Well, finally, Mark Meadows admits what’s been obvious for months — they’ve just given up.
“We’re not going to control the pandemic,” he told Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union. “We are going to control the fact that we get a vaccine, therapeutics and other mitigation.”
Tapper pressed Meadows to explain why the administration was not going to control Covid-19, given the massive surge that is pummeling the Midwest and mountain states. He replied: “Because it is a contagious virus.”
To be a Republican in 2020 is to simultaneously believe that we’re the greatest country that ever was, and that we can’t do what other countries (South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Germany) have done.
Dread
Republicans believe that government can’t do anything right, and they set out to make that a self-fulfilling prophesy every time they get power.
dmsilev
When Trump is asked what he would have done differently in response to the virus, his answer has been some variation of “the response has been perfect. except maybe a bit of the PR. Unfair media.”. So, yeah.
Baud
Other than possibly approving an unsafe vaccine, is there anything that Trump people are doing that any other administration would not? It’s the companies that are doing all the work.
dww44
And the sad truth is that this view also permeates the Republican ranks, not just the overtly MAGA T’s but the otherwise scientifically educated ones. I’ve had unsolicited comments from those who should and do know better along the lines of I’m not paying attention to the pandemic anymore. And, as one said to me on the phone on Friday (big Republican supporter and donor at the state level) that she and her husband were good at the beginning, but since they don’t know anyone who’s had it (Atlanta metro area) and all their grandkids are in private schools (thanks to the grandparents), they are just bored with it.
Also, too, she is disgusted with the political reality of the moment (read as a bit disgusted with Trump, but probably not enough to vote against him). When I told her (she brought this up) that Biden was a decent and honorable person she pooh poohed that and said I hope you don’t like that Harris woman. When I said she was fine, she just shut me off and said, “I don’t want to talk about politics”. I’ve found this is the tack that all my relatives and friends want to take with me, cause they know I’ve always been a liberal democrat.
They are in denial and it’s gonna take some effort to bring them back to reality. But first we have to win next week.
Emma from FL
If I keep on using my shocked face the muscles are going to freeze that way. I can’t even work up a proper rage anymore. I am exhausted.
patrick II
Donald Trump had to do something hard, not easy. He only does easy.
What strikes me the most about Meadows thinking is its binary nature. Masks work or they don’t. And if they work — why can’t we open schools? And why do people who have worn masks have COVID? And the answer is Mark, not everything is black and white. Masks don’t stop the disease, they slow it down, tests don’t stop the disease, social distancing doesn’t stop the disease — but they all slow it down, cut the percentages of those getting ill.
Trump’s White House had a COVID outbreak. They tested pretty often. It didn’t work. Therefore COVID is unstoppable, and you may as well let it be “it is what it is”. Go with the flow. Because complexity, multiple solutions that don’t bring complete resolution are not understandable. Ignore it, it will go away like magic — or until 70% of the population is infected, whichever comes first.
dww44
@Dread: So much this.
Emma from FL
@dww44: Bringing them back to reality won’t work. They will have to be beaten black and blue with cricket bats by reality itself. And even then, they will whine and make excuses all the way.
Experience speaking.
bbleh
@Emma from FL: Yup.
Xenos
Basically, it is just the Russian option – millions will die, but mostly they will be people who do not matter, so let it be. Meanwhile, there is money to be made, so stop bothering us with this.
I suppose we should be thankful that it has not gotten to the point where doctors who object to false mortality figures being published get defenestrated.
Baud
@Emma from FL:
Agree. If you want to persuade them, defeat them.
Frank Wilhoit
The admission here is that they can’t control their own people. When you are riding the tiger, the tiger goes where he damn well wants to go. If Trump himself (figurehead though he be, which does not exclude the fact that figureheads can be effective) ordered masks all round, they wouldn’t listen. So when (not if) Biden orders masks all round…?
oatler.
A quote from the National Review/Koch-funded “intellectual” site Ricochet:
“If it really is over, I hope I kill a lot of antifa before I die. And to hell with Ricochet and everyone here. All of this was a waste of time and money. If we really are doomed, it is time stack up bodies rather talk about ideas. What do you think of that, @drbastiat ? To hell with despair, I choose blood.
Hell, maybe I should join the communists in hopes of becoming a political executioner. I can look the woke in the eyes as I murder them, their pleas falling on deaf ears.”
Kelly
Republicans, the party of “it isn’t happening”, fall back position “there’s nothing we can do about it”. COVID (really any public health problem), climate change (really any environmental problem), police brutality (really any racism problem), poverty (really any economic problem)
Geoduck
@patrick II: “They tested pretty often”? We don’t know if they did any testing at all.
Ksmiami
They’ve chosen death. The GOP is the party of death
moonbat
Despite all their tough talk and manly posturing, none of these “real” men from Mars have the guts to do what has to be done. None of them are willing to shoulder the responsibility of governance, tell their base what their base may not want to hear, and acknowledge that saving lives is going to require the “sacrifice” of putting on a mask and keeping a safe distance when interacting with others and forego football crowds and bar nights. They give wimps a bad name.
Omnes Omnibus
@Frank Wilhoit:
The fact that they poisoned the well for competent people coming after them is one of their worst crimes. It was not enough to do nothing; they had to make it harder for anyone else to do something. Fuckers.
A Ghost to Most
But the Rs won’t double down after the election. Go with that.
