@semiticgod
Send me a private message. I'd l Iike to bounce some ideas off of you but can't seem to send you a private message. You can delete this once you've contacted me.
This new Monmouth poll has Biden up 2% with white voters as a whole. If that is the case (or if it's really anywhere near the case), then you are talking about 400 EC votes and a landslide we haven't seen since 1984:
This new Monmouth poll has Biden up 2% with white voters as a whole. If that is the case (or if it's really anywhere near the case), then you are talking about 400 EC votes and a landslide we haven't seen since 1984:
Yeah, unless something changes drastically, say a much more credible sexual assault allegation, this is looking unlike any election Americans have seen in a long time. I thought a 2008 level victory might be possible months ago, but the polling has far exceeded my expectations. I'm now thinking 1980 might be the better comparison -- the incumbent then was also beset by a number of crises that made him appear over matched.
I still suspect we some tightening in the polls even if circumstances continue to look bad for Trump. The Republican party raised a lot of money for this election, and advertising works.
This new Monmouth poll has Biden up 2% with white voters as a whole. If that is the case (or if it's really anywhere near the case), then you are talking about 400 EC votes and a landslide we haven't seen since 1984:
This new Monmouth poll has Biden up 2% with white voters as a whole. If that is the case (or if it's really anywhere near the case), then you are talking about 400 EC votes and a landslide we haven't seen since 1984:
They still haven't settled on a line of attack against Biden other than "he's old". Sleepy Joe is simply not resonating like Crooked Hillary. Saying Biden isn't up to the job isn't much of an argument when 60% of the country is absolutely convinced you aren't yourself. At least with Biden they can IMAGINE competence by way of who he appoints to run federal agencies. Who in the country still believes Trump has a clue besides his hardcore base?? A Democrat hasn't won the white vote overall since LBJ in 1964. That was 55 years ago. If Biden is even remotely competitive in that space, I have no idea how you pull off a national election win unless you just simply resort to outright theft.
I have as much PTSD as anyone about 2016, but I don't see how he survives with the steady numbers of these polls for the last month and the fact that he is tied at the hip with what is happening with Abbott and DeSantis in Texas and Florida. Everyone in those states know why those Governors did what they did.
Maybe he could have come back from the first round of COVID-19. Still would have been tough. I can't fathom how you spin your way out of being in the same spot 3 months later. It's not New York and Chicago anymore, it's the Sunbelt. Where retirees flock like the salmon of Capistrano (Dumb and Dumber reference).
This new Monmouth poll has Biden up 2% with white voters as a whole. If that is the case (or if it's really anywhere near the case), then you are talking about 400 EC votes and a landslide we haven't seen since 1984:
I encourage folks to stop making an argument based on a sample size of one. I shouldn't have to point out to an adult that argument via anecdote is a logical fallacy, and frankly it gets tiresome to keep having to mention this to the same person.
A few things. Do you think Trump wins in 2016 with $0 spent?
Clinton won the popular vote. Trump *under-performed* congressional Republicans. House Republicans won 49.1% of the popular vote. Dems 48.0%. Trump 46.1% Clinton 48.2%. Winning the Electoral College via tenths of a percentage victories in a few states is just not a reliable way to win.
This new Monmouth poll has Biden up 2% with white voters as a whole. If that is the case (or if it's really anywhere near the case), then you are talking about 400 EC votes and a landslide we haven't seen since 1984:
That said, Trump isn't going to have Cambridge Analytica using his money in the most effective way possible on Facebook this time around.
News channels (besides Fox and OANN) aren't going to cover him and his rallies like a train wreck happening in real time, basically giving him free airtime like in 2016 either.
This new Monmouth poll has Biden up 2% with white voters as a whole. If that is the case (or if it's really anywhere near the case), then you are talking about 400 EC votes and a landslide we haven't seen since 1984:
I encourage folks to stop making an argument based on a sample size of one. I shouldn't have to point out to an adult that argument via anecdote is a logical fallacy, and frankly it gets tiresome to keep having to mention this to the same person.
A few things. Do you think Trump wins in 2016 with $0 spent?
Clinton won the popular vote. Trump *under-performed* congressional Republicans. House Republicans won 49.1% of the popular vote. Dems 48.0%. Trump 46.1% Clinton 48.2%. Winning the Electoral College via tenths of a percentage victories in a few states is just not a reliable way to win.
This new Monmouth poll has Biden up 2% with white voters as a whole. If that is the case (or if it's really anywhere near the case), then you are talking about 400 EC votes and a landslide we haven't seen since 1984:
I encourage folks to stop making an argument based on a sample size of one. I shouldn't have to point out to an adult that argument via anecdote is a logical fallacy, and frankly it gets tiresome to keep having to mention this to the same person.
A few things. Do you think Trump wins in 2016 with $0 spent?
Clinton won the popular vote. Trump *under-performed* congressional Republicans. House Republicans won 49.1% of the popular vote. Dems 48.0%. Trump 46.1% Clinton 48.2%. Winning the Electoral College via tenths of a percentage victories in a few states is just not a reliable way to win.
This new Monmouth poll has Biden up 2% with white voters as a whole. If that is the case (or if it's really anywhere near the case), then you are talking about 400 EC votes and a landslide we haven't seen since 1984:
That said, Trump isn't going to have Cambridge Analytica using his money in the most effective way possible on Facebook this time around.
News channels (besides Fox and OANN) aren't going to cover him and his rallies like a train wreck happening in real time, basically giving him free airtime like in 2016 either.
COVID-19 will dominate almost every news cycle until it gets under control, which on our current path is "never". Trump can't manipulate coverage away from the virus. There was nothing of even remotely comparable importance going on in the summer of 2016. The campaign WAS the story. As I've said before, there is no campaign. That is one of his main problems. There is only the pandemic, and the vote in November.
Food for thought, we have additional recent evidence that simply having a lot of money isnt enough to win elections. In the Democratic primary, Bloomberg lapped the field in spending, and while it absolutely boosted his numbers - he won very few delegates.
Sanders also outspent Biden by quite a bit (IIRC) on Super Tuesday, and lost horribly there too.
The point being - Money can do a lot of things for a campaign, but it doesnt win. It's a force multiplier, but you need that starting force to get any effect.
Trump is in incredibly serious trouble. Even his electoral college edge is going away. I believe he polls worse in Michigan than he does in the country as a whole right now. Wisconsin is really close to the country as a whole (They were R+2 in 2016), and PA hasnt had much good polling to know how the race stands there.
As an aside - for all the utterly cynical people who constantly said "You will support keeping the Electoral College when it benefits your candidate", we may be there right now. I still say burn it to the ground.
Food for thought, we have additional recent evidence that simply having a lot of money isnt enough to win elections. In the Democratic primary, Bloomberg lapped the field in spending, and while it absolutely boosted his numbers - he won very few delegates.
Sanders also outspent Biden by quite a bit (IIRC) on Super Tuesday, and lost horribly there too.
The point being - Money can do a lot of things for a campaign, but it doesnt win. It's a force multiplier, but you need that starting force to get any effect.
Trump is in incredibly serious trouble. Even his electoral college edge is going away. I believe he polls worse in Michigan than he does in the country as a whole right now. Wisconsin is really close to the country as a whole (They were R+2 in 2016), and PA hasnt had much good polling to know how the race stands there.
As an aside - for all the utterly cynical people who constantly said "You will support keeping the Electoral College when it benefits your candidate", we may be there right now. I still say burn it to the ground.
