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

[Oborosen]

Also from the article:

"The logic, a source told Vanity Fair, was that the virus would hit Democratic-voting areas hardest and that the damage could be blamed on governors instead."

Yes, a source. Once again, I'm starting to see more of the same that comes up with this kind of article.

All we're see here is assumption and allegation. Nothing more than that until they can supply something concrete and even so, I'm worried that they're still misrepresenting something still.

 

[Cardinal]

Yes, a source. Once again, I'm starting to see more of the same that comes up with this kind of article.

All we're see here is assumption and allegation. Nothing more than that until they can supply something concrete and even so, I'm worried that they're still misrepresenting something still.

Also from the article:

"In March and early April, Kushner, a senior White House adviser, led a task force, parallel to the White House's official efforts, to devise a plan to accelerate coronavirus testing and supply chains nationwide."

 

[Oborosen]

Also from the article:

"In March and early April, Kushner, a senior White House adviser, led a task force, parallel to the White House's official efforts, to devise a plan to accelerate coronavirus testing and supply chains nationwide."

Please stop blankly quoting snippets from the article and make a point.

 

[ataraxia]

I voted no because I don’t think it is hostility towards liberals that underlie Trump’s position on things like the pandemic or climate change. It is just scientific illiteracy, and hostility and skepticism towards expertise and “elites”. The idea that if something is not obvious to the common man, then it must be wrong. It’s the idea that if you like someone and their charisma and personality, you will trust them more than some unknown person working in a laboratory telling you something you don’t want to hear. It’s the same reason why we would much rather listen to celebrities” opinions on various scientific issues than those of the scientific community.

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
-Isaac Asimov

 

[Cardinal]

Please stop blankly quoting snippets from the article and make a point.

Also from the article:

"Ultimately, that was abandoned, and President Donald Trump shifted much of the responsibility for controlling outbreaks to individual states."

 

[Oborosen]

Also from the article:

"Ultimately, that was abandoned, and President Donald Trump shifted much of the responsibility for controlling outbreaks to individual states."

So that's a no. Thanks for playing Cardinal.

Too bad all you have are accusations, assumptions and half-truths.

 

[Cardinal]

So that's a no. Thanks for playing Cardinal.

Too bad all you have are accusations, assumptions and half-truths.

Also from the article:

"A public-health expert who was in regular contact with Kushner's team told Vanity Fair's Katherine Eban that political reasoning may have influenced the decision."

 

[Integrityrespec]

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”

Politics and hating Trump is the cause of a lot of issues. The hate is so bad the democrats are willing to do anything and sacrifice anything to get the white house.

 

[Drawdown]

I don't see that Trump did any better or worse than any other politician. He certainly did more than democrats give him credit for. When the first reported cases were here, they were screaming about witnesses and evidence and John Bolton's book while the federal government had already identified that we had a testing capacity problem and started working on what ultimately failed to become a universal quick test for the virus. When the democrats were screaming about Trump starting World Ward III with Iran, the federal government was already in the process of starting to acquire ventilators because the Obama ordered ventilators had not even been approved, let alone manufactured yet. The list goes on and on. We simply were caught with our pants down not because of Trump, but because administration after administration never felt that preparedness for something like this was a priority over rewarding a friend with a defense contract, or a green energy grant.

 

[ataraxia]

I don't see that Trump did any better or worse than any other politician.

Politicians in every other developed country on the planet have done better. Why?

 

[Deepnation10009]

We wouldn't have even needed a federal response if New York state hadn't spread the virus to the rest of the country due to their total and complete ineptness.

Please explain how New York State spread the virus. Show me some hard facts.

 

[Drawdown]

Politicians in every other developed country on the planet have done better. Why?

They haven't but their laws are different than our laws. California just became the leader in cases, overtaking New York.

 

[Moderate Right]

Please explain how New York State spread the virus. Show me some hard facts.

Oh please. Now you are just being ridiculous. The facts show that New York state and particularly NYC were the worst parts of the country and it obviously spread to not only the immediate surrounding area but other areas of the country as well. In fact, many New Yorkers fled the state at the time bringing the virus with them. And it was all because their leaders told them the virus was not a threat and to go on business as usual. Trump even talked about a travel ban of New York but Democratic leaders said that was not necessary.

