Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Bark louder, little dog.

Let’s finish the job.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

No Justins, No Peace

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

I was promised a recession.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / They’re Predicting 3k Deaths a Day This Summer and 40% of the Public Will Vote for Trump No Matter What

Reader Interactions

94Comments

  2. 2.

    Mary G

    Also, too:

    CA city official removed after expressing hope that #coronavirus pandemic will "cull the herd" of elderly, disabled, chronically ill, and homeless people. Of course he fought back, claiming his "First Amendment rights" bla bla bla… https://t.co/weV3bqc3Eo— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) May 5, 2020

  4. 4.

    hells littlest angel

    Forty percent of 3000 deaths a day is 1200. That could change some hearts and minds among the survivors.

  9. 9.

    Subsole

    Depending on casualty distribution, there may not be 40% to vote for him…

  11. 11.

    Jeffro

    I did not realize that when you multiply 2+ decades of non-stop fear-mongering and demonizing the left x a 24/7 ‘fair and balanced’ propaganda x racism x Dunning-Krueger x billions in ‘dark money’ political donations, minus any understanding whatsoever of science, citizenship, ethics, and the rule of law, what you get is 3,000 dead Americans per day.

    I know, right?  It’s weird but I double-checked my math and sure enough, that’s what it comes out to.  A 9/11 per day, every day, all summer long.  Or 750 BPDs (Benghazis Per Day).

  12. 12.

    cokane

    The number is probably higher than that actually. McCain got 45.7% of the vote in 2008, which is probably the low water mark possible in our partisan age.

  13. 13.

    Mary G

    “He’s a corporate stooge Establishment Democrat,” except

    Field organizers for Biden’s campaign ratified a union contract that will give them a $15-an-hour minimum wage, overtime pay and a grievance process.

    For the first time, the staff of a major party’s presidential nominee will be covered by a union pact. https://t.co/RVktIQ4w0J
    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 4, 2020

  14. 14.

    columbusqueen

    @hells littlest angel: I doubt it. Forty percent of our fellow Americans are a lost cause, & I’ll never forgive or forget their BS.  Hope they realize they’ve earned a special place in hell, esp. my FIL.

  15. 15.

    scav

    Apparently, the current right’s only objection to 9/11 is that it was foreigners stealing a job that red-blooded ‘mercans could do themselves — and every day of the week as well. ‘Mercan greatness and pro-duct-ivity!

  16. 16.

    Patricia Kayden

    Among the many stunning discoveries of the #COVID19 era, it turns out Italians have more self-discipline—and a more organized government—than Americans.— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) May 4, 2020

  18. 18.

    Kent

    It’s like we got this far and then the country is just slowly giving up on the effort.  Too much trouble.  All the rest of us are basically going to be on our own to keep safe.  The difficulty of which will depend largely on one’s economic status.

    Only thing that may change the course is if we have another NYC style outbreak in a red state city with people in the hallways sharing ventilators, corpses stacking up outside and all the rest.  Otherwise it’s just going to be along slow ugly bleed until we finally reach a vaccine.

  21. 21.

    lamh36

    @Isikoff

    Breaking:Secretary of Senate turns down Biden request to search for records of any complaint filed by Tara Reade. In email, spokeswoman says legal counsel has advised there is “no discretion” to search for such records because they would be confidential under current law.

    9:25 AM – 4 May 2020
    https://twitter.com/Isikoff/status/1257315337361481728

    Since the files are her personnel files couldn’t Reade give permission for the files to be released if she was so inclined.

  22. 22.

    cain

    @Kent:

    They’ve thought about that – the hope that it’s gonna be all be immigrant and black communities. They’ve looked at the percentages of races of the victim. If it was suburban white you can bet this won’t be happening. ???

  24. 24.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Kent: Having observed, for a time quite close up, the “Maidan” uprising in Ukraine which ended up, after around three months, overthrowing a Russian-backed gangster as President, I’ve often had the opportunity to say that Americans aren’t up for that kind of disciplined, sustained protest. People were out in the streets non-stop throughout Kyiv’s winter (yeah, it gets cold) to accomplish this. Americans can’t spend a month sitting on their fucking couch eating take-out pizza and watching Netflix – that’s too much of a burden. Overthrow a government? Nah, I need to get my nails done, doncha know?

  25. 25.

    Mike in NC

    Per a previous thread, 50 years ago millions of assholes giddily voted for Nixon. Too many of them are still out there wearing MAGA merchandise.

  26. 26.