I hear an argument alot about how it "benefited" Obama in 2012, when Obama won the popular vote by 4%. I have no idea where this idea comes from that Obama was in danger of losing the popular vote against Romney and winning the EC. There is only one time a campaign has had a "plan" for what to do if they won the popular vote and lost the EC. It was the Bush campaign in 2000 against Gore. And they were set-up to fight that result tooth and nail. If you'll recall, all we've done is bitch about how ridiculous it is. Hillary herself conceded the next morning, and went to the Inauguration. Any bets on if Trump shows up at Biden's if he wins??
Food for thought, we have additional recent evidence that simply having a lot of money isnt enough to win elections. In the Democratic primary, Bloomberg lapped the field in spending, and while it absolutely boosted his numbers - he won very few delegates.
Sanders also outspent Biden by quite a bit (IIRC) on Super Tuesday, and lost horribly there too.
The point being - Money can do a lot of things for a campaign, but it doesnt win. It's a force multiplier, but you need that starting force to get any effect.
Trump is in incredibly serious trouble. Even his electoral college edge is going away. I believe he polls worse in Michigan than he does in the country as a whole right now. Wisconsin is really close to the country as a whole (They were R+2 in 2016), and PA hasnt had much good polling to know how the race stands there.
As an aside - for all the utterly cynical people who constantly said "You will support keeping the Electoral College when it benefits your candidate", we may be there right now. I still say burn it to the ground.
I hear an argument alot about how it "benefited" Obama in 2012, when Obama won the popular vote by 4%. I have no idea where this idea comes from that Obama was in danger of losing the popular vote against Romney and winning the EC. There is only one time a campaign has had a "plan" for what to do if they won the popular vote and lost the EC. It was the Bush campaign in 2000 against Gore. And they were set-up to fight that result tooth and nail. If you'll recall, all we've done is bitch about how ridiculous it is. Hillary herself conceded the next morning, and went to the Inauguration. Any bets on if Trump shows up at Biden's if he wins??
Not sure about odds on that bet. For whatever reason Trump's heart doesn't seem to be in beating up on Biden. Certainly not with anywhere near the vitriol he unleashed on Hillary, anyway.
The kind of depraved mind it takes to delight in the killing of this kid is so far beyond twisted. And this Chief knows it. Just purely evil human beings. No one is safe with these type of people given the power they have:
Again, firing them isn't enough. EVERY interaction they ever had with members of the public, especially with minorities, needs to examined. Any testimony they ever gave in a criminal proceeding is suspect. These sociopaths are taking a field trip to a place where an innocent kid was killed for absolutely NO reason whatsoever. The culture is rotten. The culture is diseased beyond all hope of saving.
Trump Jrs girlfriend, that he left his wife and five children over, now has Coronavirus.
Kimberley Guilfoyle is her name, she's a former Fox News 'Personality'.
Trump's been not wearing masks because everyone he meets gets a rapid Coronavirus test that gives results in less than an hour. These tests are said to be unreliable. They are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in tests for Trump to go around pretending we, who don't get the same testing protection, don't need masks.
I think this write-up by Josh Marshall sums up the complete failure in regards to COVID-19 better than anything. It didn't have to be this way:
I seldom think anything good about Donald Trump. I hate what he has done to the country. I hold his enablers even more responsible for what has happened on his watch. But today I feel that stew of emotions in a new, deadening way. I am baffled and aghast and angry in a way that feels new.
The US is not experiencing a COVID surge. We are back to exponential growth in the virus just as most of the rest of the wealthy, industrialized world is moving on. COVID is not done for them of course. There are masks and mitigation and distancing and people are still falling ill. Some are dying. But most of these countries have beaten COVID down into low enough numbers that they can get about the business of a new form of social and economic life.
More than 57 thousand new cases were reported today. I was dumbfounded by that number even though the trend pointed to it. This is almost triple the number of cases of three weeks ago. This is a national catastrophe and one due almost all to ourselves, to a litany of horrible decisions and even more to simple abdications of responsibility. And, yes, it really all goes to Donald Trump who has tried to deny the problem whenever possible and when he engages it does so through the prism of assigning blame to someone else for anything that goes wrong. The concepts of service and responsibility are entirely alien to him.
We’ve watched a ragged, lying, stupid and absurd performance going back five months. Any sense of national coordination or unity have come apart like a torn necklace. No wonder the result is so bad and we’re alone in the world.
The White House tonight says it is shifting to a new message: “We need to live with it.” It is a brazen effrontery to point us to their failure and tell us, “Deal. That’s just how it is.”
We are often helpless before nature and fate but the different outcomes in so many parts of the world tell us that it is neither nature nor fate which have brought us to this pass.
Being President is a hard job and this was an historic challenge. But that’s the job. It’s on you. You may not be at fault but you are responsible. You can imagine good presidents of the past and bad struggling under the weight of this crisis. He’s done none of that. His battle has been running away. It’s all been a matter of blaming states for not having enough ventilators or tests, making covid denial a centerpiece of his movement. His whole record in the crisis has been denial and then finding nonsensical arguments that a crisis befalling the country to which he was elected head of state somehow has nothing to do with him. The states have to fend for themselves and the federal government has to take care of itself, as though the federal government is anything but the expression of and protector of the people who collectively make up the states.
And then he just decided he was done. He got bored. It wasn’t fun anymore. He shuttered his largely ineffectual task force and moved on. He wanted rallies. He branded a new “transition to greatness.” He made masks a sign of being a Democrat and a wuss.
But COVID hadn’t moved on.
None of this had to happen. It is a failure of cataclysmic proportions. It has many roots. It has revealed many insufficiencies and failures in our society and institutions. But the scale of it, the unifying force of it is a man who never should have been president, who has abandoned his responsibility to lead and protect the country, making it every state for itself, a chaos only organized by a shiftless and shambling effort to help himself at all costs at every point.
First it was a hoax, then it was a china problem, then it was going to go away by easter or summer as if by miracle, then it was a serious matter for a couple weeks, then it was "reopen the states". And now?
Now it's YOU need to live with it (while I and everyone who meets me gets tested so I can walk around without a mask). Why do we need to live with it when you screwed it up?? Other countries don't have to live with 50k cases a day? Why do WE have to live with it? Because you had a terrible response.
American carnage? More like a American genocidal maniac.
I’ve been thinking about November and the coronavirus numbers in the US.
I think if Biden wins, he screws himself completely over as his first priority will be to get this mess under control. That means taking the draconian measures that the rest of the world took months ago.
It means shutting the US down while the rest of the world continues to open up. The ‘V’ becomes a ‘W’ as the economy crashes again and everyone on the right side of the aisle will place all the blame on him, even though the majority of them ignored this crisis for what would be nine months at that point.
Instead of suppressing numbers, red states will start inflating death numbers to show that Trump had the situation under control much better than Biden and ‘their guy’ in 2024 will be a drastic improvement to the recession bringing bumbling Biden team. This, all while, continuing to ignore proper guidance. This of course will only happen in swing red states (think Florida). Imbedded red, will get this under control because they do not need to make it political and can take all the praise for finally getting this under control.
IMO, if Biden wins, America will win long term, but the Democrats will lose long term.
I’ve been thinking about November and the coronavirus numbers in the US.
I think if Biden wins, he screws himself completely over as his first priority will be to get this mess under control. That means taking the draconian measures that the rest of the world took months ago.
It means shutting the US down while the rest of the world continues to open up. The ‘V’ becomes a ‘W’ as the economy crashes again and everyone on the right side of the aisle will place all the blame on him, even though the majority of them ignored this crisis for what would be nine months at that point.