West of the Rockies
@Emma from FL:
I hear you. Witnessed a mile+ long parade of Trump supporters in their pickup trucks yesterday (in a red northern CA county). My gay daughter was flipped off by one such moron for having a rainbow flag on her car.
They “just want their country back.”
We just want humanity back, the possibility for kindness, empathy, scientific advancement, respect for the environment.
They have NO idea how much red-hot loathing WE feel for THEM.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Minor blow up at the in-laws yesterday. My bil and fil are both drudge reading nutters and my sil has gone full Q. I Fucking HATE going over there. I usually just keep my mouth shut but decided to push back on all there bullshit yesterday. I overheard my bil mention how the gateway pundit Is the only one who has it right. I said, “are your seriously using jim hoff, the dumbest Fucking man on the internet as a source?” He was not amused. Next thing he’s in the other room complaining that’s it’s people like my wife and I that are suppressing the truth. Dog Fucking help me.
Omnes Omnibus
@A Ghost to Most: Well, they haven’t cut off your internet yet, so you can still harangue us for being lesser. I hope that gives you some comfort.
Kent
What are you saying? Of course they are going to double down. And then they’ll double down again. And again.
That’s all they know.
Another Scott
@patrick II:
Disagree.
All Donnie and his minions had to do was to keep the Obama/Biden status quo. The infectious disease office in China. The pandemic plan and office in the White House. Contacts with the WHO. Use the existing authority to increase production of PPE, testing supplies, etc. Not contradict government advice about masking and distancing.
He threw it all away because he hates Obama and in the process killed hundreds of thousands of Americans (and hundreds of thousands more worldwide (the malevolent US response has enabled worse responses around the world)).
He’s actively
malevolent.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
patroclus
Trump’s and the Republicans’ abject failure to control the pandemic is one of the worst disastrous fiascoes in all of American history. We will be living with the consequences for generations. They’re not only incompetent; they’re openly mendacious about it. They richly deserve to lose this election in a landslide.
But the good news is that Biden has a better chance of winning Texas than Trump does Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
James E Powell
@patrick II:
I would disagree to some extent. He could have made it easy or at least easier on himself. I learned a rule in home improvement: when you don’t know what you are doing, hire people who do and let them do their work. He always thinks he knows better than anyone else.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: No, AGTM thinks this blog is the home of liberal squishes who will go Vichy at the first opportunity. He, however, is a brave mountain man.
RaflW
“a vaccine, therapeutics and other mitigation”
These evil fuckers are actively working to destroy the ACA and throw millions off insurance. They are accessories to murder (at best). They’re hardly much better than Pol Pot.
Kent
I feel your pain. There were 14 children in my father’s family (Depression-era farm family in Oregon). My mother grew up in a Pensyltucky farm family with 5 kids. Out of about 16 pairs of still living aunts and uncles and all the myriad of cousins and family groups, only two others besides mine are Democrat. One is a family of teachers and school college administrator types who are cool. The other aunt and uncle are old hippies. Every other single relative I have is some form of full MAGA or evangelical/fundamentalist Christian (the type who change churches when their own becomes too tolerant of LGBT) or both. Luckily my own family and two brothers are chill, one’s an artist in Seattle and the other lives on a boat in Alaska. But anything extended family is just crazed.
Peale
@Baud: they are interfering with the part of government that analyses the safety of vaccines. Disbanded it last December. So…that’s different.
Omnes Omnibus
@James E Powell: A rule my grandfather taught my family about home improvement: “Always learn on someone else’s house.” A less cynical home improvement rule from the same guy: “Do something for your house every day.”
chopper
“we’ve tried nuthin’ and we’re all out of ideas”
Peale
@Kent: yep. They doubled down in 2008 and were rewarded greatly for it. They’ll do what worked for them before unless it stops working.
RaflW
I gather that Trump the other day started talking about a moon base. I think this is his idiot campaign realizing that it has stung that he has no policies, no goals, and no vision for a second term.
But these piss ignorant, corrupt fools can’t even manage PPE or mask mandates. A return to the moon and humans to Mars? The cheapest, most tawdry fantasy.
Patricia Kayden
Betty Cracker
Is it even possible to control the virus anymore? Trump has convinced 30%-40% of our fellow citizens that wearing a mask is akin to wearing an “I [heart] AOC” tee. Even if Trump and Republicans get bounced out of DC in a landslide, idiots will be idiots.
West of the Rockies
@Ksmiami:
As a great patriot once (never) said, “Give me stupidity or give me death.” Hey, it’s Republicans… Why not both?
RaflW
@patrick II: And Mike Pence had to do something complicated, not simple. He only does simple.
Putting the man who facilitated an HIV outbreak in Indiana in charge of the Task Farce was not an error. It was an admission of intended, reckless disregard.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Kent: I am thankful daily that both my 77 year old parents are on my team. They were never political when I was young and my dad never voted until Obama. Every time I see my mom she laments the fact so many people she knows still love drumph. She almost never swears but whispers asshole about him.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: As I said above, that might be one of his worst crimes. His administration has made it much harder for sane people to do anything.
RaflW
@Frank Wilhoit: “So when (not if) Biden orders masks all round…?” then the governors of the red states will throw up every possible bogus argument and road block.
Our dithering press won’t be able to handle the truth, so they’ll report the controversy.
The next six months will be really, really fucked. (After that, just mostly fucked, then moderately fucked, etc, until our idiot electorate gets cold feet in the mid-terms, when the fuckery will rise again. Yes I’m in a cynicism spiral.)
debbie
They’re too stupid to realize that it’s not just Blue State Dems that are dying; their voters are who’s getting sick now.
