Coronavirus

[MrFanti]

Truth is most people were downplaying the problem because Chinese communist party wasn’t being truthful. The Chinese who did try to sound warning alarms were muzzled or were disappeared.

Muzzled by the Chinese government.

[filghy2]

At a time when millions of people are having to be on their best behaviour it’s appalling to see one or two on this thread behaving in the worst possible manner. They’ve been banned.

Strangely, African sent me a PM asking why he's been banned. He still doesn't get it.

[filghy2]

It always starts with promises he'll do a great job and ends with a shoulder shrugging exclamation "well who cares if he didn't".

Ironically, the man who has been passing the buck and refusing to accept responsibility is now claiming that he has total authority when it comes to reopening the economy. https://www.politico.com/states/cali...isions-1275506

It's weird that Trump's approval ratings are holding up despite his floundering and blame-shifting and despite the obvious evidence that things are not going well. I can't conceive of this being the case if an Australian leader was behaving in a similar fashion. It's like a case of mass cognitive dissonance: when things are going well Trump is the all-powerful leader who deserves all the credit, but when things go wrong it's something beyond his control and the fault of others. Any fool can look good for a while if he comes into office at the right time, but surely dealing with a national crisis is the President's most important responsibility and the true test of whether he is any good.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Ironically, the man who has been passing the buck and refusing to accept responsibility is now claiming that he has total authority when it comes to reopening the economy. https://www.politico.com/states/cali...isions-1275506

It's weird that Trump's approval ratings are holding up despite his floundering and blame-shifting and despite the obvious evidence that things are not going well. I can't conceive of this being the case if an Australian leader was behaving in a similar fashion. It's like a case of mass cognitive dissonance: when things are going well Trump is the all-powerful leader who deserves all the credit, but when things go wrong it's something beyond his control and the fault of others. Any fool can look good for a while if he comes into office at the right time, but surely dealing with a national crisis is the President's most important responsibility and the true test of whether he is any good.

Trump has fanatical followers who simply know he is doing the right thing, regardless of what anyone--or even he himself--says. I know a Trump diehard who posted something about Biden being incoherent. I asked him if he had watched any of Trump's insane daily press conferences. He said, "I don't need to."

He has millions of supporters who will not abandon him because they know the only alternative is socialism (which they think is identical to communism). They even think that the current supply shortages, stock market crash, and unemployment would be the normal state of things under socialism, and even though I'm no socialist I can't fathom how a capitalist system under strain and not functioning properly proves that socialism is a failure.

[Stavros]

Strangely, African sent me a PM asking why he's been banned. He still doesn't get it.

I also received the same PM and wrote a gentle reply, but it could not be sent as his account is either terminated or he can't receive PMs.

[Stavros]

Amidst all the talk of shortages of equipment or too much of it, what is emerging is a crisis in care/nursing/residential homes, which I assume are more or less the same in Europe as they are in North America. It is a crisis of its own because the people living close to each other have nowhere else to go, other than their bedrooms, and the fear that Covid 19 is not always being recorded as the cause of death.

Last year Boris Johnson gave a speech outside Downing Street in which he said he not only intended to make social care a priority, he had a plan that would be presented to Parliament, but this did not happen. The fact that in the UK and countries like Germany the size of the elderly population, (say 70+) is growing, has made care of the elderly an issue that cannot be ignored for much longer, though I don't know what the right policies might be for an sector of the economy that is more consumptive than it is productive.
When we emerge from this crisis, there will be a long term problem: deciding what part of the economy gets the money required to stimulate jobs; I doubt the care home sector-like mental health- will be the priority.

It also makes me wonder if there will be a sharp divide between people who have savings or a steady income and those out of pocket and unemployed. I noted yesterday there were 6 pages of models on Chaturbate where before there would be four, and I can imagine people desperate now to get away and head off to Thailand or Spain or wherever they can find their desire, and I assume the escorts who are not receiving clients will be in great demand -but will there be a sufficient rise in the volume of 'trade' to restore this part of the economy to where it was before?