    West of the Rockies

    Trump has revealed to this approaching-60 white male that 40-43% of my demographic are racist, homophobic, misogynistic A-holes.

    The sky is blue, water wet, and the above statement are facts.

  28. 28.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Models shift to predict dramatically more U.S. deaths as states relax social distancing

    A key model of the coronavirus pandemic favored by the White House nearly doubled its prediction Monday for how many people will die from the virus in the U.S. by August – primarily because states are reopening too soon.
    The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine is now projecting 134,000 coronavirus-related fatalities, up from a previous prediction of 72,000. Factoring in the scientists’ margin of error, the new prediction ranges from 95,000 to 243,000.

    Dr. Christopher Murray, the director of IHME, told reporters on a call Monday the primary reason for the increase is many states’ “premature relaxation of social distancing.”

    For the first time, Murray explained, the model is factoring in data from four different cell phone providers showing a major uptick in Americans’ going out in public.
    This rise of mobility in the last week or 10 days is likely leading to an increase in transmission, he said.
    Monday’s update is the fourth since the model debuted in late March. It’s been relied on by the White House in recent months because it presents a more optimistic forecast on health system capacity, cases and deaths than other experts have predicted.
    Even with its latest forecast, the University of Washington model is still far more optimistic than a model developed by Johns Hopkins for CDC predicting as many as 3,000 deaths per day by June. Murray said that model, which the New York Times published Monday, is likely inaccurate.
    “Our numbers are nowhere near that level,” he said, noting that IHME is forecasting 890 deaths per day by June 1. “This relates very much to whether the models think there is going to be a large, New York-style epidemic in some states. We don’t see that because we’re building into the modeling the rising temperatures and rising testing and contact tracing. That will put the brakes on transmission enough that we won’t see 3,000 deaths a day by June 1.”
    In a statement on Monday evening, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health called the leaked models “preliminary analyses,“ saying that they had been provided to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help in scenario planning, were not a final version and were not meant to be used or presented as forecasts.
    Still, the statement added, “the information illustrates that there are some scenarios, including the premature relaxation of social distancing, that are likely to cause significant increases in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United States.“
    […]
    Murray also noted that the updated University of Washington model also now takes into account the ramping up of testing in most states, as well as warming temperatures heading into late spring and early summer. But he cautioned that the impact of temperature on coronavirus transmission is not yet fully understood, and likely will not be for several more months.
    For now, IHME is assuming that every degree Celsius the temperature goes up will lead to a 2 percent decline in transmission.
    “Are we sure about that? No,” he said.

    I think the IMHE model is full of shit and nobody should use it for public health policy.

  30. 30.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    I think they’re putting that number out there so when the daily death count is around 1,500 they can claim victory.

  31. 31.

    Baud

    @West of the Rockies:

    Trump has revealed to this approaching-60 white male that 40-43% of my demographic are racist, homophobic, misogynistic A-holes

    I don’t know how you got that number but it might be on the low end.

  33. 33.

    Mary G

    @cain: Sorta, but

    (CNBC) Former Bernie Sanders staffer files charge alleging retaliation for union activities
    PUBLISHED THU, JUL 25 2019
    The charge lists seven instances of unfair labor practices, including three accusations that Sanders’ campaign fired employees for joining or supporting a union.

    In better if very sad news, here’s a real American hero who gave his life fighting the pandemic: (ETA WaPo story)

    Remembering Paul Cary, the Colorado paramedic who voluntarily drove to New York to help fight coronavirus. Cary, a 66-year-old father of two and grandfather of four, died due to coronavirus after spending several days on a ventilator at an NY hospitalhttps://t.co/nS8F8lLhpT— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) May 5, 2020

    NY gave him the full treatment, including the bagpiper playing Amazing Grace.

  34. 34.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Having observed, for a time quite close up, the “Maidan” uprising in Ukraine which ended up, after around three months, overthrowing a Russian-backed gangster as President, I’ve often had the opportunity to say that Americans aren’t up for that kind of disciplined, sustained protest. People were out in the streets non-stop throughout Kyiv’s winter (yeah, it gets cold) to accomplish this. Americans can’t spend a month sitting on their fucking couch eating take-out pizza and watching Netflix – that’s too much of a burden. Overthrow a government? Nah, I need to get my nails done, doncha know?

    When millions of Americans go hungry is when you’ll see that kind of action. Americans as a whole suffer from being citizens of the sole remaining superpower; we’re spoiled.

  37. 37.