Rusty
They are abandoning a large number of Americans to lifelong disability and death. It’s reprehensible. They are reprehensible. I’ve come to a point where citizens that agree with this are reprehensible.
Sloane Ranger
@Frank Wilhoit: I’m not sure this is true. I saw a CNN interview with some Trump rally-goers a few days ago. They all said they would wear masks if their Orange God told them to do so.
The interviewer pointed out he had but they poo pooed that by saying he was just recommending them and wasn’t insisting on them at rallies.
As far as RWNJ’s everywhere are concerned, it seems that if something doesn’t solve a problem 100%, it’s not worth doing at all.
gwangung
Your rights as Americans have ALWAYS stopped at the other guy’s nose. Right wingers never took that seriously, and now they’re squealing when those folks are holding them to it.
Roger Moore
Contemporary conservatism isn’t about solving problems; it’s about rationalizing why we can’t or shouldn’t even try to solve problems. Coincidentally, the continued existence of many of those problems is a profit center for the rich people who support conservatism. A complete coincidence, I assure you.
RandomMonster
@Betty Cracker:
And if Biden imposes or strongly encourages a mask mandate, how many wannabe Ammon Bundy dipshits will decide to make their mask resistance stand ?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Emma from FL:
Per the other comments and repeating the Gilliard Doctine:
That’s what gets me about otherwise intelligent, edumacated Repubs who still vote the party line even tho they don’t consider themselves either RWNJs or racists.
I know a few who I don’t consider racists, that much is clear. But their IGMFY fixation certainly has some racist elements they probably don’t even think about.
What changes their mind, and we’ve all seen this, is when something bad happens to them or their own and it’s because of a liberal policy or president that bailed them out. I have a friend on the IL side of the St Louis burbs, was a Repub of the glibertarian variety until he lost his job during the Dubya Recession and the only reason he kept his house was because of the Kenyan, Muslim, Socialist Usurper.
He’s been a die hard Dem, straight ticket voter, ever since.
patrick Il
@Geoduck:
The White house tested. Obviously not enough, and my point is none of the precautions work by themselves.
Constance Reader
“To be a Republican in 2020 is to simultaneously believe that we’re the greatest country that ever was, and that we can’t do what other countries (South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Germany) have done.”
That was also “to be a Republican” in the last 20 years which is why we don’t have single-payer healthcare, free college for hardworking students who earn it, mandatory paid family leave, or a living wage. Come to think of it, that also describes what it’s meant to be a Democrat in congress for the last 20 years, at least until Bernie made these inequalities acceptable to discuss.
dmsilev
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Perhaps, but at a bare minimum they don’t regard being an overt racist as a deal-breaker when deciding on who to vote for.
Cheryl Rofer
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, it’s possible to control the virus. I saw a study a few days ago that said, I think, 80% mask-wearing would save 130,000 lives by next spring. Or something close to that. It will take time, even with all necessary steps, including testing and tracing instituted. I think a year for sure if we go at it with hammer and tongs, maybe six months.
I remain optimistic that a quarter to a half of those will easily go over to masks when President Biden issues a masking advisory/ order. The others will go underground and emerge maskless only at night or accept that their liberty has been destroyed and worse is to come.
matt
That’s what makes us so great – we let dummies take up 2 parking spaces with their monster trucks and go into the store without a mask and cough on people and give them diseases if they want to.
Omnes Omnibus
@Constance Reader: Fuck off with the false equivalence shit.
Jinchi
Actually, they’re still lying. Giving up is the position they started with. Now they are actively encouraging people to get corona. Trump talks about it like its a miracle drug that gave him super powers.
“I feel better than I did 20 years ago.”
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus:
YEAH. It’s insane. They are insane.
i genuinely don’t understand why they didn’t try to do better. Trump would have been seen as an absolute hero, bravely fighting this foe. Like Shrub in 2004.
On an unrelated note, one of the things that I feel has been a loss to me during this pandemic is dumb but I’m surprised by how much I miss it: occasionally picking out makeup at Sephora. So I was on the website last night, and I picked out two lipsticks before I was reminded that lipstick-wearing behind a face mask is dumb. Sigh.
West of the Rockies
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
If your mom is 77, shouldn’t you be Middle-Aged Dan and Little Ann?
dmsilev
@Cheryl Rofer:
‘I am AntiBatman’.
Medicine Man
Because the GOP measures greatness in GDP and nothing else.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cheryl Rofer: @dmsilev: The Republicans are mole people!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
thread
At this point, Abbott would rather send Texans to a field hospital than (if I understand the situation there) tell people to wear fucking masks. It seems like the governor of N Dakota wants to issue and order, but he’s afraid, and his neighbor to the south is trumpier than Ivanka. I could see Abbott going along with a mask order once trump is gone– he doesn’t strike me as stupid– but I think Noem will let her larger cities be ravaged for trumpism.
Omnes Omnibus
@Medicine Man: How well is that going?
Ruckus
@dww44:
They are not in denial, they are in a political cult. It’s like scientology, only not as smart. And that is saying a lot coming from me, who has 50 yrs exposure to scientology. Not that I wanted that in any way, shape or form, but I do. And in case you wonder, scientology and the republican party are both completely, absolutely full of shit.
Republicans are the scientology of political parties.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
no one could have predicted…
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
However. It’s anecdotal but I have seen some movement here in Trump Country the last 2 weeks. It’s rising really fast and they’re not just listening to Trump- they’re listening to the governor and their local health officials, who are basically freaking out.
