I just wanted to say it out loud because it’s so fucking hard to believe.
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by John Cole| 94 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Green Balloons, Serenity Now!
I just wanted to say it out loud because it’s so fucking hard to believe.
Comments are closed.
Mary G
Team Bugs.
Mary G
Also, too:
Linnaeus
“There are more important things than living.”
hells littlest angel
Forty percent of 3000 deaths a day is 1200. That could change some hearts and minds among the survivors.
MP
Just a tad over what Hoover got.
Baud
@Linnaeus: Like Cleek’s Law.
PsiFighter37
So much winning.
MattF
So, with the Trump con, it’s your money and your life.
Subsole
Depending on casualty distribution, there may not be 40% to vote for him…
Linnaeus
@Baud: It seems that there are few things more certain these days than Cleek’s Law.
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).
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.
Mary G
“He’s a corporate stooge Establishment Democrat,” except
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.
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!
Patricia Kayden
bluehill
Ride or die going from motto to credo
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.
rikyrah
Accept it and move on, Cole.
cain
@Mary G:
Did even Bernie do that?
lamh36
Since the files are her personnel files couldn’t Reade give permission for the files to be released if she was so inclined.
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. ???
rikyrah
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?
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.
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.
John Revolta
Just think of them as fallen soldiers in the Glorious War Against Socialiamalized Medicine.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Models shift to predict dramatically more U.S. deaths as states relax social distancing
I think the IMHE model is full of shit and nobody should use it for public health policy.
PsiFighter37
@lamh36: Just Moscow Mitch trying to ratfuck Democrats, as usual.
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.
Baud
@West of the Rockies:
I don’t know how you got that number but it might be on the low end.
RSA
For context (from the CDC):
We’re talking about an increase of 40%.
Mary G
@cain: Sorta, but
In better if very sad news, here’s a real American hero who gave his life fighting the pandemic: (ETA WaPo story)
NY gave him the full treatment, including the bagpiper playing Amazing Grace.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Gin & Tonic:
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.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Lemmings are indeed hard to understand. I know a few myself. They’re going to ride this horse all the way down to the bottom of the cliff. Luckily, we all don’t have to.
John Revolta
@West of the Rockies: You’re too modest. 62% of white men voted Trump. Your numbers are for ALL voters.
ETA: yeah, I’m one too. Disgustin’ ain’t it?
Patricia Kayden
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.
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.
Mary G
When Fox News isn’t enough:
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)
Gin & Tonic
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
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.
Mary G
?
rikyrah
University of Washington forecast modeling now predicting 134,000 dead by August 1st.??
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
andy
… and we live in a security state now because these people freaked out on 9/11 when we lost only 2500.
TS (the original)
@lamh36:
How could she do that when she knows there is no file on her complaint.
John Revolta
@Mary G: the White House coronavirus task force led by @VP Pence did not meet today, and largely has stopped meeting,
I actually feel safer already.
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.
Who gets to say what people have a “real history”? What does that even mean?
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
WaterGirl
It’s unfathomable that half the people in this country think Trump is doing a good job. The mind boggles.
eric
@Mary G: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftHXmoUXyy8
WaterGirl
@Jeffro: I would like to marry this comment.
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.
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.
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…
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
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.
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!
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.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Citizen Alan:
It will hit rural areas as well. People still have to go to the store, after all. They’re fools
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.
Morzer
@Mary G: Trump steaks, Trump vodka, Trump casinos, Trump plague.. why not a Trump “news” group to go bankrupt as well?
Chris T.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yes, this is the “but Lysol” answer to any bogus “butter emails” type argument.
(The “but Lysol” objection has the added power of being true.)
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.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike in NC: Nixon was framed!
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?
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.
Butter Emails
@Gin & Tonic:
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.
Morzer
https://twitter.com/emilyrauhala/status/1257455813720977408
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.
Morzer
@Butter Emails: In Vladimir’s Russia, empty swimming pools are just an opportunity for synchronized skydiving from the 30th floor.
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!’
danielx
Saw a piece today on CNN talking about how three Russian docs have fallen from hospital windows in the last couple of weeks. This seems a little unusual even for Russia, where any bad thing is possible.
Even Trump’s minions haven’t resorted to defenestrating docs – yet.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I won’t disagree.
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.
Rand Careaga
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
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.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
By Nixon but still……
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?
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…
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.
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.
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.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Sadly, I think you might be right about this.
terry chay
@cokane: McCain was not an incumbent.
terry chay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It was always full of shit, The only reason it was cited and then used by the administration was because it was the most optimistic model out there, until Dow 36,000 started playing with Excel.
terry chay
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.
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.
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.
J R in WV
@Patricia Kayden:
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.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
And we will be very lucky if we don’t lose more people in this Trumpian plague than we lost in WW II…