Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

This really is a full service blog.

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

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

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

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL

No Justins, No Peace

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / Compare and Contrast

Compare and Contrast

by | 114 Comments

This post is in: 

October 25, 2019

 


 

TODAY

What was predicted a priori has come to pass.

Reader Interactions

114Comments

  1. 1.

    International Mikey

    I just want to scream in the face of everyone in my neighborhood who flies a trump flag or has a trump sign in his lawn.  I hate that I have to share my beautiful neighborhood with these morons.

  2. 2.

    Chetan Murthy

    You know, there’s this plague across our land.  The plague, when it infects an individual, well, they’re physically damaged, sometimes their brains are affected, and it takes months or years to really recover.  And people can have long-haul symptoms, too, affecting their lives for months and years.  And then there are super-spreaders, and they can infect hundreds or thousands of people.

    Gosh, but the thing is, the government spends gazillions of dollars to attack this plague, throws people in prison (where they spread it to others), punishes people who are infected in draconian ways, and in general is willing to curtail the civil rights of Americans in umpteen thousands of ways.  And many, many Trump supporters are 100% behind these measures to counter this plague.  They see no contradiction between our freedoms, and fighting this plague.

    Oh, you thought I was talking about Covid?  No, I was talking about illegal drugs.

    Yeah, it’s a fucking free country alright.

  5. 5.

    Jeffro

    @International Mikey: 

    As of yesterday, there was only one MAGAt in our neighborhood with a ‘trumpov/Pence 2020’ sign up in his yard.

    Well, more accurately, about two weeks ago he had ‘a’ sign up in his yard…across the past two weeks a banner has gone up in his window, another yard sign has popped up, and – I kid you not – the guy is hanging vertical banners on the front posts of his porch. One of which reads, in this nice quiet suburban neighborhood, “No more bullshit!”

    So very much economic anxiety out here as we approach Election Day…

  6. 6.

    zhena gogolia

    @International Mikey: 
    Come sit by me (6 feet apart)!
    I feel as if I’m living among monsters. Although there are more Biden-Harris signs on my street than Agolf Shitler, there are two right across the street from me, along with “WE BACK THE BADGE.”
    These big manly men who want to bow down and kiss the boots of the police. Vomit.

  7. 7.

    tokyokie

    I early voted to make America great again — which means I voted a straight Democratic ticket.

  8. 8.

    Ruckus

    Even without conservative stupidity the country they want does not exist. Even China has seen that they can’t live with the kind of restrictions that conservatives want. There are too many of us to live in a conservative society. And to American conservatives that is the point. They want everyone that isn’t them to die off because they can not see/understand a world that doesn’t have complete and utter symmetry. They are afraid of differences, I think mainly because if you look at history, many if not most advancements in all avenues of life have been accomplished by people that do not look like them. The woman who did most of the math for initial space travel using pencil and paper, the women who worked in the factories making and flying replacement planes to England in WWII, the black fighter pilots who flew P-51s and had an extremely good record, also in WWII. The world is full of people who don’t look like the conservative ideal who are smart, hard working, and far less selfish, who accomplish far more than conservatives actually ever can, because they don’t limit themselves and their world.

  9. 9.

    David Rickard

    @International Mikey: Back in 2016, I said that Trump’s supporters were split between morons (the mental defectives who thought he was competent to be president) and assholes (the moral defectives who knew he’d be a disaster but assumed they/their pet causes would profit under him).
    In 2020, they’re all assholes.

  13. 13.

    Jeffro

    @David Rickard:In 2020, they’re all assholes.

    Yup…mental and moral defectives, as you noted.

    Randians, racists, and religious-right nuts: the three types trying to maintain their death-grip (and I do mean ‘death’) on power in America.

    Our record numbers of voters are coming for you, Rs.

  14. 14.

    Brachiator

    Meadows: “We’re not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics.”
    Tapper: Why aren’t we going to control it?
    Meadows: “Because it is a contagious virus just like the flu.”

    It’s funny how pandemic deniers keep coming back to this nonsense that Covid-19 is just like the flu.

    Did anyone post up New Zealand reporter Tova O’Brien who shot down a politician who tried to revive his career by jumping on the pandemic denier train? She was not having any of it.

    Tova O-Brien interview with Jami-Lee Ross

    ETA: New Zealand accents are quite charming.

  16. 16.