I think the disconnect between what the Trump Administration says and what everyone else tells them has gotten bigger. They’re still supporting Trump and they’ll still vote for him, but they personally are alarmed. We know Trump supporters can do this- give him a pass on things they know to be true and still support him. It’s why we get polling that says 65% of people think he’s a liar but 20% of that 65% want to re-elect the liar.
patrick Il
I just saw a pickup go by with a flagpole in the back. The flag had wrapped around the pole and said “RUMP 2020” .
Exactly.
Ruckus
@Constance Reader:
What a load of bullshit.
PPCLI
@Peale:
A proposal for any journalist discussing Trump’s rush to get those vaccines approved early: Google “The Cutter Incident”
Rushing out vaccines without proper evaluation and testing can lead, and have led, to catastrophes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ruckus: trumpism isn’t the only personality cult in our politics these days
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I’m convinced what changed was schools. You can deny covid. That becomes a lot harder when you’re getting texts from the school that they have cases. In the last 2 weeks here it went from this ridiculous ideological discussion to “it’s in the school”. It is all anyone talks about.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
100000% correct.
It’s money. Who has it, who controls it, who allows government to have some and govern. And the very wealthy conservatives want only themselves to have and control all the money. They care absolutely nothing about anything else but having all the money, because that buys them control.
Roger Moore
@Constance Reader:
Bullshit. Being as generous as possible, the Democrats have controlled Congress for 4 of the past 20 years, only 2 of which came with a Democratic president to sign the laws they passed. A substantial chunk of those two years was spent dealing with the massive crisis the previous Republican administration had left them. Nonetheless, they managed to pass Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and a bunch of other valuable legislation that made the country a better place. Maybe they could have done more in that 2 year span, but it sure as hell wasn’t because they didn’t care and weren’t trying.
Ksmiami
@West of the Rockies: I’m actively hoping for the great Republican Culling of 2020…. then we could actually move forward in this country
Anoniminous
Since Republicans make their own reality all they need to do is stick their fingers in their ears, shout “LA! LA! LA! WE CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!,” and Covid-19 will magically disappear.
Ruckus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
No kidding. It’s disheartening that a thousand yr old man, who’s done nothing in his life but rant and collect a salary from us, and has convinced people that he is their savior. And that they will insert him into everything, just like he does periodically, right before he fades, once again right in front of us.
MisterForkbeard
@Old Dan and Little Ann: I’ve mentioned it here before but my wife cut off all contact with her folks over less obvious craziness and racism. She warned them repeatedly and they called us brainwashed instead. So off they go.
Yesterday, she asked me to take down all the pictures of our daughters from the photo sharing site we use so that Nana and Granddad can see their grandkids despite being 300 miles away.
At a certain point, there isn’t anything you can do other than make clear how deplorable they are and remove them from your life.
patrick Il
Trump was possibly right about one thing. The disease may be less virulent in the summer months . He was only off about the order of magnitude. It is going to be a difficult winter.
montanareddog
Democrats and pundits should stop talking about 223K deaths. They should phrase it as almost a quarter of a million deaths. Much more rhetorically powerful, IMO
Jinchi
@patrick Il: I saw several of the TRUMP 2020 brigade pickups driving around town yesterday. Was it a special occasion for them?
Danielx
@Betty Cracker:
I’ve seen two people in retail establishments in the last two days NOT wearing masks, but aside from them it’s pretty well universal around these parts. On the other hand, this is what passes for a relatively cosmopolitan area in Indiana – lot of furriners hereabouts due to a big Roche Pharmaceuticals location, ditto people who work for Eli Lilly.
Butter Emails
@Kelly:
You missed the 3rd fallback where they blame the Democrats for not fixing the clusterfuck they caused fast enough while deliberately undermining any attempts to fix said clusterfuck. Often all three are being deployed strategically as is the case with Covid
patroclus
@Constance Reader: In the last 20 years, Democrats have controlled the House, Senate and White House for a grand total of 2 years. And “control” of the Senate with a filibuster for about 2 months. In that time, they enacted the ACA, Dodd-Frank, the CARD Act and expanded funding for colleges, including reforming the student loan process. They had previously raised the minimum wage during the Republican era by shaming the Republicans into doing it.
Democrats have been talking about a living wage, higher education funding and health insurance for generations; long before Bernie. He’s welcome to join us in the fight but pretending that he originated the ideas is non-factual.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@PPCLI: For the benefit of members of the Jackaltariat who don’t want to open another tab, here’s a quick recap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutter_Laboratories?wprov=sfti1
It’s worth noting that all the companies had difficulties with killing the virus; Cutter wasn’t the only one having trouble. It’s also essential to note that problems were reported and ignored or buried.
LadySuzy
They stopped being preoccupied for the victims once it was a well established fact that blacks and latinos die at a much higher rate. Plain and simple.
I can garantie you that if people in lily-white rich communities were dying in big numbers, they would have been much more proactive.@Xenos:
Raoul Paste
The initial reason for mitigation was to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed
Now that we’re going to have a surge of cases this fall apparently Meadows doesn’t give a crap about that
Danielx
@Omnes Omnibus:
Fuck mole people, they’re Morlocks.
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
I don’t think there’s an easy single answer. A failure this colossal requires a lot of mistakes. Some of the contributing factors:
Jinchi
More importantly, we need to stress that this isn’t over. A quarter million people died so far. 200,000 more people are expected to die before January 20th if we continue to do what we’ve been doing.
