Mad_Machine76
Mad_Machine76's JournalYes
Although, frankly, I don't even understand the "give him a chance crowd" in 2016 and why they felt that it was even remotely acceptable to give a reality star with a reputation for a string of bankruptcies, a history of racist actions, unspeakably crude manners, misogny, admitted sexual assaulter, etc. "a chance" instead of going with a woman whose entire life was dedicated to public service, was a Senator for several years, a Secretary of State, intelligent, etc.
And lets not forget that, as bad as things are, he's still got legions of people and entire states that are going to still vote for him in in the EC a few months from now.
Yup
But, hopefully, some of the factors that helped cause this won't exist this time. The 2018 mid-terms were encouraging and things have only gotten worse for Trump since then. And hopefully, there won't be any serious third- or fourth-party contenders whom help dice the vote up. And people are wiser about Russia and online disinformation. Keeping fingers crossed. Won't breathe easy until Biden is peaceably inaugurated in January 2021.
Several things here:
1. Development of a vaccine/treatment(s) are the basic responsibility of any government confronted with a pandemic. If Trump achieves this by October/November, great, but it's the bare butt minimum that any government would be expected to do. So, if one is developed and proven safe and starting to get administered, great, but it won't be "game over" for COVID-19 quite yet. It will have to be administered to millions of people over a course of several months (possibly with multiple doses), so we would still need to maintain some level of caution until it is available widespread and people are beginning to become inoculated against the virus.
2. Having a vaccine available does NOT wipe out Trump's lack of responsiveness to the pandemic, nor his lack of leadership and, at times, his totally awful leadership during the pandemic.
3. Having a vaccine does not bring back the hundreds of thousands of people whom have died and the thousands that will continue to die every week from it until it is no longer an issue, not to mention all of the people who got the virus and may have developed long-term medical issues due to their exposure to it. Trump and others will likely argue that it could have been worse (hundreds of thousands of dead people is still appalling IMHO and the counter hasn't stopped yet), but there is a counterfactual argument to be made that it could have been better had certain things been in place, faster response time, more restrictions, and, most importantly, competent national leadership.
The thing about Trump, Fox, and other right-wing misinformation peddlers
that I find even more galling is that- even while they are telling everybody to go back to work, the gym, bars, pools, churches (in some cases threatening to sue states whom keep things restricted), etc., they themselves are continuing to work remotely, keeping their distance, taking unproven medications (HCL), being frequently tested, all things they are not encouraging the rest of us to do or enabling the rest of us to do. The rest of us are expendable to them. They are placing their own needs and fortunes ahead of the rest of ours. Trump may be wanting his supporters to risk their lives to come see him at his rallies but you can bet he's taking every precaution imaginable to ensure that he doesn't catch the virus and he would be bigly pissed if he ever did and probably find somebody to sue the pants off of.
Both
There is virtually no daylight between them. We need to tie Trump around the necks of GOPer candidates and force them to either embrace or repudiate Trump because, at the end of the day, if Trump gets re-elected, they will serve and enable him. People should know and understand before going to the polls that none of them can be counted on to repudiate them and/or vote to hold him accountable and we can't afford another 4 years of Trump being able to do virtually what he wants with impunity and allow his minions to further corrupt our national institutions, rule of law, criminally neglect the health and well-being of the majority of Americans in this country, etc.
Profile Information
Name: Mara Alis ButlerGender: Female
Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana
Home country: USA
Current location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Member since: Sat Feb 28, 2004, 12:13 AM
Number of posts: 24,182