    Patricia Kayden

    To understand how Trump is treated worse than Lincoln you must embrace the same universe where Mike Flynn was treated unfairly for lying to the FBI, Diamond & Silk deserve their jobs back, Stephen Miller should write speeches for the President, and Neo-Nazis are very fine people.— JeremyNewberger (@jeremynewberger) May 4, 2020

  38. 38.

    moops

    @Kent: Almost every unmanaged city is going to have about a 50% intensity NYC style outbreak.   It is inevitable.  The populace is warned and fearful, and that will create just enough social distancing to prevent the same ultimate over-capacity that NYC experienced.  But their ICUs are all going to be running at full capacity sometime in the coming months.  NYC will be loaning them ventilators.

  39. 39.

    cain

    just note, that time doesn’t stand still – every month new people will be hitting that danger zone for corona death..  People are aging. So if you’ve aged 6 months and COVID 2: electric boogaloo – you might get fucked that round.

  41. 41.

    dmsilev

    Holy shit. I said in the previous thread that the White House’s “cubic” model predicting that deaths would go to zero on the 15th was probably due to making the sort of mistake that wouldn’t be tolerated in a  freshman lab course (doing a polynomial regression and just blindly extrapolating). I tried it myself using the COVID Tracking Project data and, well, I claim vindication:

    https://imgur.com/gRFVD71

    Where’s my TA Red Pen?

    (by choosing where you start the fit, you can change the shape to just about whatever you want. This one fits from March 29 through yesterday)

  42. 42.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Americans are no different than anyone else deep down.

    Bullshit. Compared to peoples with a real history, Americans are soft, flabby and largely ahistorical. WWII is still within living memory for a lot of people. The US sacrificed somewhere a bit north of 400,000 people. The Soviet Union, north of 25 million. If you think that doesn’t have a profound effect on collective memory you are delusional.

  43. 43.

    Mary G

    ?

    Notably, the White House coronavirus task force led by @VP Pence did not meet today, and largely has stopped meeting, signaling the federal government is not coming up with any actions or plans, other than Trump tweeting and Jared confiscating for “our” national stockpile.— Amy Siskind ?️‍? (@Amy_Siskind) May 4, 2020

  45. 45.

    dmsilev

    @dmsilev: Forgot to mention: Notice how the “prediction” curve slices right through zero and goes negative fast? That’s right: Zombies. T-10 days and counting.

  46. 46.

    TS (the original)

    The projections have the deaths trending to the red states. Will be interesting to see the level of support they get from the trump administration compared to what NY/California/Washington etc received.

  47. 47.

    moops

    @Mary G:   This tells me that Trump and his cabal don’t think they are going to win re-election.   If they thought they could win then they would want to at least try to get the plague down so they could get back to normal life in the WH the way they liked it.

    Trump just plans to pocket his campaign funds then start up his own cable network.

  48. 48.

    Martin

    So long as the right 3,000 people are dying, of course they’re okay with that.

    Remember, the base of the Republican party still celebrate the killing of 360,000 US soldiers. They continue to defend that to this day. It was a good thing in their view.

  49. 49.

    wseattle

    @dmsilev: Your earlier explanation sounded like Occam’s answer to me and this seems like pretty good proof. The folks in charge don’t know what they don’t know.

  50. 50.

    andy

    … and we live in a security state now because these people freaked out on 9/11 when we lost only 2500.

  51. 51.

    TS (the original)

    @lamh36:

    Since the files are her personnel files couldn’t Reade give permission for the files to be released if she was so inclined.

    How could she do that when she knows there is no file on her complaint.

  53. 53.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Gin & Tonic:
    I edited my comment to make it clear that yes, Americans as a whole “suffer” from living in the sole remaining superpower. However, if push came to shove, absolutely people would rebel.

    Compared to peoples with a real history,

    Who gets to say what people have a “real history”? What does that even mean?

    The Soviet Union, north of 25 million.

    Not to denigrate the Soviet soldiers who died fighting the Reich, but weren’t a lot of the deaths because Stalin was incompetent? He also purged the top echelons of the Red Army a few years prior because he was paranoid. The SU was led by a crazy, sociopathic madman

  57. 57.

    cain

    I was going through my voter pamphlet today for Oregon – and it’s amazing how Republican candidates use the language of grievance on a constant basis. It is pervasive. I generally don’t see that with Democratic candidates – there is some mind you – mostly around big money, corps and the like. But generally not against government like the Republicans. There is a clear delineation between the language used between the two parties.

    I find it interesting that there were no local green party candidates or anything like that.