    Jeffro

    Note to Tapper and all the other members of the media: you’ll get farther asking the maladministration’s officials “Why has our response been so much worse than other Western countries?  Our deaths per capita and infection rates?  5% of the world’s population, 25% of the deaths”.

  17. 17.

    khead

    My hood here in Ceciltucky MD is pretty Trumpy, but there are more Biden signs than there were Clinton signs in 2016. That includes one “Literally Anyone Else 2020” banner covering half of a two car garage in between two Trump houses. I thought that banner was a nice touch.

  19. 19.

    Redshift

    No Trump signs or banners in my neighborhood. No big surprise, the GOP has had to import people to hand out sample ballots in election day for several years.

    We do have a scattering of Gadsden license plates, including among non-white residents, which seems weird. I think it’s mostly young males who like the “freedom=you’re not the boss of me” message, but who knows. I’m not even sure they vote Republican; I’ve had at least one on my door-knocking list in the past.

  20. 20.

    dmsilev

    So, we’ve reached (again) the “some of you may die. That is a sacrifice I am willing to make” phase? Has anyone told the Trumpies that Lord Farquaad was the villain?

  22. 22.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @khead:That includes one “Literally Anyone Else 2020” banner covering half of a two car garage in between two Trump houses.

    I always wonder about those dynamics. Does it put a crimp in neighborhood gatherings, or did they already not like each other?My immediate neighborhood is– at least as far as I know– pretty blue. My one libertarian neighbor told me few months ago that his 90 YO father was driving him crazy with trump talk, and he and his wife seem to be taking Covid pretty seriously. About half a mile away on my route to the grocery store is a house with a trump banner hanging from their deck, visible from the road. Two or three houses on that block have put up BidenHarris signs since they hung that banner.

  25. 25.

    Mary G

    Here on the coast, some asshole stole one of my Biden/Harris signs last night. We have a pretty good picture of him doing it, and his face. Should I call the cops?

  28. 28.

    patrick II

    @Brachiator: 

    That was bracing. Tova O’Brien picked apart his responses and asked follow-ups to each piece of the response and brutally fact checked him. She has a very sharp mind. And a nice accent.

  29. 29.

    JoyceH

    The other day I went for a drive through the countryside. There were a number of Biden-Harris signs, also Trump signs, and signs for Senate and House candidates. Two Trump signs struck me as ominous – these were large and on a red background, said, “Trump 2020 Finish The Job”. The first thought that popped into my head was “that’s what Putin said.” Not an actual Putin quote of course, but geez, doesn’t it sound like what a superhero action movie villain would say to an incompetent henchman who had only wounded the hero?

  32. 32.

    khead

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I don’t know one Trumpy or the Biden supporter, but the other Trumpy has always been an in-your-face tool about it.  So I wouldn’t be surprised if the banner was a response.  I do NOT talk politics in the clubhouse at all – and I don’t go as much nowadays. But I used to hear all kinds of crazy shit when I was a regular.

  36. 36.

    Jeffro

    LOL

    One of republican candidate bob good’s  TV ads against Democrat Dr. Cameron Webb literally had, for no reason, three seconds worth of AOC at the end.

     

    no reference to her, none of her quotes, nothing.

    just sheer tribal signaling.

  43. 43.

    Anya

    It’s hard to understand that anyone is voting for Trump, let alone the possibility that he might win. The guy is incompetent, crass, mean spirited, amoral and incoherent. Other than the racism and the cruelty what’s there? If you believe in the master race, why not choose someone better? Honestly, I don’t get it and I get totally discombobulated every time I think about it.

  44. 44.

    MoCA Ace

    @Chetan Murthy: You know, there’s this plague across our land.  The plague, when it infects an individual, well, they’re physically damaged, sometimes their brains are affected, and it takes months or years to really recover.  And people can have long-haul symptoms, too, affecting their lives for months and years.

    I actually thought you were talking about Trumpism… or the Republican party in general.

  45. 45.

    CaseyL

    Just read a twitter thread from a Covid-19 survivor, listing her now-chronic, and possibly permanent, health conditions. Many people chimed in with similar stories. The lingering effects are not minor: many of these are formerly athletic people, young people, in peak health who now not only are out of breath after taking a shower, but also have major organ damage (liver, kidneys, and heart palpitations bad enough to land them in the ER), and cognitive issues (inability to concentrate, memory lapses, blackouts).

