you don't trust it so you're confident that they've provided no context and have limited their coverage to anti-Trump spin...?
Well, I care about knowing stuff, so I made an effort to find out. I also process gathered information better if I talk it through or type it out so here goes.
There are basically 2 sides in this debate.
One side is the CDC, the WHO, the global medical establishment, most of the governors in the US, and about 65% of the US public. Their position is that, while social distancing sucks and it would be fantastic to reopen the economy, we cannot safely do so until we've created the large-scale diagnostic capability that's required to use the Test-Trace-Isolate model that's been so successful in places like
South Korea. At the moment we simply don't have it. I wish we did, but
we don't. Period. The infection rate seems to have leveled off, but we're still seeing 30,000
new cases a day, even with widespread social distancing. According to infectious disease experts, if we rapidly reopen our economy before we get the needed diagnostic capability in place the result will be a large, sustained spike in the infection rate. If that happens it will overwhelm our hospitals, which are already badly strained in many places, kill a bunch more people, and force us to start another round of social distancing, doing even more damage to the economy. Therefore it's critical that reopening the economy be a careful, deliberate process that doesn't start until we have enough tests to do it safely, and doesn't fully happen until there's a vaccine. That's a bitter pill, but there it is.
On the other side are some business leaders, a handful of TV doctors, a few right wing political donors and activists, a few religious leaders, some small business owners, and a lot of white, working class Trump supporters. According to ReOpen Maryland their position is basically this:
“Government mandating sick people to stay home is called quarantine. However, the government mandating healthy citizens to stay home, forcing businesses and churches to close is called tyranny.”
The obvious problem with their argument is that the majority of cases are apparently both highly contagious and asymptomatic, but I digress.
The different groups within this camp have varying motivations (generally speaking).
The small business owners and working class white guys don't trust "experts" or the "Democrat Party" and they want the economy to reopen right now, They're not deliberately reckless - they seem to generally support social distancing in places with outbreaks - but they think that the risks are overstated because Covid-19 hasn't reached their communities, but economic hardship has. They want Trump to take decisive action to put them back to work before they lose their jobs, businesses, and houses.
The major business leaders are losing money. They want to stay open and ride it out because they believe that the economy must be protected.
The right wing donors and activists, who are providing the money and manpower to organize the "protests," see a political opening and are looking to create anti-Democratic sentiment in key swing states that currently have Democratic governors. They especially want to damage Gretchen Whitmer (in Michigan), because there's been some buzz about her being tapped as Joe Biden's running mate.
The President was grudgingly in the first camp a couple days back, but then the thinly veiled Trump Trump rallies emerged so of course he undercut his own Administration's policy and egged on the protesters.
I'm obviously in the first group. Since March 15th we've been isolated with 2 little kids trying to homeschool, teach gymnastics, and stay sane while every interesting thing in the region is closed. Last week the governor - a moderate Republican - announced that schools are out for the year, so we've got another 7 weeks of this [poop] ahead of us. It sucks, but we're also among the fortunate. I'm furloughed, but my wife is a school principal, so she's well paid and in a recession-proof job. We have health insurance. Our home is nearly paid off, we live in a desirable location, and we have lots of equity. We have money in the bank, and someday - hopefully not soon - I'll receive a pretty nice inheritance. I can afford to take the long view, and frankly the virus is a bigger threat to my family than an economic depression would be.
I also grew up in a family that was dead broke and spent the first 15 years of my life living hand to mouth. If this had happened back then my mom would have lost her job and then the house. I sympathize with the people who stand to lose everything, and I hope that Congress can get their [poop] together and pump out some more stimulus - with safeguards so the in-crowd doesn't steal it all. I completely understand why they want to go back to work right immediately. Everything went sideways in a week. We're all shocked, we're all grieving, and we're all frustrated, but if we move ahead too fast we'll just make things worse for ourselves. A cycle of Pandemic-Recession-Recovery is awful, but it's better than Pandemic-Recession-Pandemic-Depression. We have non-partisan experts who have spent their lives studying, planning, and rehearsing for this situation. We need to trust them.
I have no sympathy or understanding for the political activists pushing for an immediate return to normalcy. They see an opening and they're willing to gamble our lives to increase their own influence. Their behavior is irresponsible and shameful.