 

[MSgt]

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.

...

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.....

This nonsense has been over-thought by even professors of politology. To understand what's been going on, you have to understand the entire point behind this behavior.

- At the core of this stupidity is the radical right-wing (as you get) that chose long before 2016 to create a political base out of simply opposing anything and everything of "the left." The GOP and the DNC used to stand together against the world on the issues of Global Warming. This changed in the 1990s, when voices like Newt Gingrich decided to use Global Warming as a source of opposition. All of a sudden, Global Warming became a "liberal hoax." You see, Global Warming interfered with the economic goals of their financial backers, thus Global Warming had to go. This radical element, assisted by political extremism, grew within the GOP and eventually became its leadership.

- Throughout the Obama Administration, Republicans chose to create the "Party of No." McConnell, Boehner, and Ryan pushed the GOP to simply begin choosing to oppose anything that Democrats did. Their answer to the Democrats' concern for the national childhood obesity numbers was to officially argue that tomato paste is a vegetable. It was widely known even at the time that Schwan Food Co. led the lobbying to encourage the GOP. Masked behind "liberty," Republicans chose to abandon their duties to young Americans in order to please a few old Americans who write them checks. This irrational opposition for all things Obama produced a mood where in 2017, over half of the Republicans in this country still believed that Obama was an African-Born Muslim who's plan was to destroy America. Durp.

- Today, Republicans choose to allow Trump to politicize something as simple as a damn mask during a pandemic. Trump has long known that the GOP operates on a platform of opposition, no matter what. Thus, if Democrats suggest listening to health officials, Republicans choose to shut their ears. With him pushing this novel virus as a new "liberal hoax" during his impeachment, Republicans simply fell in line. They did what they had long trained to do and simply chose to take an opposite position while pretending that they represent Americans. As their own began dying, expressing their beliefs that this is all just a liberal hoax, Republicans just continued their game, allowing Trump's early denial to define their politics. They created a mood among conservatives that implied that they were strong and "true freedom-loving Americans" for resisting health official guidance as liberals proved weak for listening.

In the end, we are talking about a people who watched their shallow Neo-Con agenda fail, their Trickle-Down Economics busted, Global Warming heat up, and American kids grow fatter. With Reagan and Bush widening government and pushing debt, they really had no belief system left when it came to 2016. They were fueled by irrational hate and enthusiastically chose the biggest asshole on the scene to represent them. Conservatism be damned. They chose a conservative anti-thesis who routinely makes and break promises with little to no repercussion from his base.

For Trump, this COVID mess had everything to do with his ego and his very clear status as a shameless and amoral plutocrat. His entire Administration rode on an irrational anti-Obama wave that the "Party of No" created. Rolling back Obama's initiatives included dismantling pandemic response teams. His only purpose was to show his constituents that he too hates Obama. Beyond this, the man didn't care either way. It was just something he did along the way to distract from his real agenda, which has been to be that plutocrat asset to whoever might give him and his family business favor. Throughout this pandemic, we have all witnessed him push a drug that he has ties to, push governors to open with reckless abandonment, and now his crusade to brand China as solely responsible for this mess has him trying to get a piece of the economic pie between Microsoft and TikTok. Love that free-market, huh "conservatives?" One might argue that the only rational player on the right is the plutocrat. At least he has a rational agenda behind the irrationality.

 

[MSgt]

Oh please. Now you are just being ridiculous. The facts show that New York state and particularly NYC were the worst parts of the country and it obviously spread to not only the immediate surrounding area but other areas of the country as well. In fact, many New Yorkers fled the state at the time bringing the virus with them. And it was all because their leaders told them the virus was not a threat and to go on business as usual. Trump even talked about a travel ban of New York but Democratic leaders said that was not necessary.

L.A. was also hit hard. Instead of arguing this like a partisan hack, why not appreciate that with America being a gravitational center for global business, these major crossroads were always going to get hit hard.