    And, as Joe Biden pointed out, these are all now “pre-existing conditions,” so insurance companies could rescind their policies. Remember when rescission was a big thing? Back before the ACA passed? Those happy days will be upon us again soon, when the lawsuit to destroy the entire ACA comes before SCOTUS.

    The GOP is responsible for much, much more than a quarter million deaths. They’re also responsible for the uncounted hundreds of thousands, more likely millions, who will be permanently disabled thanks to Covid-19.

  46. 46.

    boatboy_srq

    @zhena gogolia:  Same here. For every Biden/Harris sign there’s a Gadsden plate. So the vote may be going to the non-tRump, but the donations are going to MAGAts.

  47. 47.

    JPL

    @JoyceH:  Because of the virus my travels are few, but Biden signs are more prevalent. I’m not even seeing trump bumper stickers. I know signs don’t vote, but hopefully times are changing. I was shocked when GA 6 went blue last time, and Cook’s report is saying it’s likely McBath will win again.

  48. 48.

    Zelma

    I live in a very Republican town and I have noticed that there are fewer Trump signs and more Biden signs than there were Hillary signs. Unfortunately there is one less Biden sign because mine was stolen last night. It is very hard to get Biden signs around here. I don’t think the campaign is investing much in New Jersey. The thief left my local candidate signs.

  49. 49.

    boatboy_srq

    @CaseyL: This is the part that bugs me the most. The wingnuts are all “if it don’t kill ya it makes ya stronger” when it comes to COVID. Reality is somewhat different.

    5% probability of fatality? Meh. But 50% probability of neurological damage? 60% probability of cardiovascular or pulmonary damage? That’s damn dangerous.

    And the only reason I can come up with that those likelihoods aren’t scaring p!ss out of the MAGAts is that physical fitness and innate intelligence don’t matter all that much to brain-dead couch potatoes too wedded to their OAN feeds to get up and walk around and start thinking for themselves.

  55. 55.

    Ruckus

    @WereBear:

    Well that is the only way they can feel like they are getting ahead, because they are morons who want the world to work in a way that doesn’t. Nothing in the world survives being the most selfish asses on the planet. For a while yes, and then there is a war and they lose massively and badly because all they know how to do is be selfish. And they aren’t even competent at that because they show everyone up front that they are selfish, so the normal people shun them till that no longer works, then destroys them. It is the outcome of history since time began. It isn’t fun, it doesn’t need to be this way, but Neanderthals still exist and refuse to learn. But at some time the cost they incur is too great and destroys too much. I believe we are at this time, the old cycle of selfish – overcoming selfish is too costly in lives and country. We have to find a way to change this.

  56. 56.

    CaseyL

    @boatboy_srq: The cognitive issues won’t mean anything to them, sure.

    But they’re gonna love it when they need to have an oxygen feed attached while watching TV.

    The MAGAt guys will absolutely adore having to sit down to pee, lest they black out if they try doing it standing up.

  57. 57.

    JoyceH

    @Anya: I saw a piece on CNN about these dune buggy guys for Trump. One of them told the reporter that Trump was an “alpha male”. Um, excuse me?  Alpha males don’t go whining to Twitter about Leslie Stahl asking mean questions!

  59. 59.

    James E Powell

    @Amir Khalid:

    I could never recognize the Cleveland accent until I moved to Los Angeles. Now, I can because it stands out. Especially the flat nasal a.

  60. 60.

    Chetan Murthy

    @JoyceH:

    One of them told the reporter that Trump was an “alpha male”. Um, excuse me?

    Just as Shitlord is a blue-collar guy’s idea of a rich guy, he’s a betacuck’s idea of an alpha male, perhaps?

  61. 61.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @John S.: Not as many as England, which for some reason seems to have a different accent every 20 miles. But we’ve got a pretty good variety.

    I keep trying to figure out how to change my iPhone to an Irish accent (possibly my favorite, though I also love the Kiwi accent people are talking about) for Maps. None of the suggested procedures ever seem to work. It’s currently in Spanish which was a surprise, as I hadn’t set that and it changed on its own recently.

  63. 63.

    dmsilev

    @JoyceH: No kidding. For a guy who boasts incessantly about how tough and strong he is, Trump sure does do a lot of whining about how everyone is mean and unfair to him. No character played by John Wayne would whine like that.

