“Top Twenty Lies about Trump’s Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic” helped organize my thinking. I knew Demo charges against Trump’s treatment of the pandemic were not just emotional and unpersuasive, but often wrong. And it bothered me (undermined trust in my memories) that so many appeared to buy those charges. One of the Nevertrumper ads literally (and many in campaign speeches implicitly) laid every Covid death in America at Trump’s feet, a fearmongering demagoguery on the level of their race baiting. But I couldn’t always remember the actual misreporting or misunderstanding.
Through the spring my husband and I had listened to Trump’s press conferences, waiting for the nightly news to begin. Lately, I hear statements of Trump’s arrogance, lack of empathy, incompetence. That wasn’t how I remembered it. Of course he blustered – that’s his way. But neither he nor the scientists were omniscient or even consistent: the usefulness of masks was just one of many turns and reversals. But then, China had not been forthcoming or even honest. The curve did flatten, respirators were created – harnessing the natural ingenuity of American business. What worked and what didn’t as far as treatments – often attacked politically – slowly proved themselves. We all started taking zinc and vitamin d. Older people were given more protection.
The allegations seemed wrong, sometimes I could remember why and sometimes not. This gave me more faith in my often deceptive memory. Instapundit linked it. So I just wanted to say thank you and pass it on.
Thanks, Ginny.
Trump, like in everything, had some good moments and some bad moments. But in a sane world “we” would be able to do a sane analysis of what went wrong to try to figure out how to get it right for the time when something like covid that was 10 or 100 times more deadly might come. How to fix the WHO, the CDC, the FDA, etc. Unfortunately we don’t live in a sane world…
America is among the worst in just letting the pandemic have its way. A big part of this is Trump. Trump who knew that C19 was dangerous, downplayed it, so people would not get worried at the beginning. Its just a flu. Trump himself is a super spreader, his rallies have seriously increased the spread. Your entire country seems hell bent of seeing how many people can actually die from C19, and as you are not a healthy people, its a lot. Your CDC has been bypassed, so I for one don’t believe your numbers. They are probably much worse than https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ says.
I could go on, for a long time but I am fundamentally lazy. ;)
Just another Boomer demanding that the young sacrifice for the comfort of the old (and lazy).
Ginny,
That’s why the technique of the big lie works. If a lie is repeated often enough, most people, especially those that don’t spend a lot of time tracking down the truth will naturally come to believe it.
If they’re a democrat, just assume that every word out of their mouth or pen is a lie and pay it no mind.
I stopped listening to the nightly “news” 20 years ago and figure it’s as good as adding 20 years to my life.
Okay PenGun, your trite rehearsal of exactly the sort of points that the article cited by Ginny had clearly refuted has convinced me.
I’m so devastated now. Devastated, I tell you.
And distraught (SO Distraught!), over my failure to see through the incessant yammering of Trump’s critics and behold the inherent beauty in surrendering to baseless contempt. In fact,
lemming, sorry, let me surrender now. Ahhhh! That’s better.OK! Now that you have truly shown me the Way, I am totes ready to nevertrump. Nevertrump like nobody’s business. Like, like… like Mitt Romney on a three-week steroid bender!
So [rubs hands together], let’s nevertrump. Okay, here goes: orange-man-bad, but-but-but-whatabout-COVID?, ooh-he’s-so-racist, and-icky, COVID! (squeee!)
There, now. That does feel better. Heck, I can practically fell my Superior Intellect card signing itself in my wallet as we speak.
You know, now that we’re on the same page and all, I guess I can tell you that it’s really too bad the President hasn’t had the advantage of your insights. I mean, if only Trump had realized how much he could learn about the world and it’s problems from the beautiful art form of online gaming. Maybe then he would have had the wisdom and foresight to not do the things that he didn’t do, but that you assure us that he did. (Wait, why do you keep saying, “Pay no attention to that article behind Ginny’s link!”, eh?)
You guys are losing it. ;)
I actually have no favourite in this race. Trump means the dissolution of America proceeds apace, Biden means the deep state will run the show. I like Trump better as he seems a bit less willing to kill people. which is what I care about. Still he has Pompeo as his SecState and that is another pile of nasty.
The facts above are facts. PJ Media is just more stupid.
Your mortality rate is among the highest in the world. You have almost 90,000 new cases today, and people are dying wholesale from this thing. Put your heads back in the sand. I did try, but you are just too dumb.
I am still impressed with President Trump’s leadership during the Chinese Corona infestation. Nothing was known for sure except that the Chinese were lying and the “Italian Statistics”. The President chose a reasonable path of reducing infection with travel restrictions and actions to “flatten the curve” while honoring Federalism. Every state did something different. It was a glorious American response to chaos. The President “led” without causing panic. It was a “war time” action designed to minimize the damage from the virus and to minimize panic.
That was a fabulous course of action executed so that few realized what had been done. A closing down was pointless since there was no reserve of food, medications or fuel in the nation. If the disease was as horrible as it might have been, the disease would have spread whether the food came from a grocery clerk or from a National Guard soldier. Food had to be distributed and along with that would go the Chinese virus. Slowing the spread (“flattening the curve”) allowed the healthcare people to keep up with those who had adverse reactions to the disease. It would have been easier if Obama had replaced the PPE supplies that he had used, but there were votes to buy…..
I have advanced biomedical edcucation and spent several decades in hospital research laboratories. My initial reaction was ,”Who is going to explain this course of action to the public?” I was impressed that the initial public reaction was, “Gung Ho”. That is “Leadership”! Joe Demento and Willy’s Whore could never have pulled it off.
When it hit the fan, President Trump analyzed the threat and choose a pretty damn good course of action. Damn! I am stoked about that action.
By the way, as an ex-plumber, a past hospital employee, and a customer of commercial airlines, masks may be useful but ALWAYS wash your hands before you touch your face or food. Wearing masks, as I see the public do now, would be suicide if the ‘Rona was as deadly as Ebola.
President Trump made the right decision and, most of all, he actually made A decision, while others babbled. The Obama CDC and FDA would have killed millions. The, undoubtedly diverse, CDC couldn’t even package the limited test materials that we had without screwing up.
What none of the politicians will admit, even to themselves, is that we are nearly as powerless as we would have been during the plague years of the 17th century. We have a better idea what we’re up against but, at the beginning, no proven treatment and, as yet, no cure. What progress we’ve made has been remarkable and due in no small part to plain luck. It is mostly a product of the tools and research developed in response to AIDS and other viruses over the last 40 years but should also be seen as an example of the limits of our knowledge.
A friend that should know better remarked that we needed to develop broad spectrum anti-virals. As my father would have said; “People in hell need ice water.”. I’ll bet that same thing has occurred to various drug researchers, all that’s left is figuring out how to make one.
Europe is due for a very long dark winter as their authorities flail about, trying to do the impossible. Instead of seeing the predicted surge of infections as proof that they have very limited power to change the course of the epidemic, they are killing the patient. There never was a possibility that any economy could be shut down enough to prevent the spread of the wuflu once it was circulating, without widespread starvation in days. The emphasis needs to be on maintaining the function of their economies and mitigating the unavoidable disruptions rather than creating more.
I agree with Mike-SMO that Trump’s response has been about as good as we could hope for, given all the conditions. All the people saying otherwise still demand that “somebody” be there to deliver their necessities while they are in hiding.
“There never was a possibility that any economy could be shut down enough to prevent the spread of the wuflu once it was circulating, without widespread starvation in days.”
Today: China 33 new cases no deaths. America 119,145 new cases and 1021 new deaths. No one starved in China.