Instead of suppressing numbers, red states will start inflating death numbers to show that Trump had the situation under control much better than Biden and ‘their guy’ in 2024 will be a drastic improvement to the recession bringing bumbling Biden team. This, all while, continuing to ignore proper guidance. This of course will only happen in swing red states (think Florida). Imbedded red, will get this under control because they do not need to make it political and can take all the praise for finally getting this under control.
IMO, if Biden wins, America will win long term, but the Democrats will lose long term.
This all may be true, but a lot of the same predictions were made about Obama after inheriting Bush's economic collapse in 2008-2009. It was suggested that he would be blamed for the economy and it would set him and Democrats back considerably.
Instead, Obama managed the crisis and pushed the country into a steady pattern of economic improvement - and has been rewarded in terms of legacy for being one of the more successful presidents in recent history. Biden will have that same opportunity.
Between medical advances and common sense practices, it doesnt seem like COVID 19 is going to be a 4 year plague upon the world. The current prevailing wisdom (which could be very wrong) is that COVID 19 might be much reduced in its importance by this time next year. If that's the case, then Biden is going to get a LOT of credit for managing a crisis that Trump could not - much like Obama.
I’ve been thinking about November and the coronavirus numbers in the US.
I think if Biden wins, he screws himself completely over as his first priority will be to get this mess under control. That means taking the draconian measures that the rest of the world took months ago.
It means shutting the US down while the rest of the world continues to open up. The ‘V’ becomes a ‘W’ as the economy crashes again and everyone on the right side of the aisle will place all the blame on him, even though the majority of them ignored this crisis for what would be nine months at that point.
Instead of suppressing numbers, red states will start inflating death numbers to show that Trump had the situation under control much better than Biden and ‘their guy’ in 2024 will be a drastic improvement to the recession bringing bumbling Biden team. This, all while, continuing to ignore proper guidance. This of course will only happen in swing red states (think Florida). Imbedded red, will get this under control because they do not need to make it political and can take all the praise for finally getting this under control.
IMO, if Biden wins, America will win long term, but the Democrats will lose long term.
What else is new?? My entire adult political life has been Republicans running the country into a ditch for 12 years (W. and Trump) and then Democrats being asked to fix it, then the country inexplicably turns the keys back over to the drunk driver who crashed the car in the first place.
I’ve been thinking about November and the coronavirus numbers in the US.
I think if Biden wins, he screws himself completely over as his first priority will be to get this mess under control. That means taking the draconian measures that the rest of the world took months ago.
It means shutting the US down while the rest of the world continues to open up. The ‘V’ becomes a ‘W’ as the economy crashes again and everyone on the right side of the aisle will place all the blame on him, even though the majority of them ignored this crisis for what would be nine months at that point.
Instead of suppressing numbers, red states will start inflating death numbers to show that Trump had the situation under control much better than Biden and ‘their guy’ in 2024 will be a drastic improvement to the recession bringing bumbling Biden team. This, all while, continuing to ignore proper guidance. This of course will only happen in swing red states (think Florida). Imbedded red, will get this under control because they do not need to make it political and can take all the praise for finally getting this under control.
IMO, if Biden wins, America will win long term, but the Democrats will lose long term.
What else is new?? My entire adult political life has been Republicans running the country into a ditch for 12 years (W. and Trump) and then Democrats being asked to fix it, then the country inexplicably turns the keys back over to the drunk driver who crashed the car in the first place.
But what about *Hillary's emails* and *Obama's tan suit*? Oooh, those are the real problems not the multiple Republican economic catastrophes and 120k deaths and pressuring foreign countries into election help and constant lies and gaslighting!
I’ve been thinking about November and the coronavirus numbers in the US.
I think if Biden wins, he screws himself completely over as his first priority will be to get this mess under control. That means taking the draconian measures that the rest of the world took months ago.
It means shutting the US down while the rest of the world continues to open up. The ‘V’ becomes a ‘W’ as the economy crashes again and everyone on the right side of the aisle will place all the blame on him, even though the majority of them ignored this crisis for what would be nine months at that point.
Instead of suppressing numbers, red states will start inflating death numbers to show that Trump had the situation under control much better than Biden and ‘their guy’ in 2024 will be a drastic improvement to the recession bringing bumbling Biden team. This, all while, continuing to ignore proper guidance. This of course will only happen in swing red states (think Florida). Imbedded red, will get this under control because they do not need to make it political and can take all the praise for finally getting this under control.
IMO, if Biden wins, America will win long term, but the Democrats will lose long term.
This all may be true, but a lot of the same predictions were made about Obama after inheriting Bush's economic collapse in 2008-2009. It was suggested that he would be blamed for the economy and it would set him and Democrats back considerably.
Instead, Obama managed the crisis and pushed the country into a steady pattern of economic improvement - and has been rewarded in terms of legacy for being one of the more successful presidents in recent history. Biden will have that same opportunity.
Between medical advances and common sense practices, it doesnt seem like COVID 19 is going to be a 4 year plague upon the world. The current prevailing wisdom (which could be very wrong) is that COVID 19 might be much reduced in its importance by this time next year. If that's the case, then Biden is going to get a LOT of credit for managing a crisis that Trump could not - much like Obama.
I guess you missed all the talk of comparing Trump’s first 2 years in office with Obama’s first two years and how it made Trump superior when it came to the economy and that was Trump’s election plan until COVID reared it’s ugly head (and, truthfully, it still might be).
I also think that it’s wishful thinking to assume that COVID won’t be a problem a year from now, especially in the states where it is still rampant. Cases are lowering, but people are also putting their guard down and it takes one idiot from out of area to infect a population that took all the right procedures in the beginning and now think the threat has actually passed. It won’t be global, or even national but expect isolated outbreaks a year from now.
I’ve been thinking about November and the coronavirus numbers in the US.
I think if Biden wins, he screws himself completely over as his first priority will be to get this mess under control. That means taking the draconian measures that the rest of the world took months ago.
It means shutting the US down while the rest of the world continues to open up. The ‘V’ becomes a ‘W’ as the economy crashes again and everyone on the right side of the aisle will place all the blame on him, even though the majority of them ignored this crisis for what would be nine months at that point.
Instead of suppressing numbers, red states will start inflating death numbers to show that Trump had the situation under control much better than Biden and ‘their guy’ in 2024 will be a drastic improvement to the recession bringing bumbling Biden team. This, all while, continuing to ignore proper guidance. This of course will only happen in swing red states (think Florida). Imbedded red, will get this under control because they do not need to make it political and can take all the praise for finally getting this under control.
IMO, if Biden wins, America will win long term, but the Democrats will lose long term.
This all may be true, but a lot of the same predictions were made about Obama after inheriting Bush's economic collapse in 2008-2009. It was suggested that he would be blamed for the economy and it would set him and Democrats back considerably.
Instead, Obama managed the crisis and pushed the country into a steady pattern of economic improvement - and has been rewarded in terms of legacy for being one of the more successful presidents in recent history. Biden will have that same opportunity.
Between medical advances and common sense practices, it doesnt seem like COVID 19 is going to be a 4 year plague upon the world. The current prevailing wisdom (which could be very wrong) is that COVID 19 might be much reduced in its importance by this time next year. If that's the case, then Biden is going to get a LOT of credit for managing a crisis that Trump could not - much like Obama.
I guess you missed all the talk of comparing Trump’s first 2 years in office with Obama’s first two years and how it made Trump superior when it came to the economy and that was Trump’s election plan until COVID reared it’s ugly head (and, truthfully, it still might be).