  64. 64.

    zhena gogolia

    @Zelma:

    I’ve been bringing mine in every night — it was vandalized two weeks ago, but my husband was able to unbend the supports. I’d like to put up another sign next to it saying, “This sign has to be brought in every night because Trump supporters are thugs.”

  66. 66.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @dmsilev: Oddly enough, John Wayne isn’t a bad example of the type.  Acts tough, but, given an opportunity to actually do something, does nothing.

  68. 68.

    sdhays

    @Ruckus: Even China has seen that they can’t live with the kind of restrictions that conservatives want.

    What do you mean by this? What restrictions has China given up on that conservatives want?

  69. 69.

    CliosFanBoy

    @Redshift: 

    the husband of one of my wife’s coworkers has one of those “Don’t tread on me” pl8ts., He didn’t know they were Tea Party. he just thought they were American Revolution-themed.

  70. 70.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Jeffro: 

    Note to Tapper and all the other members of the media: you’ll get farther asking the maladministration’s officials “Why has our response been so much worse than other Western countries? Our deaths per capita and infection rates? 5% of the world’s population, 25% of the deaths”.

    The fact that media shitheads DON’T ask this question every single time they talk to a Republican is just more confirmation that the media shitheads are…shitheads.

  71. 71.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Amir Khalid: No one can hear their own accent and recognise it as an accent.

    I have enough self-awareness to be able to listen to how I pronounce certain things and compare them to others. If I’m paying attention. Though of course most of the time I don’t pay attention.

    It’s an ongoing joke in our household about the pronunciation of the word “marry”. My wife is utterly fascinated, or maybe dumbfounded, that for me “Mary”, “merry” and “marry” are the same word. As I am fascinated that for her they are not.

    We grew up about 250 miles (400 km) apart on opposite ends of New York State.

  72. 72.

    Ruckus

    @Anya:

    I see what you are missing.

    The racism and the cruelty is the entire point. They like him in spite of his peebrain. They like him because of the racism and cruelty.

    He’s always been this way, his father was in the KKK and really racist and shitforbrains wants in the worst way to be his father. And he’s put himself in a position to be at least a far more prominent racist, and far more cruel. He may have succeeded at being worse than his father. A life’s goal for him.

  74. 74.

    dmsilev

    The crowd cheered as Trump spoke about returning to a “normal life.” At the end of the rally, he spent a few minutes dancing onstage to a song that has become one of his campaign-trail staples, “YMCA.”

    There are, of course, a vast ocean of reasons to hate Trump. This is not one of them, but it is oh so confusing.

  75. 75.

    Pete Downunder

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:  The merry marry Mary trio is an easy way to distinguish East Coast from West. If there are three distinct sounds (like my NY accent) then East. If all sound like merry it’s West.

  77. 77.

    Ruckus

    @sdhays:

    OK that may have been too broad a statement, but China has realized that they can not stay in the past any longer, they have decided that being a part of the world is necessary, that hiding with your head in the sand gets you nowhere. Our conservatives (and seemingly the UK conservatives) believe that rolling back time a couple hundred years – or more is better. I’m not saying that China has decided that democracy is better but that time has moved on that the world is far different than it was and has to be dealt with as it is and as it might be, rather than a world that didn’t work. Conservatives want to go a direction they think worked, which it very much didn’t for the vast majority of humans.

  78. 78.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Pete Downunder: If all sound like merry it’s West.

    Yet I’m an easterner. Nor have I ever spent any significant time out West, other than a few days on vacation here and there. Grew up in Syracuse, NY. The local accent is sometimes described by people from the NYC region as saying everything through your nose.

    The name of the town for instance. The first syllable apparently sounds like the first syllable of “Syria” to the rest of the English-speaking world, as far as I’ve been able to observe. To the locals, it’s the same as the first syllable of “Sarah”.

  84. 84.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @John S.: one of my lieutenants in the Navy grew up in Massapequa Long Island and went to school in Massachusetts. Her blended accent used to give me brain whiplash.

  85. 85.

    WaterGirl

    @CaseyL: I just spoke to a friend whose neighbor has COVID.  She is doing pretty well, apparently.  Anyway, this friend is so relieved that she got COVID so she doesn’t have to worry about it anymore.

    I said “what about all the long-term side effects?”  She said “well, not everyone gets those.”

    Picture me banging my head against the wall.  So much ignorance.

  89. 89.

