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Does red-blue animosity account for the botched federal pandemic response?

Does red-blue animosity account for the botched federal pandemic response?

  • Yes

    Votes: 6 19.4%
  • Maybe some of it

    Votes: 12 38.7%
  • No

    Votes: 11 35.5%
  • I don't know

    Votes: 1 3.2%
  • The federal response has been great!

    Votes: 1 3.2%

  • Total voters
    31

Greenbeard

DP Veteran
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Messages
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Location
Cambridge, MA
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One of the enduring puzzles this year has been why the GOP and the Trump administration in particular didn’t take an emerging pandemic seriously and didn’t act with any urgency from the outset.

Certainly we know the seeds for the current failure were sewn over the past few years as the administration took a sledgehammer to global disease surveillance and pandemic preparedness, but we can presumably chalk that up to standard rightwing ideological abhorrence of both good government and administrative competence.

But once the virus emerged, the 'strategy' quite transparently was: test as little as possible to stay in the dark on actual case counts and spread, pretend it'll go away, and forget about it. And try and make some Culture War hay out of public health measures. With hindsight of course we know that failed miserably from a public health perspective, but also was profound political malpractice. But surely even six months ago it was obvious that botching a pandemic would be a political liability?

If you assume the Trump folks are rational political animals, they either must have not seen this incompetence and non-response as a political liability or they knew they were in over their heads and were simply resigned to failing (which certainly seems to be Trump's posture now). If the former, why wouldn't it be a liability?

The obvious and unsettling possibility is that they saw it as a blue state problem for which they wouldn't take an appreciable political hit--indeed, perhaps they could even turn their failure against political opponents in those states. That's a horrifying thought, but it does find some support in a recent article on the national testing fiasco:

How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”
Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.
 
One of the enduring puzzles this year has been why the GOP and the Trump administration in particular didn’t take an emerging pandemic seriously and didn’t act with any urgency from the outset.

Certainly we know the seeds for the current failure were sewn over the past few years as the administration took a sledgehammer to global disease surveillance and pandemic preparedness, but we can presumably chalk that up to standard rightwing ideological abhorrence of both good government and administrative competence.

But once the virus emerged, the 'strategy' quite transparently was: test as little as possible to stay in the dark on actual case counts and spread, pretend it'll go away, and forget about it. And try and make some Culture War hay out of public health measures. With hindsight of course we know that failed miserably from a public health perspective, but also was profound political malpractice. But surely even six months ago it was obvious that botching a pandemic would be a political liability?

If you assume the Trump folks are rational political animals, they either must have not seen this incompetence and non-response as a political liability or they knew they were in over their heads and were simply resigned to failing (which certainly seems to be Trump's posture now). If the former, why wouldn't it be a liability?

The obvious and unsettling possibility is that they saw it as a blue state problem for which they wouldn't take an appreciable political hit--indeed, perhaps they could even turn their failure against political opponents in those states. That's a horrifying thought, but it does find some support in a recent article on the national testing fiasco:

How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”

We’ve seen the narrative here countless times that the coronavirus was a blue state problem. The only way to get trump, who was bored with the pandemic, to care about it was for his advisors to tell him that “our people” in red states were also being infected with it.

Not that that did any good either, ultimately:

President Donald Trump was "bored" with the coronavirus pandemic, seeing it — and its average of 850 American deaths, each day, since February — as a distraction from all of the "wins" he wished he could campaign on instead.

But then, apparently, senior advisers tried a new approach: They told the president the coronavirus wasn't just killing liberals in blue states but was hurting Republicans and could spread in swing states.

"Our people." That's the term one senior Trump administration official used in an interview with The Washington Post. On Monday, the paper reported that senior advisers to the president had begun providing him "maps and data showing spikes in coronavirus cases among 'our people' in Republican states."

It worked, The Post reported, saying the tactic seemed "to resonate" with the president, who then "hewed closely to pre-scripted remarks" in subsequent news briefings. While the messaging on face coverings remained incoherent — they're not without their own problems, Trump claimed — the president was allowing himself to be seen with a mask on, heeding the urging of Republicans battling the coronavirus in their home states.