I also think that it’s wishful thinking to assume that COVID won’t be a problem a year from now, especially in the states where it is still rampant. Cases are lowering, but people are also putting their guard down and it takes one idiot from out of area to infect a population that took all the right procedures in the beginning and now think the threat has actually passed. It won’t be global, or even national but expect isolated outbreaks a year from now.
... I didnt miss any of that. Even when Trump was given good marks on the economy several years in, he has consistently been given considerably worse marks on nearly everything else. The point being - Obama's presidency wasnt defined simply by the failure of the previous administration. He ability to meaningfully address that crisis and handle it effectively ended up winning him tremendous plaudits.
The economy didnt immediately turn around under Obama. There were months and months of 6 figure job losses early into his presidency. The parallels for a Biden based recovery seem rather obvious. He'll inherit a mess with a millions of cases of COVID and an ugly death toll. They wont go away overnight, but with effective management we know (as in, we can see other countries doing this) it can be managed. Add to that better treatment and potentially a vaccine - and you're suddenly looking as a much more managed situation.
As a side note - I dont know why you're mis-characterizing my words. I didnt say it "wouldnt be a problem". I said it wont be a 4 year plague upon the world. You actually essentially agreed with this when you said "It wont be global, or even national - but expect isolated outbreaks a year from now".
Edit - I dont want to go tit for tat with this either, so I'll nip it a bit.
I also said "COVID 19 might be much reduced in its importance by this time next year". Going from a global pandemic to "isolated outbreaks" that arent even national outbreaks would be a major step, and would certainly make it less important than it is today.
I’ve been thinking about November and the coronavirus numbers in the US.
I think if Biden wins, he screws himself completely over as his first priority will be to get this mess under control. That means taking the draconian measures that the rest of the world took months ago.
It means shutting the US down while the rest of the world continues to open up. The ‘V’ becomes a ‘W’ as the economy crashes again and everyone on the right side of the aisle will place all the blame on him, even though the majority of them ignored this crisis for what would be nine months at that point.
Instead of suppressing numbers, red states will start inflating death numbers to show that Trump had the situation under control much better than Biden and ‘their guy’ in 2024 will be a drastic improvement to the recession bringing bumbling Biden team. This, all while, continuing to ignore proper guidance. This of course will only happen in swing red states (think Florida). Imbedded red, will get this under control because they do not need to make it political and can take all the praise for finally getting this under control.
IMO, if Biden wins, America will win long term, but the Democrats will lose long term.
This all may be true, but a lot of the same predictions were made about Obama after inheriting Bush's economic collapse in 2008-2009. It was suggested that he would be blamed for the economy and it would set him and Democrats back considerably.
Instead, Obama managed the crisis and pushed the country into a steady pattern of economic improvement - and has been rewarded in terms of legacy for being one of the more successful presidents in recent history. Biden will have that same opportunity.
Between medical advances and common sense practices, it doesnt seem like COVID 19 is going to be a 4 year plague upon the world. The current prevailing wisdom (which could be very wrong) is that COVID 19 might be much reduced in its importance by this time next year. If that's the case, then Biden is going to get a LOT of credit for managing a crisis that Trump could not - much like Obama.
I guess you missed all the talk of comparing Trump’s first 2 years in office with Obama’s first two years and how it made Trump superior when it came to the economy and that was Trump’s election plan until COVID reared it’s ugly head (and, truthfully, it still might be).
I also think that it’s wishful thinking to assume that COVID won’t be a problem a year from now, especially in the states where it is still rampant. Cases are lowering, but people are also putting their guard down and it takes one idiot from out of area to infect a population that took all the right procedures in the beginning and now think the threat has actually passed. It won’t be global, or even national but expect isolated outbreaks a year from now.
... I didnt miss any of that. Even when Trump was given good marks on the economy several years in, he has consistently been given considerably worse marks on nearly everything else. The point being - Obama's presidency wasnt defined simply by the failure of the previous administration. He ability to meaningfully address that crisis and handle it effectively ended up winning him tremendous plaudits.
The economy didnt immediately turn around under Obama. There were months and months of 6 figure job losses early into his presidency. The parallels for a Biden based recovery seem rather obvious. He'll inherit a mess with a millions of cases of COVID and an ugly death toll. They wont go away overnight, but with effective management we know (as in, we can see other countries doing this) it can be managed. Add to that better treatment and potentially a vaccine - and you're suddenly looking as a much more managed situation.
As a side note - I dont know why you're mis-characterizing my words. I didnt say it "wouldnt be a problem". I said it wont be a 4 year plague upon the world. You actually essentially agreed with this when you said "It wont be global, or even national - but expect isolated outbreaks a year from now".
Edit - I dont want to go tit for tat with this either, so I'll nip it a bit.
I also said "COVID 19 might be much reduced in its importance by this time next year". Going from a global pandemic to "isolated outbreaks" that arent even national outbreaks would be a major step, and would certainly make it less important than it is today.
Yeah, no one can predict the future, but whoever the next president is, they are potentially set up to enjoy a rebounding economy. The economy is sort of artificially in the pits right now because we are all taking measures to reduce the harm of disease. Even marginally more effective leadership from the federal government should go far -- it's rather shocking just how well almost every single other wealthy country has done in contrast to the US.
The most significant election after November will be in 2022. There, Republicans will have a chance to retake the House and possibly the Senate if they lose that this fall. I think it's a fool's errand to try and game out what's going to happen then, or what now will end up being a liability by that date.
I think the Republican party may find itself in an incredibly difficult spot in terms of organizing if they lose in a landslide this fall. There's likely to be something of a deep internal fissure in the party between people who will advocate for moderation and those will want to double down on Trump-style factionalism. And I don't think characterizing Biden as too lefty or too socialist, as they did against Obama is going to be effective, it already seems ineffective so far.
I’ve been thinking about November and the coronavirus numbers in the US.
I think if Biden wins, he screws himself completely over as his first priority will be to get this mess under control. That means taking the draconian measures that the rest of the world took months ago.
It means shutting the US down while the rest of the world continues to open up. The ‘V’ becomes a ‘W’ as the economy crashes again and everyone on the right side of the aisle will place all the blame on him, even though the majority of them ignored this crisis for what would be nine months at that point.
Instead of suppressing numbers, red states will start inflating death numbers to show that Trump had the situation under control much better than Biden and ‘their guy’ in 2024 will be a drastic improvement to the recession bringing bumbling Biden team. This, all while, continuing to ignore proper guidance. This of course will only happen in swing red states (think Florida). Imbedded red, will get this under control because they do not need to make it political and can take all the praise for finally getting this under control.
IMO, if Biden wins, America will win long term, but the Democrats will lose long term.
This all may be true, but a lot of the same predictions were made about Obama after inheriting Bush's economic collapse in 2008-2009. It was suggested that he would be blamed for the economy and it would set him and Democrats back considerably.
Instead, Obama managed the crisis and pushed the country into a steady pattern of economic improvement - and has been rewarded in terms of legacy for being one of the more successful presidents in recent history. Biden will have that same opportunity.
Between medical advances and common sense practices, it doesnt seem like COVID 19 is going to be a 4 year plague upon the world. The current prevailing wisdom (which could be very wrong) is that COVID 19 might be much reduced in its importance by this time next year. If that's the case, then Biden is going to get a LOT of credit for managing a crisis that Trump could not - much like Obama.