  58. 58.

    West of the Rockies

    Anyone regardless of race, sex, sexual identity, or religion who supports Trump is a toad.  That, yes, 57-63% of my cohort supports him makes me ill.

  59. 59.

    Eolirin

    @Gin & Tonic: It’s like you vanished the whole 19 and 20th centuries. The labor movement and the civil rights movements just never happened I guess. Why don’t you go tell John Lewis how weak and incapable of sustained social action the American people are and see what he tells you…

  60. 60.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @WaterGirl:

    Especially after Trump’s “inject disinfectant to kill the coronavirus” comment. Anytime anybody tries to talk up Trump, I will break that whopper out

  61. 61.

    Citizen Alan

    I genuinely think that for the most part, Republicans are fine with the Covid-19 death toll. It will disproportionately hit urban areas, prisons, meatpacking plants, and nursing homes. IOW, Democrats, blacks, immigrants, and old people who aren’t wealthy. And they’re perfectly fine with the decimation of those groups. They’re even willing to court death for themselves and their “loved ones” so long as we die in greater numbers.

  62. 62.

    Sally

    I missed the back yard thread but I’d like to add my suggestion to John’s yard anyway. A Hills Hoist rotary clothes line. Wind and solar drying of clothes, toy for young children, I love mine and take an outdoor clothesline with me wherever I have to move to in the world. In some places it has been frowned upon, but you can take it from my cold, dead hands. I also love the look of them in a yard and revel in the small satisfaction of seeing my washing all clean and smelling sunshiny whirling around and around in the breeze. I sometimes have to cope with a removable plastic one, but am currently the happy owner of the original steel type. Ha. Small things amusing a small mind!

  63. 63.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The 40% should be culled. They’re worthless and weak. I figure most of them will expire before they finish their 10th pushup, let alone 20.

  65. 65.

    theturtlemoves

    @cain: My daughter, who gets to vote in her first primary this time around, was reading through that pamphlet as well.  She read aloud the statements from Robert Schwartz, running for US Senator on the R ticket and holy crap.  Dude is a sentient RedState comments thread.

  66. 66.

    Morzer

    @Mary G: Trump steaks, Trump vodka, Trump casinos, Trump plague.. why not a Trump “news” group to go bankrupt as well?

  68. 68.

    Morzer

    @Eolirin:

    Gin and Tonic is talking about contemporary Americans.  I might have used the rather large anti-Trump protests and Blue Wave as a counter-example.

  70. 70.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    If this is what the CDC is talking about this makes no sense

    https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/the-cost-of-reopening-the-economy-in-lives-201007725.html

    According to this California will lose 49,000 people in the next five months if we keep on doing what we are doing right now. We’ve only lost 2,000 so far (ok, 2,600 if the +30% under count applies in California) We would have to lose five times that amount everyone month from here out out to get to that.

    Not to mention, the “save the economy open it all” option is 74,000 dead in five months. How is that not going to screw the state economy?

  71. 71.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @PsiFighter37: Prezactly.  Maintaining an illusion of legitimacy to Reade’s shaky claims is essential.  Keep those unknowns out there for the vile vermin of the Village to feast on.

  72. 72.

    Butter Emails

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Bullshit. Compared to peoples with a real history, Americans are soft, flabby and largely ahistorical. WWII is still within living memory for a lot of people. The US sacrificed somewhere a bit north of 400,000 people. The Soviet Union, north of 25 million. If you think that doesn’t have a profound effect on collective memory you are delusional.

    It’s true. Russians are very good at dying for their country and their country has been very good at providing them with opportunities to do so. Congratulations I guess.

  74. 74.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Citizen Alan: I think it’s dumber than that; these people are anti-science. When you understand science you understand are absolute empirical truths* (*to the best of our knowledge, and subject to change when more information becomes available)  The old word died when this virus started and we are living in a new one now. The Know Nothing’s brains live in a simple, static, cartoon universe and have no way to deal with a changing reality.

  76. 76.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    and since this is a slowing thread and there’s a fresh open one upstairs, I’ll add the comment I erased when this one was a youngling: A good number of Bernie Sanders’ top advisers and surrogates are hoping trump wins, so they can say ‘we told you so!’

  79. 79.

    Ruckus

    @Gin & Tonic:

    It’s not just the numbers. It’s the cost to the individual. Everyone in Europe suffered from WWII basically directly. And those that lived through it had to rebuild and didn’t forget. My father served in WWII but would not talk about it and I know of a number of people who tell the same story, they are my age, born less than 4 yrs after the end of WWII but I didn’t see any part of the suffering or hear the stories. We were the victors, we moved on far easier. The people in Europe had to rebuild, we didn’t. The people in Europe lost family, not just soldiers. And they lost property and governments. Which I’d bet was your point.