Trump advisers tell him virus hurting '''our people,''' Republicans: WaPo - Business Insider

It’s absolutely baffling why some people think that Trump is divisive.
 
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One of the enduring puzzles this year has been why the GOP and the Trump administration in particular didn’t take an emerging pandemic seriously and didn’t act with any urgency from the outset.

Certainly we know the seeds for the current failure were sewn over the past few years as the administration took a sledgehammer to global disease surveillance and pandemic preparedness, but we can presumably chalk that up to standard rightwing ideological abhorrence of both good government and administrative competence.

But once the virus emerged, the 'strategy' quite transparently was: test as little as possible to stay in the dark on actual case counts and spread, pretend it'll go away, and forget about it. And try and make some Culture War hay out of public health measures. With hindsight of course we know that failed miserably from a public health perspective, but also was profound political malpractice. But surely even six months ago it was obvious that botching a pandemic would be a political liability?

If you assume the Trump folks are rational political animals, they either must have not seen this incompetence and non-response as a political liability or they knew they were in over their heads and were simply resigned to failing (which certainly seems to be Trump's posture now). If the former, why wouldn't it be a liability?

The obvious and unsettling possibility is that they saw it as a blue state problem for which they wouldn't take an appreciable political hit--indeed, perhaps they could even turn their failure against political opponents in those states. That's a horrifying thought, but it does find some support in a recent article on the national testing fiasco:

How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”

Definitely some of it in my book, no maybe abut that. I would say over the last decade or two, it's become more important to stop the other side than to get anything accomplished. With something as big as the pandemic, both sides, red and blue should have sit down to work out something mutual acceptable and beneficial for America as a whole. Not just one's base.

With today's leadership in both parties, that is impossible. Heck, red and blue won't even get together to go ahead on things they agree on, afraid the other would get the credit. I do think a comprehensive response beneficial to the nation needed the cooperation of both parties. That cooperation wasn't about to come about, especially in an election year. The need to blame one or the other became the need, the want, become more important than a response that might benefit all of America instead of having a blame issue to use to an political advantage in the upcoming election.

How much of that, I don't know. That can be debated from some to most and anywhere in-between. I have no doubt that during Obama the Republican goal was to stop everything and all things Obama, not to get things accomplished. During Trump, it is now the Democrats goal to stop all and everything Trump, not to get anything accomplished. Payback, maybe. Of course I'm biased, both major parties really disgust the heck out of me with their party first attitude.
 
One of the enduring puzzles this year has been why the GOP and the Trump administration in particular didn’t take an emerging pandemic seriously and didn’t act with any urgency from the outset.

Certainly we know the seeds for the current failure were sewn over the past few years as the administration took a sledgehammer to global disease surveillance and pandemic preparedness, but we can presumably chalk that up to standard rightwing ideological abhorrence of both good government and administrative competence.

But once the virus emerged, the 'strategy' quite transparently was: test as little as possible to stay in the dark on actual case counts and spread, pretend it'll go away, and forget about it. And try and make some Culture War hay out of public health measures. With hindsight of course we know that failed miserably from a public health perspective, but also was profound political malpractice. But surely even six months ago it was obvious that botching a pandemic would be a political liability?

If you assume the Trump folks are rational political animals, they either must have not seen this incompetence and non-response as a political liability or they knew they were in over their heads and were simply resigned to failing (which certainly seems to be Trump's posture now). If the former, why wouldn't it be a liability?

The obvious and unsettling possibility is that they saw it as a blue state problem for which they wouldn't take an appreciable political hit--indeed, perhaps they could even turn their failure against political opponents in those states. That's a horrifying thought, but it does find some support in a recent article on the national testing fiasco:

How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”

Partially.

Let's be clear about which direction the rage is going and how, at least at the presidential level, this is a problem specific to 45 and his minions in the White House. In addition to being an incredibly narcissistic and stupid man, 45 is vindictive. He is the polar opposite of a president who can just let criticism roll off his back. Like the butthurt manbaby that he is, he takes every slight, every little insult against his power and ego personally.