I guess you missed all the talk of comparing Trump’s first 2 years in office with Obama’s first two years and how it made Trump superior when it came to the economy and that was Trump’s election plan until COVID reared it’s ugly head (and, truthfully, it still might be).
I also think that it’s wishful thinking to assume that COVID won’t be a problem a year from now, especially in the states where it is still rampant. Cases are lowering, but people are also putting their guard down and it takes one idiot from out of area to infect a population that took all the right procedures in the beginning and now think the threat has actually passed. It won’t be global, or even national but expect isolated outbreaks a year from now.
... I didnt miss any of that. Even when Trump was given good marks on the economy several years in, he has consistently been given considerably worse marks on nearly everything else. The point being - Obama's presidency wasnt defined simply by the failure of the previous administration. He ability to meaningfully address that crisis and handle it effectively ended up winning him tremendous plaudits.
The economy didnt immediately turn around under Obama. There were months and months of 6 figure job losses early into his presidency. The parallels for a Biden based recovery seem rather obvious. He'll inherit a mess with a millions of cases of COVID and an ugly death toll. They wont go away overnight, but with effective management we know (as in, we can see other countries doing this) it can be managed. Add to that better treatment and potentially a vaccine - and you're suddenly looking as a much more managed situation.
As a side note - I dont know why you're mis-characterizing my words. I didnt say it "wouldnt be a problem". I said it wont be a 4 year plague upon the world. You actually essentially agreed with this when you said "It wont be global, or even national - but expect isolated outbreaks a year from now".
Edit - I dont want to go tit for tat with this either, so I'll nip it a bit.
I also said "COVID 19 might be much reduced in its importance by this time next year". Going from a global pandemic to "isolated outbreaks" that arent even national outbreaks would be a major step, and would certainly make it less important than it is today.
Yeah, no one can predict the future, but whoever the next president is, they are potentially set up to enjoy a rebounding economy. The economy is sort of artificially in the pits right now because we are all taking measures to reduce the harm of disease. Even marginally more effective leadership from the federal government should go far -- it's rather shocking just how well almost every single other wealthy country has done in contrast to the US.
The most significant election after November will be in 2022. There, Republicans will have a chance to retake the House and possibly the Senate if they lose that this fall. I think it's a fool's errand to try and game out what's going to happen then, or what now will end up being a liability by that date.
I think the Republican party may find itself in an incredibly difficult spot in terms of organizing if they lose in a landslide this fall. There's likely to be something of a deep internal fissure in the party between people who will advocate for moderation and those will want to double down on Trump-style factionalism. And I don't think characterizing Biden as too lefty or too socialist, as they did against Obama is going to be effective, it already seems ineffective so far.
That's because Biden is neither of the left nor a socialist, and no one who isn't tied to either faction thinks he is. Trump continues to think that threatening to jail people for 10 years for defacing inanimate statues is the solution to his problems. It's hard to even overstate how far up your own ass you have to be to think your average person gives two shits about that in the midst of a pandemic and (at the very least) a severe recession. The equivalent would be if Obama had made reparations the center-piece of his campaign in 2008 in the wake of the Iraq War, Katrina, and the financial collapse. In 1992, James Carville was telling the Clinton campaign over and over "it's the economy, stupid". In 2020, just substitute the work "economy" for "pandemic". And as I've been pointing out, Trump has just moved on as if it isn't even taking place. Good luck with that.
So yeah, it's not JUST that the culture war bullshit is only effective in periods of relative calm and prosperity when people don't have anything else to worry about. It's that trying to tie Joe Biden, of all people, to the radical left just doesn't compute for anyone who is persuadable. Joe Biden is about a radical as a hamburger, french fries, and vanilla shake. So even if doubling down on Confederate symbols was a solid strategy (which it isn't) it STILL wouldn't have anything to do with the guy he is actually running against.
I’ve been thinking about November and the coronavirus numbers in the US.
I think if Biden wins, he screws himself completely over as his first priority will be to get this mess under control. That means taking the draconian measures that the rest of the world took months ago.
It means shutting the US down while the rest of the world continues to open up. The ‘V’ becomes a ‘W’ as the economy crashes again and everyone on the right side of the aisle will place all the blame on him, even though the majority of them ignored this crisis for what would be nine months at that point.
Instead of suppressing numbers, red states will start inflating death numbers to show that Trump had the situation under control much better than Biden and ‘their guy’ in 2024 will be a drastic improvement to the recession bringing bumbling Biden team. This, all while, continuing to ignore proper guidance. This of course will only happen in swing red states (think Florida). Imbedded red, will get this under control because they do not need to make it political and can take all the praise for finally getting this under control.
IMO, if Biden wins, America will win long term, but the Democrats will lose long term.
This all may be true, but a lot of the same predictions were made about Obama after inheriting Bush's economic collapse in 2008-2009. It was suggested that he would be blamed for the economy and it would set him and Democrats back considerably.
Instead, Obama managed the crisis and pushed the country into a steady pattern of economic improvement - and has been rewarded in terms of legacy for being one of the more successful presidents in recent history. Biden will have that same opportunity.
Between medical advances and common sense practices, it doesnt seem like COVID 19 is going to be a 4 year plague upon the world. The current prevailing wisdom (which could be very wrong) is that COVID 19 might be much reduced in its importance by this time next year. If that's the case, then Biden is going to get a LOT of credit for managing a crisis that Trump could not - much like Obama.
I guess you missed all the talk of comparing Trump’s first 2 years in office with Obama’s first two years and how it made Trump superior when it came to the economy and that was Trump’s election plan until COVID reared it’s ugly head (and, truthfully, it still might be).
I also think that it’s wishful thinking to assume that COVID won’t be a problem a year from now, especially in the states where it is still rampant. Cases are lowering, but people are also putting their guard down and it takes one idiot from out of area to infect a population that took all the right procedures in the beginning and now think the threat has actually passed. It won’t be global, or even national but expect isolated outbreaks a year from now.
... I didnt miss any of that. Even when Trump was given good marks on the economy several years in, he has consistently been given considerably worse marks on nearly everything else. The point being - Obama's presidency wasnt defined simply by the failure of the previous administration. He ability to meaningfully address that crisis and handle it effectively ended up winning him tremendous plaudits.
The economy didnt immediately turn around under Obama. There were months and months of 6 figure job losses early into his presidency. The parallels for a Biden based recovery seem rather obvious. He'll inherit a mess with a millions of cases of COVID and an ugly death toll. They wont go away overnight, but with effective management we know (as in, we can see other countries doing this) it can be managed. Add to that better treatment and potentially a vaccine - and you're suddenly looking as a much more managed situation.
As a side note - I dont know why you're mis-characterizing my words. I didnt say it "wouldnt be a problem". I said it wont be a 4 year plague upon the world. You actually essentially agreed with this when you said "It wont be global, or even national - but expect isolated outbreaks a year from now".
Edit - I dont want to go tit for tat with this either, so I'll nip it a bit.
I also said "COVID 19 might be much reduced in its importance by this time next year". Going from a global pandemic to "isolated outbreaks" that arent even national outbreaks would be a major step, and would certainly make it less important than it is today.
Yeah, no one can predict the future, but whoever the next president is, they are potentially set up to enjoy a rebounding economy. The economy is sort of artificially in the pits right now because we are all taking measures to reduce the harm of disease. Even marginally more effective leadership from the federal government should go far -- it's rather shocking just how well almost every single other wealthy country has done in contrast to the US.