  80. 80.

    Rand Careaga

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    weren’t a lot of the deaths because Stalin was incompetent? He also purged the top echelons of the Red Army a few years prior because he was paranoid. The SU was led by a crazy, sociopathic madman

    Stalin was cruel, cynical, vindictive and shading toward outright paranoia in his declining years, but he was not incompetent. He was an intelligent man, albeit with a worldview rigidly constrained within a Procrustean Marxist-Leninist framework, and its true that his prewar purges (and his suspicion of warnings of the German invasion from the UK, which he suspected—not without grounds—of a “let’s you and him fight” approach to international chess) came back to bite the USSR, but the Soviet dictator was not, pace Trotsky, the plodding thug his defeated rival has depicted, whose only gift was a low bureaucratic cunning. He was an extraordinarily hard worker capable of mastering an enormous volume of of detail, and this, together with the fact that he was culturally equipped* to appreciate culture at a much more sophisticated level than he was inclined to countenance in his unhappy subjects, is part of what made him so lethal to artists, poets, composers under his regime.

    Stephen Kotkin is at work on the concluding volume of a three-part biography of Stalin, which we are promised by year’s end. I warmly recommend this opus. Like the author, I deplore the man, but he commands Kotkin’s and my reluctant, appalled respect.

    *As a youth he was regarded in Georgia as a promising young poet.

  82. 82.

    rikyrah

    @Sally:

    this takes me back to my grandmother ‘s house in  rural Mississippi. Those clothes pins…watching the sheets dry…running through them in the wind?

  83. 83.

    jonas

    Well, they’re assuming the majority of those deaths will be in “blue” urban areas where they can tell their base “See? That’s what happens when you support dense housing, immigration, and public transportation! Har! Serves ’em right!”

    But I’m not so sure things will turn out that way…

  84. 84.

    dww44

    @rikyrah: There’s no better sleep than on sheets that were hung outside to dry.  I can still remember the way my Mom’s smelled.

  85. 85.

    wjs

    @Rand Careaga: I firmly believe The Death of Stalin was a documentary and was closer to the truth than anything we’re ever going to get out of an appraisal of Stalin.

  86. 86.

    The Lodger

    @cain: You won’t see the Pacific Green Party,  Independent party (yes, that is a thing) or any other minor party on a primary ballot.

  87. 87.

    Brachiator

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: 

    and since this is a slowing thread and there’s a fresh open one upstairs, I’ll add the comment I erased when this one was a youngling: A good number of Bernie Sanders’ top advisers and surrogates are hoping trump wins, so they can say ‘we told you so!’

    Sadly, I think you might be right about this.

  90. 90.

    terry chay

    @Citizen Alan: It will disproportionately hit urban areas, prisons, meatpacking plants, and nursing homes. IOW, Democrats, blacks, immigrants, and old people who aren’t wealthy.

    More like democrats who don’t vote, people who can’t vote (and their Republican-voting corrections officers), people who can’t vote (and their Republican voting supervisors), and 2:1 Republican vs.Democratic voters (with a 20% mortality rate to boot).

    Probably going to backfire for them.

  91. 91.

    elboku

    I almost never comment but the reality is the voters are almost generally white people.

     

    We have a white people hate others problem. And I am as white as anyone.

  92. 92.

    sherparick

    @Linnaeus: It is called dying for Whiteness.  The majority of White people are all a little nuts when about their special snowflakeness status as White people, their seething resentment of non-White people  who are not properly subordinated, and Trump as their Avatar for Making America White Again.

  93. 93.

    J R in WV

    @Patricia Kayden:

    To understand how Trump is treated worse than Lincoln…

    You must share the delusion that Trump was shot in the back of his head at a show with his wife just the other night. Otherwise Trump cannot be treated worse than Lincoln. ‘Nuff said!

    ETA, to be clear, I’m not trying to attack Patricia here, she is quoting someone else, and I’m quoting her quote to make m own point about Trump and his delusions.

  94. 94.

    J R in WV

    @Gin & Tonic:

    WWII is still within living memory for a lot of people. The US sacrificed somewhere a bit north of 400,000 people.

    And we will be very lucky if we don’t lose more people in this Trumpian plague than we lost in WW II…

Comments are closed.