Mai Naem mobile
@Another Scott: I don’t think the pandemic office closing was Donny’s plan. That sounds more like dumbass Jared’s cost cutting plan. Crap like this always goes back to the blurb I read during the transition that Jared was shocked at the number of civil service kind of workers(possibly political appointees but with certain skillsets) in the WH. Jared the moron thinks running the WH is like running a small 25 employee family business.
Chyron HR
@Constance Reader:
There, there, little imbecile. I’m sure if you vote third party AGAIN the pendulum will finally emphasize the overton window’s contradictions and blah blah blah FREE STUFF!
dm
I’ve long thought that “can” is the wrong suffix for the Republican’t party. The alternate spelling, Republicant, works in its own way.
Ruckus
@MisterForkbeard:
That 50 years of scientology exposure got me to the same position.
At some point it is a decision that they made that makes a relationship, any relationship, untenable.
hueyplong
@Ruckus: One way to look at this is to be pleased that such posts are no longer peppering every thread as they did in 2016.
dm
@Danielx: By dietary proclivity, perhaps, but the Morlocks were competent at keeping their world running.
MisterForkbeard
@Betty Cracker: I think that’s true. We blew our chance to keep it contained and manageable, since there was only going to be public buy-in for one or two big changes and Trump pissed them away.
But we even have mitigation problems now because Trump has convinced a big chunk of the country that masks and even basic protective measures are only for freedom hating idiots. I don’t think theres a lot we can do at this point other than provide national standards and tet to get states to enforce them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hueyplong: I don’t want to jinx anything, but I was thinking just the other day that we haven’t seen a few of the old nyms I was expecting to pop back in as voting started
Ruckus
@Mai Naem mobile:
Jared the moron thinks running the WH is like running a small 25 employee family business, into the ground.
Fixed it for you.
zhena gogolia
@Chyron HR:
It’s as if Edward Kennedy never walked the earth.
Just One More Canuck
@Chyron HR: those contradictions ain’t gonna heighten themselves
Ruckus
@hueyplong:
Yep. Some days you have to be absolutely satisfied with tiny, or not so tiny victories.
Jeffro
@Roger Moore: good list!
Sure Lurkalot
@LadySuzy: Winner winner chicken dinner. The olds are just an added benefit…especially those in facilities subsidized by Medicaid.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: Obama didn’t even try to tell Mitch to look out the window!
Mallard Filmore
@Jinchi: There was a “Trump Train” of pickups and cars from Fresno to Bakersfield yesterday.
Keith P.
The biggest question I have is how they never, ever – in 6+ months of this – gotten a handle on fast, widespread testing. Trump went through several different stages on this – “We test more than anybody”, followed by “Amazing, fast testing is week away” back to “We test more than anybody by far” and finally just quit talking about it. Being able to isolate the outbreak into pockets and then treating the pockets would have put a huge dent in the infection numbers. The federal government has the resources to push an effort to put out a fast, cheap, accurate test all over the country, but for some reason, they just didn’t ever seem to follow through on it.
cain
The virus doesn’t rally give a shit – it will find you, and you will suffer.
Brachiator
This is insane, but consistent with a certain mind set. Rich conservatives presume that they will always be able to get access to the best medications and treatments, and get them before anybody else. And other conservatives believe that they will be able to take “personal responsibility” and use “individual choice” and “liberty” to figure out how to protect themselves.
In the past, people like this would say “it’s God’s will” and presume that a Cosmic Roll of the Dice determine who got sick and who survived.
Of course, the virus does not care about political ideology. But it is bizarre to see people try to defeat the virus as an act of will. I use to think that Americans had more common sense to fall for this kind of thinking. Trump, of course, is pre-eminent among these types of idiots.
Ruckus
@Medicine Man:
Actually it’s worse than that.
The gop measures greatness of economy in how the stock market is doing and how they are doing. And it’s not true they don’t give a fuck about anyone else, they do, but the problem is that it’s a negative give a fuck. IOW the sparrow/curtain rod dilemma.
Mallard Filmore
@Jinchi:
Start talking about a final body count between Pol Pot and the Nazi Holocaust.
Jinchi
As others have pointed out, it isn’t just that they didn’t do better – they actively made things worse. And I think there are a few reasons for it.
MisterForkbeard
@Constance Reader: Please to be fucking off now. Those are still democratic priorities, even if they dont take the exact form Bernie proposed. Thanks!
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Gov. Abbott is terrible in many ways but he did issue a mask mandate for the entire state in early July.
CaseyL
Every day I am grateful to live in a state where the Governor continues to take Covid-19 very seriously, and to work for an employer who does as well. As someone in two of the higher risk categories, I doubt I’d get out alive and in one piece if I caught the virus. I’m more than willing to stay sequestered for as long as it takes, and wear a mask when I go out.
Parenthetically, I was out running a couple errands yesterday, and noticed that as the weather gets chillier, wearing a mask is actually nice. Keeps the chill wind off. I wonder if compliance will get a little easier if people start to think of masks as another piece of cold weather gear.
I have no interest in reclaiming or rehabilitating Trumpers, just running them over with sheer numbers and thereafter ignoring them as much as possible.
cain
@Betty Cracker:
I think a lot more people will die before it fits in – people they know, people they care about. Worse, democrats will be kicked out because we can only do all these rules but these folks will never listen. We’ll probably end up doing the same thing..