Yeah. Look - I dont want to be hideously cynical - but the truth seems to be that COVID19 was a major windfall for the Democrats. The economy will (most likely) bounce back within a year or so (wont be as fast as some people want, but it wont take 6 years either). The Pandemic will also probably be in a much more manageable spot in 2 years too. Biden will get a ton of credit for that, even though he probably wont deserve a lot of it.
I’ve been thinking about November and the coronavirus numbers in the US.
I think if Biden wins, he screws himself completely over as his first priority will be to get this mess under control. That means taking the draconian measures that the rest of the world took months ago.
It means shutting the US down while the rest of the world continues to open up. The ‘V’ becomes a ‘W’ as the economy crashes again and everyone on the right side of the aisle will place all the blame on him, even though the majority of them ignored this crisis for what would be nine months at that point.
Instead of suppressing numbers, red states will start inflating death numbers to show that Trump had the situation under control much better than Biden and ‘their guy’ in 2024 will be a drastic improvement to the recession bringing bumbling Biden team. This, all while, continuing to ignore proper guidance. This of course will only happen in swing red states (think Florida). Imbedded red, will get this under control because they do not need to make it political and can take all the praise for finally getting this under control.
IMO, if Biden wins, America will win long term, but the Democrats will lose long term.
This all may be true, but a lot of the same predictions were made about Obama after inheriting Bush's economic collapse in 2008-2009. It was suggested that he would be blamed for the economy and it would set him and Democrats back considerably.
Instead, Obama managed the crisis and pushed the country into a steady pattern of economic improvement - and has been rewarded in terms of legacy for being one of the more successful presidents in recent history. Biden will have that same opportunity.
Between medical advances and common sense practices, it doesnt seem like COVID 19 is going to be a 4 year plague upon the world. The current prevailing wisdom (which could be very wrong) is that COVID 19 might be much reduced in its importance by this time next year. If that's the case, then Biden is going to get a LOT of credit for managing a crisis that Trump could not - much like Obama.
I guess you missed all the talk of comparing Trump’s first 2 years in office with Obama’s first two years and how it made Trump superior when it came to the economy and that was Trump’s election plan until COVID reared it’s ugly head (and, truthfully, it still might be).
I also think that it’s wishful thinking to assume that COVID won’t be a problem a year from now, especially in the states where it is still rampant. Cases are lowering, but people are also putting their guard down and it takes one idiot from out of area to infect a population that took all the right procedures in the beginning and now think the threat has actually passed. It won’t be global, or even national but expect isolated outbreaks a year from now.
... I didnt miss any of that. Even when Trump was given good marks on the economy several years in, he has consistently been given considerably worse marks on nearly everything else. The point being - Obama's presidency wasnt defined simply by the failure of the previous administration. He ability to meaningfully address that crisis and handle it effectively ended up winning him tremendous plaudits.
The economy didnt immediately turn around under Obama. There were months and months of 6 figure job losses early into his presidency. The parallels for a Biden based recovery seem rather obvious. He'll inherit a mess with a millions of cases of COVID and an ugly death toll. They wont go away overnight, but with effective management we know (as in, we can see other countries doing this) it can be managed. Add to that better treatment and potentially a vaccine - and you're suddenly looking as a much more managed situation.
As a side note - I dont know why you're mis-characterizing my words. I didnt say it "wouldnt be a problem". I said it wont be a 4 year plague upon the world. You actually essentially agreed with this when you said "It wont be global, or even national - but expect isolated outbreaks a year from now".
Edit - I dont want to go tit for tat with this either, so I'll nip it a bit.
I also said "COVID 19 might be much reduced in its importance by this time next year". Going from a global pandemic to "isolated outbreaks" that arent even national outbreaks would be a major step, and would certainly make it less important than it is today.
Yeah, no one can predict the future, but whoever the next president is, they are potentially set up to enjoy a rebounding economy. The economy is sort of artificially in the pits right now because we are all taking measures to reduce the harm of disease. Even marginally more effective leadership from the federal government should go far -- it's rather shocking just how well almost every single other wealthy country has done in contrast to the US.
Yeah. Look - I dont want to be hideously cynical - but the truth seems to be that COVID19 was a major windfall for the Democrats. The economy will (most likely) bounce back within a year or so (wont be as fast as some people want, but it wont take 6 years either). The Pandemic will also probably be in a much more manageable spot in 2 years too. Biden will get a ton of credit for that, even though he probably wont deserve a lot of it.
It only seems like a windfall in hindsight. Trump could have easily turned this into guaranteed reelection by simply not being himself for a month or two. Other world leaders saw massive approval spikes. Trump himself was up to around 49% around the middle of those daily task force briefings, which was certainly maddening to see when all factual evidence revealed they had screwed the pooch since January. But it WAS happening.
There were two inflection points. One was what became the last task force briefing where he started talking about disinfecting the inside of the body and beaming light into it. The other came much later after the George Floyd protests and the gassing of peaceful protesters for the bible stunt. Those moments were the climactic scenes of issues that had been building up. Trump has lost about 10% points of approval and 6-8% points against Biden since those incidents. All he really had to do to remain competitive EVEN WITH the obvious bungling of the pandemic response was not suggest household cleaner might be effective inside a human body and not strut like Mussolini to a church after having his Attorney General order an assault on the citizens of Washington DC.
This story says that foreign students will not be allowed to stay in the US this autumn if their classes are all being taught online. This feels like more doubling down to portray that the pandemic is not real and convince universities to teach in person (and students to switch universities if theirs refuses to do that).
As with other attempts to ignore reality though, it's stupid. Let's think about a foreign student attending Harvard (who are moving to fully online courses in the autumn), who's completed 1 year of a 3 year course. The educational content of that course will certainly be important, but it's highly likely that they also desired to experience the wider culture in the US and have the opportunity to make connections that would be useful in later life. Setting up a situation where that student may decide to ditch their current course and go elsewhere not only deprives the US of 'invisible' earnings that help to reduce the gap between imports and exports (foreign students directly contributed $45bn to the US in 2018), but will also have a significant effect on the likelihood that student will want to have a continuing relationship with the US in later life.
That's all before the potential impact on preferred destinations for future potential international students. There's a very competitive market to attract those students and the reputation of the US has taken a hammering in much of the world in the last few years anyway. Adding concerns over immigration issues to that, I would be surprised if there's not a significant drop in the number of foreign students who want to study there in the immediate future.
Comments
Send me a private message. I'd l Iike to bounce some ideas off of you but can't seem to send you a private message. You can delete this once you've contacted me.
https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/documents/monmouthpoll_us_070220.pdf/
Yeah, unless something changes drastically, say a much more credible sexual assault allegation, this is looking unlike any election Americans have seen in a long time. I thought a 2008 level victory might be possible months ago, but the polling has far exceeded my expectations. I'm now thinking 1980 might be the better comparison -- the incumbent then was also beset by a number of crises that made him appear over matched.
I still suspect we some tightening in the polls even if circumstances continue to look bad for Trump. The Republican party raised a lot of money for this election, and advertising works.
Yeah, sure it does...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fortune.com/2016/12/09/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-campaign-spending/amp/
They still haven't settled on a line of attack against Biden other than "he's old". Sleepy Joe is simply not resonating like Crooked Hillary. Saying Biden isn't up to the job isn't much of an argument when 60% of the country is absolutely convinced you aren't yourself. At least with Biden they can IMAGINE competence by way of who he appoints to run federal agencies. Who in the country still believes Trump has a clue besides his hardcore base?? A Democrat hasn't won the white vote overall since LBJ in 1964. That was 55 years ago. If Biden is even remotely competitive in that space, I have no idea how you pull off a national election win unless you just simply resort to outright theft.