So it makes perfect sense that he refused to take this pandemic seriously while the hotspots were in blue cities and states. Now that most of the hotspots are in red states? That's on you, 45.
 
Republicans and especially trump are all about the money. Human lives sacrificed to keep the profits flowing for the megarich? Of course.

150,000 dead Americans to keep the profits flowing is an acceptable casualty rate.
 
Definitely some of it in my book, no maybe abut that. I would say over the last decade or two, it's become more important to stop the other side than to get anything accomplished. With something as big as the pandemic, both sides, red and blue should have sit down to work out something mutual acceptable and beneficial for America as a whole. Not just one's base.

With today's leadership in both parties, that is impossible. Heck, red and blue won't even get together to go ahead on things they agree on, afraid the other would get the credit. I do think a comprehensive response beneficial to the nation needed the cooperation of both parties. That cooperation wasn't about to come about, especially in an election year. The need to blame one or the other became the need, the want, become more important than a response that might benefit all of America instead of having a blame issue to use to an political advantage in the upcoming election.

How much of that, I don't know. That can be debated from some to most and anywhere in-between. I have no doubt that during Obama the Republican goal was to stop everything and all things Obama, not to get things accomplished. During Trump, it is now the Democrats goal to stop all and everything Trump, not to get anything accomplished. Payback, maybe. Of course I'm biased, both major parties really disgust the heck out of me with their party first attitude.

It’s easier to both sides everything.

In 2009, two Republicans came on board with the stimulus bill following the 2008 global economic meltdown. In 2020 Democrats as a whole joined Republicans in passing an assistance bill to Americans in the shutdown. And if another assistance bill comes up in 2021, precisely zero Republicans will join Democrats in passing it.

If you see a mugging, you could tell the cops that you observed one person stealI got another person’s wallet using a gun, or you could tell the cops that you saw “two people in a fight.”
 
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Before the Pandemic hit the US and UK were rated as the most prepared countries to respond to a pandemic

https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...luded-is-fully-prepared-pandemic-report-says/

The US had a rating of 83, the UK 77.9, South Korea, 70 and Germany was not in the top 14 (or not rated)

Now, did the US and UK fail because their plan did not work, or because they did not follow the plan. If they did not follow the plan, who decided that? in the UK we can clearly see that was a decision made by the Boris government
 
Republicans are climbing on board with the idea that the coronavirus isn’t just a blue state problem anymore (hilarious to think a highly contagious virus would magically constrain itself to states that just tend to vote Democrat, but such is the world we live in).

Some Republicans Have Gotten More Concerned About COVID-19 | FiveThirtyEight

In Jan, Feb, and early March I expect most of the world though it was never going to hit countries outside of East Asia. One Italian politician is reported to have said it is a yellow persons disease at a G7 meeting to Japanese representative
 
In Jan, Feb, and early March I expect most of the world though it was never going to hit countries outside of East Asia. One Italian politician is reported to have said it is a yellow persons disease at a G7 meeting to Japanese representative

The virus seems designed to target those who think it’s somebody else’s problem.
 
It’s easier to both sides everything.

In 2009, two Republicans came on board with the stimulus bill following the 2008 global economic meltdown. In 2020 Democrats as a whole joined Republicans in passing an assistance bill to Americans in the shutdown. And if another assistance bill comes up in 2021, precisely zero Republicans will join Democrats in passing it.

If you see a mugging, you could tell the cops that you observed one person stealI got another person’s wallet using a gun, or you could tell the cops that you saw “two people in a fight.”

Whichever side of the political spectrum you're on, left, right, Republican, Democrat, whatever. You're always blameless and it's always the other fellows, the other parties fault. Politics here, nothing more, nothing less.
 
Definitely some of it in my book, no maybe abut that. I would say over the last decade or two, it's become more important to stop the other side than to get anything accomplished. With something as big as the pandemic, both sides, red and blue should have sit down to work out something mutual acceptable and beneficial for America as a whole. Not just one's base.

