Tangent Thread - P&R Edition

People knew exactly who Donald Trump was when they elected him in 2016.

So when Donald Trump does Donald Trump things, and his followers follow him, that's still on the people. 

And don't kid yourself. Donald Trump also follows his followers. The few times he capitulated to his more moderate advisers, Trump got roasted on social media and typically walked his comments back the next day. 

Donald Trump isn't responsible for our lurch to the Bats#!t Right. He just exploited it.

If we could go back in time and kidnap Donald Trump, we'd merely have President Ted Cruz 

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
People knew exactly who Donald Trump was when they elected him in 2016.

So when Donald Trump does Donald Trump things, and his followers follow him, that's still on the people. 

And don't kid yourself. Donald Trump also follows his followers. The few times he capitulated to his more moderate advisers, Trump got roasted on social media and typically walked his comments back the next day. 

Donald Trump isn't responsible for our lurch to the Bats#!t Right. He just exploited it.

If we could go back in time and kidnap Donald Trump, we'd merely have President Ted Cruz 
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*nods head to the bolded statement*

Well said.

 
And if Donald Trump never existed we would still have a Covid pandemic.  We would still be seeing similar numbers to what we have now.  We would still be seeing people pretending it isn't real.  Blaming people ignoring guidelines and recommendations on Trump is just obviously ignorant.  Trump is just an easy symbol for idiots to follow blindly.  Hey I think the government is corrupt, shady and completely untrustworthy too.  But I still never voted for the guy.

 
Redux said:
And if Donald Trump never existed we would still have a Covid pandemic.  We would still be seeing similar numbers to what we have now.  We would still be seeing people pretending it isn't real.  Blaming people ignoring guidelines and recommendations on Trump is just obviously ignorant.  Trump is just an easy symbol for idiots to follow blindly.  Hey I think the government is corrupt, shady and completely untrustworthy too.  But I still never voted for the guy.
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The bold is a theoretical that, of course, can never be proven one way or another. The underlined is a definite. 

 
DevoHusker said:
The bold is a theoretical that, of course, can never be proven one way or another. The underlined is a definite. 
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I think the first line is still an absolute definite.  Nobody without actual telepathy and the power to freeze out the rest of the world was going to stop Covid from reaching American shores.

 
It's pretty clear that the coronavirus is profoundly impacting countries around the world that are not headed by Donald Trump. 

It's also starkly evident that no country has done a worse job of handling the pandemic than the United States of America.

If Donald Trump wasn't President, would thousands fewer American's have died? 

Speculation. But really, really credible speculation. 

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
It's pretty clear that the coronavirus is profoundly impacting countries around the world that are not headed by Donald Trump. 

It's also starkly evident that no country has done a worse job of handling the pandemic than the United States of America.

If Donald Trump wasn't President, would thousands fewer American's have died? 

Speculation. But really, really credible speculation. 
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I just don't see a Hillary administration doing any better.  Or a Pence administration for that matter had Trump successfully been ousted.  The land of the free means the land of the f#&%ed when s#!t hits the fan.  Luckily this pandemic is highly survivable for most.  Imagine if that weren't the case, America would be starting from scratch.

 
I feel very confident saying (knowing what I know now) that this pandemic would've been handled better in the U.S. if Clinton had been in office.

That said, to my memory, conservatives didn't seem to naysay the virus until Trump and the administration started naysaying the virus. From there, not only was it the idiots agreeing with Trump, but conservatives agreeing with Trump, questioning doctors, not trusting science. Does that happen with another Republican president? Maybe. Tough to tell.

Stupidity has rarely flowed to these levels with any other president, at least in my lifetime.

 
Redux said:
I just don't see a Hillary administration doing any better.  Or a Pence administration for that matter had Trump successfully been ousted.  The land of the free means the land of the f#&%ed when s#!t hits the fan.  Luckily this pandemic is highly survivable for most.  Imagine if that weren't the case, America would be starting from scratch.
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I think it depends on whether or not you believe Republicans would've still taken the virus less seriously than Democrats regardless of who was in the White House. Trump and his administration have done a lot to dismiss and downplay the virus over the last year. I have a hard time believing Clinton would've behaved the same way.

Obviously, none of us can say for certain, but the history books will not be very kind to Trump and republicans on this.

 
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I would argue the pandemic may have been handled better worldwide had Trump not been president of the U.S. Not saying it had to be Clinton, or even a Democrat, but someone who wouldn't have dismantled the team in China. The U.S. being in China to help them with this stuff wouldn't have merely helped the U.S. Regardless of how badly this has gone since the outbreak occurred, there was a reason China allowed us to be there helping them.

Obviously there still may have been a major outbreak but we can't really know how much better it would have been contained with them there.

I'm sure there are lots and lots of disasters that have been averted that we will never know about because a few experts were in the right place doing what they were supposed to. And this is kind of a segue but I think of things like deadly fires in clubs. You have a nightclub catch fire and it kills 100 people and you know the inspector f#&%ed up and his name is published, but you never hear about the other hundreds of thousands of inspectors who prevented mass deaths by doing their jobs. In fact you never think of their existence (unless you own a business). We can't know that the Americans pulled out of China who were experts on this stuff wouldn't have been those people.

 
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Redux said:
Were these people listening to Trump?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/crowds-celebrate-biden-harris-win-near-white-house/2020/11/07/fc605da2-c485-4b66-b59d-45f0cd3496ad_video.html

Were these people listening to Trump?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Autonomous_Zone

Were these people listening to Trump?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mlive.com/news/2020/05/police-brutality-protests-in-michigan-what-you-need-to-know-from-this-weekends-rallies-riots.html%3foutputType=amp

Flat out saying "citizens aren't screwing this up, only Trumpers are!" is a downright lie.

And pointing out how stupid that statement is doesn't mean I'm defending Trump so save your breath, we've all heard that classic.
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You know what you see in those pictures that's hard to find at a Trump rally? Masks.

 
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ZRod said:
You know what you see in those pictures that's hard to find at a Trump rally? Masks.
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You're definitely not wrong.... It's still incredibly hypocritical to be 'okay' with those kinds of massive crowds.... The suggested and/or enforcement of preventing those kinds of large gatherings doesn't come with the caveat of "unless all of you wear masks". 

 
I don't think many people are arguing that there is never ever an excuse to not socially distance. Not socially distancing in order to protest being asked to wear a mask is the #1 most dumbs#!t reason. That doesn't mean it's more likely to cause transfer of the virus than not socially distancing while attending an indoor funeral. The former should get told they're idiots and to stop being idiots. The latter should be asked to wear masks leading up to, during, and after the funeral, and to quarantine afterward. The people who are the most culpable are the ones that ignore the advice out of their own dumbassery or selfish desires and do things that really shouldn't be prioritized over protecting people from Covid, like going to a bar. People who are prioritizing important things can help spread it too but they aren't doing it out of a place of dumbs#!ttery and they tend to wear masks in higher numbers. I think this distinction matters.

 
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