I have as much PTSD as anyone about 2016, but I don't see how he survives with the steady numbers of these polls for the last month and the fact that he is tied at the hip with what is happening with Abbott and DeSantis in Texas and Florida. Everyone in those states know why those Governors did what they did.
Maybe he could have come back from the first round of COVID-19. Still would have been tough. I can't fathom how you spin your way out of being in the same spot 3 months later. It's not New York and Chicago anymore, it's the Sunbelt. Where retirees flock like the salmon of Capistrano (Dumb and Dumber reference).
I encourage folks to stop making an argument based on a sample size of one. I shouldn't have to point out to an adult that argument via anecdote is a logical fallacy, and frankly it gets tiresome to keep having to mention this to the same person.
A few things. Do you think Trump wins in 2016 with $0 spent?
Clinton won the popular vote. Trump *under-performed* congressional Republicans. House Republicans won 49.1% of the popular vote. Dems 48.0%. Trump 46.1% Clinton 48.2%. Winning the Electoral College via tenths of a percentage victories in a few states is just not a reliable way to win.
https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/bigspenders.php
"Money doesn't always equal victory -- but it usually does."
Again, stop making arguments based on a sample size of one, please.
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-fundraising/
A no paywall, better breakdown of the spending.
That said, Trump isn't going to have Cambridge Analytica using his money in the most effective way possible on Facebook this time around.
News channels (besides Fox and OANN) aren't going to cover him and his rallies like a train wreck happening in real time, basically giving him free airtime like in 2016 either.
He got billions in free media. The empty Trump podium waiting for him to speak was the most common image on cable news channels that entire cycle.
Interesting article about money in elections.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-complicated-love-story/amp/
COVID-19 will dominate almost every news cycle until it gets under control, which on our current path is "never". Trump can't manipulate coverage away from the virus. There was nothing of even remotely comparable importance going on in the summer of 2016. The campaign WAS the story. As I've said before, there is no campaign. That is one of his main problems. There is only the pandemic, and the vote in November.
Sanders also outspent Biden by quite a bit (IIRC) on Super Tuesday, and lost horribly there too.
The point being - Money can do a lot of things for a campaign, but it doesnt win. It's a force multiplier, but you need that starting force to get any effect.
Trump is in incredibly serious trouble. Even his electoral college edge is going away. I believe he polls worse in Michigan than he does in the country as a whole right now. Wisconsin is really close to the country as a whole (They were R+2 in 2016), and PA hasnt had much good polling to know how the race stands there.
As an aside - for all the utterly cynical people who constantly said "You will support keeping the Electoral College when it benefits your candidate", we may be there right now. I still say burn it to the ground.
I hear an argument alot about how it "benefited" Obama in 2012, when Obama won the popular vote by 4%. I have no idea where this idea comes from that Obama was in danger of losing the popular vote against Romney and winning the EC. There is only one time a campaign has had a "plan" for what to do if they won the popular vote and lost the EC. It was the Bush campaign in 2000 against Gore. And they were set-up to fight that result tooth and nail. If you'll recall, all we've done is bitch about how ridiculous it is. Hillary herself conceded the next morning, and went to the Inauguration. Any bets on if Trump shows up at Biden's if he wins??
Not sure about odds on that bet. For whatever reason Trump's heart doesn't seem to be in beating up on Biden. Certainly not with anywhere near the vitriol he unleashed on Hillary, anyway.
Womp womp, wear a mask and don't listen to Republicans.
Again, firing them isn't enough. EVERY interaction they ever had with members of the public, especially with minorities, needs to examined. Any testimony they ever gave in a criminal proceeding is suspect. These sociopaths are taking a field trip to a place where an innocent kid was killed for absolutely NO reason whatsoever. The culture is rotten. The culture is diseased beyond all hope of saving.
Kimberley Guilfoyle is her name, she's a former Fox News 'Personality'.
Trump's been not wearing masks because everyone he meets gets a rapid Coronavirus test that gives results in less than an hour. These tests are said to be unreliable. They are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in tests for Trump to go around pretending we, who don't get the same testing protection, don't need masks.
We need to remember that All Countries Matter.
I seldom think anything good about Donald Trump. I hate what he has done to the country. I hold his enablers even more responsible for what has happened on his watch. But today I feel that stew of emotions in a new, deadening way. I am baffled and aghast and angry in a way that feels new.
The US is not experiencing a COVID surge. We are back to exponential growth in the virus just as most of the rest of the wealthy, industrialized world is moving on. COVID is not done for them of course. There are masks and mitigation and distancing and people are still falling ill. Some are dying. But most of these countries have beaten COVID down into low enough numbers that they can get about the business of a new form of social and economic life.
More than 57 thousand new cases were reported today. I was dumbfounded by that number even though the trend pointed to it. This is almost triple the number of cases of three weeks ago. This is a national catastrophe and one due almost all to ourselves, to a litany of horrible decisions and even more to simple abdications of responsibility. And, yes, it really all goes to Donald Trump who has tried to deny the problem whenever possible and when he engages it does so through the prism of assigning blame to someone else for anything that goes wrong. The concepts of service and responsibility are entirely alien to him.
We’ve watched a ragged, lying, stupid and absurd performance going back five months. Any sense of national coordination or unity have come apart like a torn necklace. No wonder the result is so bad and we’re alone in the world.
The White House tonight says it is shifting to a new message: “We need to live with it.” It is a brazen effrontery to point us to their failure and tell us, “Deal. That’s just how it is.”
We are often helpless before nature and fate but the different outcomes in so many parts of the world tell us that it is neither nature nor fate which have brought us to this pass.
Being President is a hard job and this was an historic challenge. But that’s the job. It’s on you. You may not be at fault but you are responsible. You can imagine good presidents of the past and bad struggling under the weight of this crisis. He’s done none of that. His battle has been running away. It’s all been a matter of blaming states for not having enough ventilators or tests, making covid denial a centerpiece of his movement. His whole record in the crisis has been denial and then finding nonsensical arguments that a crisis befalling the country to which he was elected head of state somehow has nothing to do with him. The states have to fend for themselves and the federal government has to take care of itself, as though the federal government is anything but the expression of and protector of the people who collectively make up the states.
And then he just decided he was done. He got bored. It wasn’t fun anymore. He shuttered his largely ineffectual task force and moved on. He wanted rallies. He branded a new “transition to greatness.” He made masks a sign of being a Democrat and a wuss.
But COVID hadn’t moved on.
None of this had to happen. It is a failure of cataclysmic proportions. It has many roots. It has revealed many insufficiencies and failures in our society and institutions. But the scale of it, the unifying force of it is a man who never should have been president, who has abandoned his responsibility to lead and protect the country, making it every state for itself, a chaos only organized by a shiftless and shambling effort to help himself at all costs at every point.
Now it's YOU need to live with it (while I and everyone who meets me gets tested so I can walk around without a mask). Why do we need to live with it when you screwed it up?? Other countries don't have to live with 50k cases a day? Why do WE have to live with it? Because you had a terrible response.
American carnage? More like a American genocidal maniac.
I think if Biden wins, he screws himself completely over as his first priority will be to get this mess under control. That means taking the draconian measures that the rest of the world took months ago.
It means shutting the US down while the rest of the world continues to open up. The ‘V’ becomes a ‘W’ as the economy crashes again and everyone on the right side of the aisle will place all the blame on him, even though the majority of them ignored this crisis for what would be nine months at that point.