What is the basis for this? At the outset of this crisis, the Trump administration requested $2.5 billion for the response. The Democratic House gave him $8.3 billion.

The Dem House passed a massive economic relief package in May, the latest in a series of bills aimed at helping this administration dig this country out of the hole it's put us in--they are begging Trump and the Senate GOP to pass economic measures that would directly boost the GOP's reelection prospects. The GOP, apparently sensing a coming era of Dem governance, now isn't really sure it wants to fix the economy.

In 2014, the (tiny number of) American Ebola cases happened in Texas, a red state; the Obama administration still acted decisively to stamp out the outbreak.

Jockeying for political and messaging advantage while pursuing political goals and doing the nation's business is politics. Actively working to undermine or destroy the country (or even just the blue states) out of political spite is a uniquely Republican sociopathy.
 
The response wasn't all that botched. It was always going to be horrible and tragic and life-changing.

Partisan rancor accounts for some of the botched response. Simple incompetence and inexperience probably explains most of it.

Chinese incompetence and stonewalling (and maybe malevolence) are easily the biggest single reasons the pandemic happened.
 
No, there has been no federal response.
 
The response wasn't all that botched. It was always going to be horrible and tragic and life-changing.

Partisan rancor accounts for some of the botched response. Simple incompetence and inexperience probably explains most of it.

Chinese incompetence and stonewalling (and maybe malevolence) are easily the biggest single reasons the pandemic happened.

Remember Ebola? Thank god Trump wasn't pres then.
 
If we had the money the Dems pissed away trying to impeach Trump we might have a vaccine by now.
 
One of the enduring puzzles this year has been why the GOP and the Trump administration in particular didn’t take an emerging pandemic seriously and didn’t act with any urgency from the outset.

Certainly we know the seeds for the current failure were sewn over the past few years as the administration took a sledgehammer to global disease surveillance and pandemic preparedness, but we can presumably chalk that up to standard rightwing ideological abhorrence of both good government and administrative competence.

But once the virus emerged, the 'strategy' quite transparently was: test as little as possible to stay in the dark on actual case counts and spread, pretend it'll go away, and forget about it. And try and make some Culture War hay out of public health measures. With hindsight of course we know that failed miserably from a public health perspective, but also was profound political malpractice. But surely even six months ago it was obvious that botching a pandemic would be a political liability?

If you assume the Trump folks are rational political animals, they either must have not seen this incompetence and non-response as a political liability or they knew they were in over their heads and were simply resigned to failing (which certainly seems to be Trump's posture now). If the former, why wouldn't it be a liability?

The obvious and unsettling possibility is that they saw it as a blue state problem for which they wouldn't take an appreciable political hit--indeed, perhaps they could even turn their failure against political opponents in those states. That's a horrifying thought, but it does find some support in a recent article on the national testing fiasco:

How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”

Only lousy management accounts for "botched Government response".
 
If we had the money the Dems pissed away trying to impeach Trump we might have a vaccine by now.

Is FOX news saying that the time taken for a vaccine is due to financial constraints?
 
The response wasn't all that botched. It was always going to be horrible and tragic and life-changing.

Partisan rancor accounts for some of the botched response. Simple incompetence and inexperience probably explains most of it.

Chinese incompetence and stonewalling (and maybe malevolence) are easily the biggest single reasons the pandemic happened.

Of course the US response was botched.

We did some things right.

But one of the endpoints was supposed to be ability to test with quick results and robust tracking and tracing.

I grow weary of hearing how we are doing millions of tests. What do these millions of tests mean for public health if we cannot get the tests back quickly. But we have to get the numbers way down in order to get that kind of quick testing turnaround. Getting the numbers way down is about having rules and meeting benchmarks for allowing increased "opening"

Getting kids back to school is a great message. But the message should have been....get your asses in gear (to governors, mayors, citizens)"this is what you need to to to have that happen "

We royally squandered out shut down.