[fred41]

It's weird that Trump's approval ratings are holding up despite his floundering and blame-shifting and despite the obvious evidence that things are not going well.

I think Trump’s approval ratings right now are at about 44 %...that’s not good. Even when the papers touted his 49% approval rating , or somewhere around that, that wasn’t good either.

In another post I mentioned how people judge politicians differently both before, and during a crisis (also after the crisis wears off ...but that’s for another conversation).
I’m not going to go back to Roosevelt’s years and I’m only going to site a few polls I saw (you can always google the rest) but here’s my take:
During 911, President Bush’s approval ratings were anywhere between 85% and 92%. His ratings before that weren’t too bad, even if you disagree with him, because he’s a likeable guy, but still. Mayor Giuliani’s (remember him? This was before he went totally nuts...lol) local approval was at something like 79%, with it being only 36% a year before (though his popularity was decent during his early stewardship of the city, when crime reduction was a huge priority). Governor Andrew Cuomo’s is at 87% ( with 70% of Republicans in NYS).

My point is, President Trump has the huge advantage of daily press conferences, when his opponent doesn’t even have the opportunity to really campaign. He also has the advantage of having two health officials , who are blessed in the charisma department. Even the economy isn’t as bad as it totally could be. All he has to do, is sound like a normal human being. He can introduce everyone and step aside...or not come out at all. He can even handle questions - all he has to do is not take any real gotcha bait and perhaps...and this one’s important...perhaps, admit he made some mistakes early on. Shit - almost everyone made mistakes early on (as Stavros mentioned in another post)...a pandemic doesn’t come up every year. At least he would’ve seemed human instead of thin skinned and petty. So my point is, his approval ratings, even when they were 49%, sucked during a crisis. I figure, with a totally non-professional guess for my part, his ratings during this crisis - even during these very polarized times, should be somewhere in the sixties...at the least.

I think he started relatively well early on , during the very first conferences..but as people watched more and more, his personality just couldn’t change. He has the inability to become a bigger person than himself. He’s totally misreading this and fucking it up.

[Stavros]

WHO busts some myths about Covid 19, useful info-
https://www.who.int/emergencies/dise...c/myth-busters

[filghy2]

I think Trump’s approval ratings right now are at about 44 %...that’s not good. Even when the papers touted his 49% approval rating , or somewhere around that, that wasn’t good either.

I guess the other thing is that the states that voted for Trump have not generally been too badly affected as yet. When it really hits them - and it's hard to see why it won't given they've been more lax about social distancing - we should see his support start to erode. It's one thing to believe bullshit when it's about someone else; it's quite another to believe it when it relates to your direct experience.

As far as I know, no president in recent decades has been reelected when the economy has been in recession or just coming out of one. Ford, Carter, and Bush I all lost when the economy was doing poorly. It looks like Trump's strategy may be to blame the Democrat states for not reopening the economy as early as he wants, but I can't see that working - especially as people will be able to see what happens in states that do his bidding.

[broncofan]

Strangely, African sent me a PM asking why he's been banned. He still doesn't get it.

He sent me two PMs so I'm flattered he likes me twice as much. Then again the second one was on the profane side. I tried to respond and say something nice but could not.

There is a belief among some Trump supporters that harsh criticism of him is partisan. I watched two or three of his press conferences early on and I don't think I could root harder for someone to sound like they're knowledgeable and a professional. There is no standard by which he could be judged competent or even to have behaved like an adult.

I'm sure a big part of the problem is that he hasn't filled key positions with qualified people but instead with people he trusts who have no business being there. There is no doubt we will have to restart the economy before a vaccine is ready and Trump will be judged by whether he does it at the right time and whether in the places he does it there is sufficient testing to prevent outbreaks. He has a second chance as we go to the bottom of these state curves to do a thoughtful job, but I've come to expect incompetence followed by denial. Also, I'm of the opinion the federal government can't force states to open businesses as that's a state police power, but if states do it on their own the federal government should be facilitating it with lots of testing.