Even in other countries it’s been trying their patience.
sherparick
@dww44: Well, if she spends the next few weeks pretending the virus is not her problem any more, she may find that the virus has not forgotten about her.
Ken
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Russia has a lot of internal problems now.
Bluegirlfromwyo
@Ruckus: Even then, Republicans only pay attention to how they’re doing and the stock market under a Republican president. No one in my GOP circle of acquaintances said a word about the rise in the Dow under Obama. That’s all they talk about now. The GOP has been nothing but in-group/out-group politics for at least 25 years.
trollhattan
@Keith P.:
Yup. Masks, we can finally get (not sure about proper N95 masks but what the hey) but testing availability, accuracy and reporting are still a hash. I see Costco of all places is selling home-use tests, but they’re not cheap! Plus, if you buy a test and test positive, then what? And are your data collected and tallied somewhere?
The kid has been tested at school six times since August. She’s beginning to think they’re picking on her.
John S.
Folks, don’t feed the troll.
If this was the blog 15 years ago, I would say that Constance Reader was just a DougJ sock-puppet. Hell, for all I know it still is. Anything is possible.
Regardless, it’s still a troll.
patrick II
@Jinchi:
Not that I know of. I think the minimum accouterment for a big-wheeled pickup is Trump sticker, then a Trump flag. A step up is both an American and a Trump flag, and finally two Trump flags.
I see them all of the time. Maybe it’s where I live.
WaterGirl
Sorry to repeat, but I am trying to catch everyone who wants their pets to be in the 2021 Pet Calendar.
Chief Oshkosh
@RandomMonster:
That’s what’s called an opportunity. If people want to self-identify to federal enforcement, great! That saves everyone a lot of time.
Gretchen
@patrick II: This. People can’t understand gray. Either masks work or they don’t. Either you die of Covid or you’re fine and it’s no big deal that you got sick. You tested negative so you’re fine to breathe on people.
Brachiator
@MisterForkbeard:
Trump and the GOP keep insisting that we can just return to normal and get the economy moving again. But central to this is the idea that while the federal government can throw money at big business and a few coins to individuals, it should not provide a wider range of economic assistance.
I don’t think that Trump ever made an effort to provide more money to hospitals and clinics (and I am not sure of the best way to target this type of assistance).
But in addition to possibly setting national standards, I would expect a Biden administration to offer financial assistance to state and local governments.
Maybe a little more controversial, I don’t understand how you can reasonably expect people who are found to have the virus through any effective testing procedures to self-isolate and not work without offering some kind of financial assistance. This might also be the case for people who are “encouraged” to stay home because they have known vulnerabilities with respect to getting infected by Covid-19.
sherparick
@Jinchi: Yea, pretty much sums it up. I would only add “Trump and the entire Republican Super Rich Donor class.” They are all pretty stupid, a learned stupidity of the rich – the Trumps, the Murdochs, the Kochs, the Adelsons, the Uihlens, etc. F. Scott Fitzgerald summed up this class of Americans perfectly 100 years ago. “They were careless people,…- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
Brachiator
@Keith P.:
The British government has also notably failed to get any effective test and trace regime in place. In many ways, Boris Johnson has been as incompetent as Trump in dealing with the pandemic.
Ruckus
@Keith P.:
A number of reasons.
Brachiator
@Jinchi:
You lay out Trump’s failings very well. I would add a couple of things.
Trump does not understand science. Not even at an elementary school level. So he was incapable of putting together an effective task force (Pence? Young Jared?) and incapable of understanding and accepting the recommendations of Fauci and others. Trump also could not adequately evaluate the advice of his drug industry buddies.
Trump turned to vindictive control, graft and tribute because he thinks like a third rate mobster.
His reaction to the pandemic revealed the depths of his incompetence.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I wonder if being conservatives had anything to do with their lack of, well anything positive? I’m getting to the point of thinking YES.
I know I’ve talked about the very wealthy, most of whom seem to be rather conservative and I wonder which came first, conservative or greed. Or are they tied so closely together that it’s a ridiculous concept?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@dmsilev: The amazing though is if Trump had just made a reasonable effort to control the pandemic and merely failed at it he would likely be a shoe in for re-election.
Chetan Murthy
@MisterForkbeard: Oy. I’m sorry you and your wife had to take these steps, and I can only imagine how painful it is. Even cutting off longtime friends can be like amputating a limb ….. how much worse when it’s parents, sigh. Maybe you will convince them to change; and if they do not, you’re saving your children from having their minds polluted with such hateful dogmas.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I picture the book about the Trump presidency will be titled “One Cheese Burger at Time” because that’s how far he seems to be able to plan.
Gretchen
@Keith P.: same with masks. Nurses are still reusing N95 masks 7 months in because nobody is organizing getting enough made.
Yarrow
Speaking of Texas, this is good stuff!
Yarrow
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The book about the Trump presidency will be titled “Traitors”.
raven
@MisterForkbeard: It’s been 8 years since my half-brother attacked me over politics. I’ve never said shit to my stepmom about it and I don’t know if he has but I have no intention of engaging with him and his Nazi wife.
Ken
They’ve even given up on their plan to have Santa Claus and the elves promote vaccination, in exchange for which the performers would get early access to the covid vaccine.
In fairness, Caputo came up with this plan before his health-related retirement.