And you are talking about March 26 or March 27 when Trump suggested domestic travel ban. This is what actually happened:

President Donald Trump endorsed the actions of governors Friday to crack down on travelers from states hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic in requiring them to go into 14-day quarantine. In the past, Trump has said domestic travel restrictions are on the table while saying he wasn't yet ready to implement them. On Friday, he indicated that he doesn't object to the actions of particular states. Earlier this month, Trump broadened a travel ban on foreigners from China to include Europe. He ordered tighter restrictions on the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada. He said earlier this month that domestic travel restrictions were under consideration. "We hope we don’t have to," Trump said at that time. "We think that hopefully, we won’t have to do that. But it’s certainly something we talk about every day. We haven’t made that decision."

So, your partisan perversion that Trump tried to do what Democrats wouldn't let him do is a bit of a lie. He even admitted that his Administration talks about it everyday, but hadn't made that decision. For perspective, this was 56 days after China announced that there was a big problem, and about 15 days after that that Trump finally declared a national emergency on March 13.

- By March 17, the virus was in all fifty states.
- New York would be described as an epicenter on March 20, with Seattle and L.A. raging.
- And on March 26, the U.S. confirmed to have more cases than anybody in the world. <---This is when Trump floated locking down New York?

In other words, the virus was already spread and Trump chose, yet again, to push a political game over what he should have never politicized. If Democrat (and Republican) leaders said it wasn't necessary, they had a point. The idiot should have cared months ago. But here is something relative from June 24:

The Democratic governors of the three states held a joint news conference to announce the new travel advisory, six days after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo first threatened to put it in place.

The move comes three months after Florida, Texas, South Carolina and other states instituted a similar quarantine policy that included travel from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, which came at a time when those states had low coronavirus rates and Northeast states were being hit hard.

Since then, the rates have flipped: Florida, for example, is identifying thousands of new cases of COVID-19 each day, while New York is regularly seeing below 700.

The travel advisory will take effect Thursday, Cuomo said. The text of the order was not released as of Wednesday afternoon.

"I think it's right and I think it's smart and I'm glad we're doing it together," Cuomo said during a news conference Wednesday in Manhattan.

Is this tit-for-tat among partisan dip****s or are state governors having to navigate through this pandemic while an idiot in the White House seems determined to turn everything into a political crusade? I mean, the Republican-led South is getting blasted not because of New York, but because they re-opened with reckless abandonment while presenting scorn over something as simple as a face mask. And who specifically led this irrational and foolish charge? The guy you keep defending.

 

[Moderate Right]

L.A. was also hit hard. Instead of arguing this like a partisan hack, why not appreciate that with America being a gravitational center for global business, these major crossroads were always going to get hit hard.

And you are talking about March 26 or March 27 when Trump suggested domestic travel ban. This is what actually happened:




So, your partisan perversion that Trump tried to do what Democrats wouldn't let him do is a bit of a lie. He even admitted that his Administration talks about it everyday, but hadn't made that decision. For perspective, this was 56 days after China announced that there was a big problem, and about 15 days after that that Trump finally declared a national emergency on March 13.

- By March 17, the virus was in all fifty states.
- New York would be described as an epicenter on March 20, with Seattle and L.A. raging.
- And on March 26, the U.S. confirmed to have more cases than anybody in the world. <---This is when Trump floated locking down New York?

In other words, the virus was already spread and Trump chose, yet again, to push a political game over what he should have never politicized. If Democrat (and Republican) leaders said it wasn't necessary, they had a point. The idiot should have cared months ago. But here is something relative from June 24:



Is this tit-for-tat among partisan dip****s or are state governors having to navigate through this pandemic while an idiot in the White House seems determined to turn everything into a political crusade? I mean, the Republican-led South is getting blasted not because of New York, but because they re-opened with reckless abandonment while presenting scorn over something as simple as a face mask. And who specifically led this irrational and foolish charge? The guy you keep defending.

Trump talked about a total travel ban on New York, no quarantine, no nothing. A total and complete travel ban. Democrats shut him down and said that was drastic and not needed. If the left didn't want to be partisan hacks then they would have an honest conversation instead of just talking about red states.