Instead of suppressing numbers, red states will start inflating death numbers to show that Trump had the situation under control much better than Biden and ‘their guy’ in 2024 will be a drastic improvement to the recession bringing bumbling Biden team. This, all while, continuing to ignore proper guidance. This of course will only happen in swing red states (think Florida). Imbedded red, will get this under control because they do not need to make it political and can take all the praise for finally getting this under control.
IMO, if Biden wins, America will win long term, but the Democrats will lose long term.
This all may be true, but a lot of the same predictions were made about Obama after inheriting Bush's economic collapse in 2008-2009. It was suggested that he would be blamed for the economy and it would set him and Democrats back considerably.
Instead, Obama managed the crisis and pushed the country into a steady pattern of economic improvement - and has been rewarded in terms of legacy for being one of the more successful presidents in recent history. Biden will have that same opportunity.
Between medical advances and common sense practices, it doesnt seem like COVID 19 is going to be a 4 year plague upon the world. The current prevailing wisdom (which could be very wrong) is that COVID 19 might be much reduced in its importance by this time next year. If that's the case, then Biden is going to get a LOT of credit for managing a crisis that Trump could not - much like Obama.
What else is new?? My entire adult political life has been Republicans running the country into a ditch for 12 years (W. and Trump) and then Democrats being asked to fix it, then the country inexplicably turns the keys back over to the drunk driver who crashed the car in the first place.
But what about *Hillary's emails* and *Obama's tan suit*? Oooh, those are the real problems not the multiple Republican economic catastrophes and 120k deaths and pressuring foreign countries into election help and constant lies and gaslighting!
I guess you missed all the talk of comparing Trump’s first 2 years in office with Obama’s first two years and how it made Trump superior when it came to the economy and that was Trump’s election plan until COVID reared it’s ugly head (and, truthfully, it still might be).
I also think that it’s wishful thinking to assume that COVID won’t be a problem a year from now, especially in the states where it is still rampant. Cases are lowering, but people are also putting their guard down and it takes one idiot from out of area to infect a population that took all the right procedures in the beginning and now think the threat has actually passed. It won’t be global, or even national but expect isolated outbreaks a year from now.
... I didnt miss any of that. Even when Trump was given good marks on the economy several years in, he has consistently been given considerably worse marks on nearly everything else. The point being - Obama's presidency wasnt defined simply by the failure of the previous administration. He ability to meaningfully address that crisis and handle it effectively ended up winning him tremendous plaudits.
The economy didnt immediately turn around under Obama. There were months and months of 6 figure job losses early into his presidency. The parallels for a Biden based recovery seem rather obvious. He'll inherit a mess with a millions of cases of COVID and an ugly death toll. They wont go away overnight, but with effective management we know (as in, we can see other countries doing this) it can be managed. Add to that better treatment and potentially a vaccine - and you're suddenly looking as a much more managed situation.
As a side note - I dont know why you're mis-characterizing my words. I didnt say it "wouldnt be a problem". I said it wont be a 4 year plague upon the world. You actually essentially agreed with this when you said "It wont be global, or even national - but expect isolated outbreaks a year from now".
Edit - I dont want to go tit for tat with this either, so I'll nip it a bit.
I also said "COVID 19 might be much reduced in its importance by this time next year". Going from a global pandemic to "isolated outbreaks" that arent even national outbreaks would be a major step, and would certainly make it less important than it is today.
Yeah, no one can predict the future, but whoever the next president is, they are potentially set up to enjoy a rebounding economy. The economy is sort of artificially in the pits right now because we are all taking measures to reduce the harm of disease. Even marginally more effective leadership from the federal government should go far -- it's rather shocking just how well almost every single other wealthy country has done in contrast to the US.
The most significant election after November will be in 2022. There, Republicans will have a chance to retake the House and possibly the Senate if they lose that this fall. I think it's a fool's errand to try and game out what's going to happen then, or what now will end up being a liability by that date.
I think the Republican party may find itself in an incredibly difficult spot in terms of organizing if they lose in a landslide this fall. There's likely to be something of a deep internal fissure in the party between people who will advocate for moderation and those will want to double down on Trump-style factionalism. And I don't think characterizing Biden as too lefty or too socialist, as they did against Obama is going to be effective, it already seems ineffective so far.
That's because Biden is neither of the left nor a socialist, and no one who isn't tied to either faction thinks he is. Trump continues to think that threatening to jail people for 10 years for defacing inanimate statues is the solution to his problems. It's hard to even overstate how far up your own ass you have to be to think your average person gives two shits about that in the midst of a pandemic and (at the very least) a severe recession. The equivalent would be if Obama had made reparations the center-piece of his campaign in 2008 in the wake of the Iraq War, Katrina, and the financial collapse. In 1992, James Carville was telling the Clinton campaign over and over "it's the economy, stupid". In 2020, just substitute the work "economy" for "pandemic". And as I've been pointing out, Trump has just moved on as if it isn't even taking place. Good luck with that.
So yeah, it's not JUST that the culture war bullshit is only effective in periods of relative calm and prosperity when people don't have anything else to worry about. It's that trying to tie Joe Biden, of all people, to the radical left just doesn't compute for anyone who is persuadable. Joe Biden is about a radical as a hamburger, french fries, and vanilla shake. So even if doubling down on Confederate symbols was a solid strategy (which it isn't) it STILL wouldn't have anything to do with the guy he is actually running against.
Yeah. Look - I dont want to be hideously cynical - but the truth seems to be that COVID19 was a major windfall for the Democrats. The economy will (most likely) bounce back within a year or so (wont be as fast as some people want, but it wont take 6 years either). The Pandemic will also probably be in a much more manageable spot in 2 years too. Biden will get a ton of credit for that, even though he probably wont deserve a lot of it.
It only seems like a windfall in hindsight. Trump could have easily turned this into guaranteed reelection by simply not being himself for a month or two. Other world leaders saw massive approval spikes. Trump himself was up to around 49% around the middle of those daily task force briefings, which was certainly maddening to see when all factual evidence revealed they had screwed the pooch since January. But it WAS happening.
There were two inflection points. One was what became the last task force briefing where he started talking about disinfecting the inside of the body and beaming light into it. The other came much later after the George Floyd protests and the gassing of peaceful protesters for the bible stunt. Those moments were the climactic scenes of issues that had been building up. Trump has lost about 10% points of approval and 6-8% points against Biden since those incidents. All he really had to do to remain competitive EVEN WITH the obvious bungling of the pandemic response was not suggest household cleaner might be effective inside a human body and not strut like Mussolini to a church after having his Attorney General order an assault on the citizens of Washington DC.
As with other attempts to ignore reality though, it's stupid. Let's think about a foreign student attending Harvard (who are moving to fully online courses in the autumn), who's completed 1 year of a 3 year course. The educational content of that course will certainly be important, but it's highly likely that they also desired to experience the wider culture in the US and have the opportunity to make connections that would be useful in later life. Setting up a situation where that student may decide to ditch their current course and go elsewhere not only deprives the US of 'invisible' earnings that help to reduce the gap between imports and exports (foreign students directly contributed $45bn to the US in 2018), but will also have a significant effect on the likelihood that student will want to have a continuing relationship with the US in later life.
That's all before the potential impact on preferred destinations for future potential international students. There's a very competitive market to attract those students and the reputation of the US has taken a hammering in much of the world in the last few years anyway. Adding concerns over immigration issues to that, I would be surprised if there's not a significant drop in the number of foreign students who want to study there in the immediate future.