    Llelldorin

    @Hunter Gathers: 

    I don’t think this is a closing argument. I think this is the beginning of the salting of the earth Trump has planned—I think he reckons that he’s lost, now, and is preparing to tear down as much as he possibly can to spite Biden and the US as a whole for not reelecting him.

  90. 90.

    NotMax

    So the whole to-do in Times Square the night of December 31st is canceled.

    Oh no, there’s gonna be no 2021, it’s gonna be 2020 forever!

    //

  91. 91.

    Anya

    @JoyceH:  I hate the whole “alpha” and “beta” myth that conservatives seem to have internalized. Trump is physically unattractive and the only way he dominates or possess anyone is because of his perceived wealth. He is a whiny ass baby. His staff coddle him like he’s some spoilt 7-year old. They hide things from him and they constantly lie to him because he can’t handle anything that is not adoration. He sulks when things don’t go his way. Everyone has to tell him how great he is. What kind of an alpha requires that level of coddling?

  92. 92.

    MisterForkbeard

    @dmsilev: You need to understand that this really IS the concept of an Alpha Male to these chucklefucks. Somebody who thinks he cannot be questioned, no matter how wrong he is.

    That’s is. Trump whines about it, but he says it sort of authoritatively. Not “Please don’t do that” but “Stop that now, you’re not allowed.” And he says it about (usually) females questioning a white man in power, which is the other really important part.

    That’s all it takes: A white dude who pushes back when people imply he’s wrong. That’s what they want to be, without consequence.

  93. 93.

    sgrAstar

    @Ruckus:  the Chinese elites and our conservatives want the world to work for THEM. They want the power, they want the perks, and they see a way to get them.

  94. 94.

    Geoduck

    @Jim Appleton:  And once again shows the Shiatgibbon’s stupidity. He could have waddled out there, held up an official MAGA-Mask(tm) and told his followers to Be American Warriors, Mask Up and Defeat the Invisible Chinese Enemy. He’d have made lots of money, and the virus would have been kept under control.

  96. 96.

    trollhattan

    @NotMax:

    Zombie Dick Clark can pop up (or would that be a slow apparition?) at Mar A Lago for their Superspreading in the New Year do.

  97. 97.

    trollhattan

    @WaterGirl:

    Based on what they’re now telling us about COVID savaging the endothelium throughout the body I’ll take a hard pass on the get-it-to-avoid-it plan, thanks.

  100. 100.

    SFAW

    @jeffreyw:

    posh English accent

    And yet he supports Liverpool, if memory serves. Dat’s kinda like sayin’ a Canarsie* accent is “posh.”

     

    *OK, technically it should be a Mets fan’s accent.

  101. 101.

    Chetan Murthy

    I grew up in Texas (late 70s), and a thick Texas accent was de rigueur for camouflage.  Then went to grad school in upstate NY, postdoc in Europe, lost that accent.  Came back to Dallas for a job interview in 1995, and at lunch at Chili’s, the waitress sounded like she’d stepped out of 90210.  Damn!  Teevee really does flatten accents out!

  102. 102.

    SFAW

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Just as Shitlord is a blue-collar guy’s idea of a rich guy

    Look smartass, he clearly IS rich — he owes $400-plus million to various unnamed “lenders” [how do you say “loan shark” in Russian?], so he MUST be super rich to owe that much!

  104. 104.

    SFAW

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I don’t follow professional wrestling, so I have no idea who Batista is, but maybe this is one of the subcultures that’s bigger than I imagine

    That would be Dave Bautista, former pro wrestler and current actor, a/k/a Drax the Destroyer.

  105. 105.

    trollhattan

    @SFAW: 
    I first learned of Scouse last month watching an Everton gal interview one of my favorite Aussie players on their women’s team. “How are you getting on with the Scouse accent?” “It’s really different!” Which led me to a lesson!

  107. 107.

    Bruce K

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Dave Bautista (you might have seen him in Guardians of the Galaxy). When Ron Perlman insulted Ted Cruz on Twitter, and Cruz said that if Perlman was such a tough guy, he could go fight Gym Jordan, Bautista offered to act as Perlman’s second and wrestle Jordan in his place.

    It’s a tragedy that politics in the US has descended this far, but at the same time, I found it slightly funny.

  111. 111.

    geg6

    @Pete Downunder:

    Huh.  People here in Western PA say marry, merry and Mary.  I’ve never heard anyone, East coast or West coast say it any other way.  What is the distinction?

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