JaySinWA
@Cheryl Rofer:
I believe the anti-maskers will be very vocally protesting and some of that protest will be violent. With a good deal of police support or at least acquiescence. I hope your prediction is closer to the truth.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@MisterForkbeard: My family manages to keep it civil by ignoring the MAGA hats when they have to babble (were sort of used to babbling elders when the older folks don’t react well to their meds) but I would say them calling you both brainwashed is over the line. If they want to go to personal attacks like that they an’t family anymore.
SFBayAreaGal
@Another Scott: This since 2016. He hates Obama. Everything he has done relates to his hatred of Obama.
mrmoshpotato
“Because it is a contagious virus.”
And this motherfucker has kids! Dude! We teach children to cover their mouths (and noses) when they cough or sneeze – because if they have a cold, etc, it can be contagious. We tell people to stay home when they’re sick because it can be contagious.
Un-fucking-believable!
The Moar You Know
They didn’t give up. They never even tried. Not even a little bit.
RaflW
@Kelly: It’s been pretty obvious that ‘maga’ meant, in part, Make America 1950 Again. Seems folks forgot that 1950 was before the Polio vaccine. And the Trumpers want it to be like 1950 in terms of the racial caste system of the time, but not the post-war rush into science, engineering, health and human development part.
burnspbesq
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The biggest thing motivating Abbott is fear of being primaried from the right in 2022. It explains just about every stupid thing he does.
RaflW
I’m an avid snowboarder. One of the things that has kept me hanging on is the idea that, at least to some extent I’ll be able to get on the mountain this winter (reservation systems for lift access, spaced lines, only related parties sharing a chair, etc).
The Ops manager for ABasin up in Colorado just blogged a short, measured, but clear call for people in Summit County to mask up and do more distancing, because the season start could be at risk.
The pushback on social media is incredibly disheartening. But mah freeedumbs. Fuck you all. These independent resorts will be at far greater risk of failure because people equate wearing a mask (which they do on cold days up there anyway, goddamit) with absolute tyranny. I despair that our nation is repairable.
Yarrow
@mrmoshpotato: Mark Meadows? You mean this Mark Meadows, the one who married his daughter off at an indoor wedding with 70 guests, and no one wearing masks? He clearly doesn’t think the virus is real or anything to worry about.
Ruckus
@Bluegirlfromwyo:
I’d say 50 yrs but yes.
republicans are the selfish party. We humans are all selfish to a degree, I believe it’s part of survival. Except that often one has to be a lot closer to the unselfish side because it takes less selfishness to actually survive. Most wild animals will band together to fight off predators and we really aren’t/shouldn’t be any different. We create laws so that we can live in a society because living outside society is actually much harder to do, we have building laws/standards so that buildings don’t fall on us, traffic laws so that we don’t kill each other, etc. Conservatives don’t see the need for overall working together, they believe that if some die off there will be more for those left. It’s survival but not of the fittest, unless money really does buy you anything/everything. And it doesn’t.
The Moar You Know
@Danielx: I just finished re-reading that. Haven’t read it since I was 12. Missed a lot!
Probably not the metaphor you want; the Morlocks actually built and ran all the infrastructure that kept the Eloi, who did nothing but lie around and enjoy themselves, alive in luxury and fed.
Today’s Republicans are Eloi with guns who go and hunt Morlocks for sport, not caring what will happen when the Morlocks inevitably decide they’ve had enough of that bullshit.
Kirk Spencer
I’m thinking that a national mask order is guaranteed to be on the fast track to the us supreme court. I don’t think an emergency push for /enough/ tests will be challenged, but have no doubts of the challenge to the heavy localized testing needed to do the job right.
I hate Mcconnell.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
There are and always have been wealthy people who are also kind and generous philanthropists. And certainly among the GOP and Trump’s base, we see people who are not rolling around in money who are cruel, callous and stupid. I don’t think that greed is tied that closely. It may be an offshoot of selfishness for some.
Omnes Omnibus
He does have to. He just has to know that he doesn’t and trust the people who do.
Ruckus
@RaflW:
I wonder how much of that is them not understanding, well anything?
nasruddin
@Emma from FL: Max Planck stated a principle widely summarized as, “Science advances one funeral at a time” which, very sadly, may apply here.
Sm*t Cl*de
To do anything to control the pandemic now would be a slap in the face for all those who died because we didn’t do anything to control the pandemic earlier.
No One You Know
@patrick II: Sadly, a lot of progressive also think this way. “My way or the highway.”
nasruddin
@Omnes Omnibus: (You must mean, he does NOT have to)
One of his two fundamental flaws is NOT that he’s ignorant, it’s that he is incapable of accepting any of the consequences of being ignorant.
Ksmiami
@patrick II: I’ve seen a few of those how come the usual driver of that monstrosity is usually some fat bearded guy who looks like a sad angry unfuckable sack
nasruddin
@Sm*t Cl*de: ?
The logic of this or even the metaphor itself completely escapes me.
nasruddin
@Baud: They control the levers. Nobody gets anything medical without their (FDA) approval.
You can use your imagination to get an idea where this is going.
laura
@Constance Reader: Fuck all the way off you tedious fuck.
MagdaInBlack
@nasruddin: Same as the logic they used for not writing down student loans: its not fair to the folks we didn’t help before, the ones who managed to pay their loans.
R logic
nasruddin
@Betty Cracker: It reminds me of the last bastion defense against doing anything about climate change: “Ok, it’s happening, but we can’t do anything about it. So let’s not do anything. Now watch this drive.”
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus:
Trump does not understand science.