California did great in the beginning. We we on the right path to be certain. But I remember talking to a friend, seeing all the beach goers and parties on the beach....talks of large scale barbeques and making predictions for when we would start surging. It wasn't rocket science. Luckily we are doing somewhat better.

But we are the United States. What one state does affects other states. If people in neighboring states do not think their being lax only affect themselves, they are mistaken.

Yes we did some things right.
But in total, we screwed the pooch.
 
maybe some of it. we have to take into account that executive leadership was and is willfully stupid. it's very easy to convince willfully stupid people that something real that they want to believe is a hoax is a hoax.
 
Remember Ebola? Thank god Trump wasn't pres then.

Two people contracted Ebola in the United States during that outbreak; neither died. And the GOP, Trump among them, called for Obama's head to gin up an issue for the midterms.

Seems like they were trying to repeat history this year and gin up an issue against blue state governors. Talk about an all-time backfire with unimaginably tragic consequences.
 
One of the enduring puzzles this year has been why the GOP and the Trump administration in particular didn’t take an emerging pandemic seriously and didn’t act with any urgency from the outset.

Certainly we know the seeds for the current failure were sewn over the past few years as the administration took a sledgehammer to global disease surveillance and pandemic preparedness, but we can presumably chalk that up to standard rightwing ideological abhorrence of both good government and administrative competence.

But once the virus emerged, the 'strategy' quite transparently was: test as little as possible to stay in the dark on actual case counts and spread, pretend it'll go away, and forget about it. And try and make some Culture War hay out of public health measures. With hindsight of course we know that failed miserably from a public health perspective, but also was profound political malpractice. But surely even six months ago it was obvious that botching a pandemic would be a political liability?

If you assume the Trump folks are rational political animals, they either must have not seen this incompetence and non-response as a political liability or they knew they were in over their heads and were simply resigned to failing (which certainly seems to be Trump's posture now). If the former, why wouldn't it be a liability?

The obvious and unsettling possibility is that they saw it as a blue state problem for which they wouldn't take an appreciable political hit--indeed, perhaps they could even turn their failure against political opponents in those states. That's a horrifying thought, but it does find some support in a recent article on the national testing fiasco:

How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”

What was the federal government supposed to do that it didn't do, i.e. that state governments could not do?
 
It's all on Trump, he called it a hoax, said it was 15 down to zero and in July promotes an aliens and demon doctor.
 
One of the enduring puzzles this year has been why the GOP and the Trump administration in particular didn’t take an emerging pandemic seriously and didn’t act with any urgency from the outset.

Certainly we know the seeds for the current failure were sewn over the past few years as the administration took a sledgehammer to global disease surveillance and pandemic preparedness, but we can presumably chalk that up to standard rightwing ideological abhorrence of both good government and administrative competence.

But once the virus emerged, the 'strategy' quite transparently was: test as little as possible to stay in the dark on actual case counts and spread, pretend it'll go away, and forget about it. And try and make some Culture War hay out of public health measures. With hindsight of course we know that failed miserably from a public health perspective, but also was profound political malpractice. But surely even six months ago it was obvious that botching a pandemic would be a political liability?

If you assume the Trump folks are rational political animals, they either must have not seen this incompetence and non-response as a political liability or they knew they were in over their heads and were simply resigned to failing (which certainly seems to be Trump's posture now). If the former, why wouldn't it be a liability?

The obvious and unsettling possibility is that they saw it as a blue state problem for which they wouldn't take an appreciable political hit--indeed, perhaps they could even turn their failure against political opponents in those states. That's a horrifying thought, but it does find some support in a recent article on the national testing fiasco:

How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”

I would have liked to have voted in the poll but I don't like the fact that you called the federal response botched. Red and blue animosity has certainly contributed to the fact that things could have been better. The biggest example of that is when the country locked down and the left blamed Trump for the ensuing bad economy and high unemployment. One could also argue that if New York hadn't totally and completely botched things from the beginning, we may have licked this thing way back then. They spread the virus everywhere.
 
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