Nope. We saw Trump give equal weight to legitimate medical treatment and junk science snake oil remedies and to fantabulous nonsense like bleach and sunlight.
Doesn’t a leader have to weigh options, evaluate alternative recommendations? This is more than simply trusting what an advisor tells you.
Trump not only is incapable of distinguishing between a charlatan and an expert, he prefers any fool who tells him what he wants to hear over the advice of experts who may have to give him uncomfortable information.
But it all comes down to Trump’s baleful ignorance combined with an egotistical and stubborn arrogance that he can impose his will on reality. It’s as if people elected a willful four-year-old to be president.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Mai Naem mobile: But Trump is the President. Jared works for him. Trump is ultimately responsible for the actions of the people in his administration. He hired / appointed them. Like when I was in the Navy the Captain is responsible for the actions of their crew. The crew making mistakes is seen as a failure of leadership.
Omnes Omnibus
@nasruddin: You are correct. I left out a ‘not.”
Cameron
@dmsilev: “The Phantom of the Corona/Is in your mind…”
Cameron
@Roger Moore: Also, Trump is incredibly lazy. I could see watching 8 hrs. of MST3K daily, but not 8 hrs. of Fox.
Mike in Pasadena
@Peale: It’s enough to make an otherwise sane person into an anti vaxer. Not sure I want a vaccine created under political pressure from an ignorant ass like Trump, especially when the people responsible for vax safety are no longer allowed to do their jobs.
Tehanu
@Suzanne:
Sigh, indeed. I have the same nostalgia for just going shopping.
@The Moar You Know: Yes, you’re right about the Morlocks, who were H.G. Wells’ thinly disguised stand-ins for contemporary working people. Lots of readers never understood that the Eloi were a satire on the aristocracy.
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow: Yup. That Mark Meadows. That dumbfuck, selfish, shithead child.
ProfDamatu
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Not that Abbott is by any means a good governor, but this isn’t a field hospital we’re talking about; it’s William Beaumont Army Medical Center, a teaching hospital. Military, yes; real hospital too.
Bill Arnold
@RandomMonster:
The key is to get the level of mask discipline high. Preferably 100 percent, but even e.g. 80 percent might reduce R0 enough (+distancing, improved ventilation, etc) to control spread, and in particular masks may limit much of the superspreading. Masked superspreaders don’t actually superspread, probably. (I haven’t yet seen a report/case study of a superspreader event where the initial patient was masked. It’s looks like a pattern.)
Anecdotal; I parked outside a store a day or two prior to the April 17 2020 mask mandate in NY by Cuomo, then parked outside the store April 18, counting masked/unmasked store entries. Mask wearing was roughly 50 pre-mandate, and changed to 100 percent the next day.
This was before the anti-masker propaganda apparatus organized and started contaminating RW reality with disinformation, so the effect might be smaller now, but the increase from a mandate is likely to be several 10s of percent.
Now off to look for an actual study using e.g. store surveillance video.
Uncle Cosmo
@Roger Moore: Oh, it’s far worse than that: The Democrats only had a filibuster-proof majority (60 votes, with the two Independents) between Al Franken’s swearing in (July 7, 2009) and Ted Kennedy’s death (August 25, 2009), and again from Paul Kirk’s appointment to fill Kennedy’s seat (September 25, 2009) until Scott Brown (ugh) filled that seat (February 4, 2010) – a total of 181 days, or less than half a calendar year. It’s a not-so-minor miracle they accomplished as much as they did in that short span.
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
OK, for the record:
In Canada, mask usage increased by 20 percentage points in Canada after mask mandates, and the effect was near-immediate, and increased in subsequent weeks.
Face mask mandates slowed the spread of COVID-19 in Canada (Alexander Karaivanov, Shih En Lu, Hitoshi Shigeoka, 09 October 2020)
See figure 3. It is a little confusing; the baseline is percentage of people a week before the mandate who said they always wear a mask when outside their home, and the numbers are percentage increase(/decrease) relative to that.
cynn
@Roger Moore: You got it
J R in WV
@patrick II:
Actually, I used to have a big diesel pickup truck. I used it to tow a backhoe to friends’ farms to help them with projects, etc. I know lots of hippies, back to the land types, with big pickup trucks.
None of those trucks have any Trumpy symbols or signs, in fact many of them have BLM bumper stickers, or being older trucks, rainbows somewhere. I will be the first to admit that lots of big trucks are owned by people who will NEVER have that $80-90K truck off the pavement, and are IGMFY Republicants. But not all of us!
J R in WV
@Kirk Spencer:
The leadership should pass a health protection bill that puts measures to protect the public from health disasters in the hands of medical scientists, and eliminates the judicial system from interfering with such public health measures.
it is not a judge’s place to tell people to disregard a doctor’s orders with regard to keeping people from spreading a fatal virus. They do not have that right at all, and legislation should make that clear. It is NOT a legal matter, it is a medical matter.
Would you have us release Typhoid Mary into the public, to resume her career as a cook, killing hundreds if not thousands of people?!?!?! Any judge willing to do that needs to be impeached for incompetence! Some things are cut and dried right or wrong!
The Constitution is NOT a suicide pact when it comes to me and mine. And anyone who thinks otherwise needs to be put down like the rabid dog they are. Crazed people can not be in charge of public health.
Tim Posh-looking in a mask
Alright, which of you geniuses told him it was a contagious virus? Now he’s blabbin’ it all over town! EVERYBODY WILL KNOW!