not only are they Republicans, one of the founders is the husband of Kelly Anne Conway.
i have no idea how that household functions, considering how both aren't moderate in their opinions
It functions because it’s an act. One works for the president and will say whatever she needs to and the other is creating a brand for those who like to see a republican “speaking out”. The end goal is pocket lining and they’re both doing it fantastically.
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It functions because it’s an act. One works for the president and will say whatever she needs to and the other is creating a brand for those who like to see a republican “speaking out”. The end goal is pocket lining and they’re both doing it fantastically.
Their daughter is doing a pretty good job getting in on it too.
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"If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?"
With regards to the Kanye thing, it's publicity. He's too late to be on the ballot in Texas, New York, and Illinois. He has 10 days to get tens of thousands of signatures in Florida and Michigan. It's not possible for him to actually run a real campaign.
STOP FALLING FOR THE NONSENSE! Kanye is an idiot
He may be an idiot, but he hired a pretty smart publicist.
I mean if you pretend Rome/Byzantines, Mongols and even Britian never existed I guess.
Even the British empire never had the reach or power of the American Empire. By any measure. As for the ancient empires, they were local empires.
Not sure how they are comparable in any way.
They can hammer on Trump, and maybe I'm missing something here, but I think the Democrats were even slower in their response. Back in February. Biden called the ban on Chinese flights (on Jan 31) racist and Pelosi was visiting Chinatown business as late as Feb 28. Di Blasio was still telling people to eat out in March.
Weak institutions is the key to this problem, not a particular government in power. I'll give you a simple example. In Alberta, the AHS is the only single-bodied provincial health services. So they have one message which is direct and can mobilize. In Ontario in Quebec, they have separate regional bodies and trying to message and mobilize those has been a challenge. Most US states also have this problem.
Think deeply now... who is responsible for weakening those institutions?
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They can hammer on Trump, and maybe I'm missing something here, but I think the Democrats were even slower in their response. Back in February. Biden called the ban on Chinese flights (on Jan 31) racist and Pelosi was visiting Chinatown business as late as Feb 28. Di Blasio was still telling people to eat out in March.
Weak institutions is the key to this problem, not a particular government in power. I'll give you a simple example. In Alberta, the AHS is the only single-bodied provincial health services. So they have one message which is direct and can mobilize. In Ontario in Quebec, they have separate regional bodies and trying to message and mobilize those has been a challenge. Most US states also have this problem.
The current President.
Travel Bans after the disease was already prevelant in the US did not help. Travel Bans missing Iran we’re not going to help.
The CDC in the US failed miserably. Both as being a world leader influencing the WHO and at ensuring testing worked. The US has failed at Testing, Contact Tracing, PPE, and reopening. The lack of leadership at the presidential level led to states fighting over PPE and out bidding each other for it.
A lack of a National Response using the spending power as a whip to gain state compliance is a failure of both Congress and the Presidency.
But really it all started with who ever made the decision to make a made in USA testing solution that didn’t work. Bad early data and the inability to test led to the Initial outbreaks
But even if all of the above still happened and we accept that it was a new virus and difficult to get right this extended first Wave is clearly Trumps fault.
- He actively breaks social distancing protocols
- He is holding rallies as if nothing is wrong
- He has total Control of 30-40% of the populace and could have them doing things for America if he asked.
- by behaving like the virus doesn’t matter it means the population can behave like the virus doesn’t matter. When that happens you get the very predictable result. They shouldn’t have bothered to lock down if this was their planned path forward in the end.
Both siding the current US crisis is ridiculous.
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Think deeply now... who is responsible for weakening those institutions?
When I was referring to institutions in my first post was mainly things like a lack of universal health care, a lack of publicly run hospitals, labour laws heavily favouring employers, strong individual states and others.
The system of US government is not designed to fight tragedies of the commons type situations.
Trump certainly made all of these things worse but structurally the same things that enhance the US economic competitiveness made it more difficult to fight.
Interestingly enough if Trump used his authoritarian tendencies for good instead of ignoring everything his ability to not care about protocols or the constitution would have helped him.
Even the British empire never had the reach or power of the American Empire. By any measure. As for the ancient empires, they were local empires.
Not sure how they are comparable in any way.
If you define local as the whole of Europe N Africa, the Middle East or the whole of Asia, most of Russia and the Middle East for several hundred years as opposed to the always contested never certain control of anything beyond its own border for about 50 years, The US (as well as Russia and now China) have the power to destroy things due to technology but as empires go their military might have never translated into the ability to hold anything, the US has never even managed to dominate a land mass as effectively as the USSR let alone the other utterly dominant globally spanning empires of the past, the US has consistently lost war after war from the end of world war two onwards
- He has total Control of 30-40% of the populace and could have them doing things for America if he asked.
Does he though?
Not to absolve Trump in any way, because he is a complete failure on every single level, and the current state of the US can be largely blamed on his and his party, but I think part of the reason that his base loves him so much is he keeps telling them what they want to hear. He knows this and that's why he keeps going on about the monuments, about protesters being thugs, about Hillary.
Would they tolerate it if he switched on them and started telling them stuff they didn't want to hear? I mean, we've all seen the videos of residents angry about having to wear masks and calling on the most outlandish arguments.
I think Trump keeps his base by parroting them, and if he changed his tune, they would argue he's been turned by the establishment or some similar BS and not listen then, either. They really are that rabidly deluded.
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If you have ever done any sales work you will maybe have had the experience of going on some course and being taught the Zig Zagler way or some similar bull, you come back and try it out and lo and behold it turns out you can con some poor rube into buying some piece of tat, but as I had a conscience I would always end up trying to save them from their own rube'ish stupidity and tell them 'well maybe you should buy this less shiny more reliable CD player' man they would get mad, they would get angry when you tried to not con them but tell them the truth.
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Travel Bans after the disease was already prevelant in the US did not help. Travel Bans missing Iran we’re not going to help.
The CDC in the US failed miserably. Both as being a world leader influencing the WHO and at ensuring testing worked. The US has failed at Testing, Contact Tracing, PPE, and reopening. The lack of leadership at the presidential level led to states fighting over PPE and out bidding each other for it.
A lack of a National Response using the spending power as a whip to gain state compliance is a failure of both Congress and the Presidency.
But really it all started with who ever made the decision to make a made in USA testing solution that didn’t work. Bad early data and the inability to test led to the Initial outbreaks
But even if all of the above still happened and we accept that it was a new virus and difficult to get right this extended first Wave is clearly Trumps fault.
- He actively breaks social distancing protocols
- He is holding rallies as if nothing is wrong
- He has total Control of 30-40% of the populace and could have them doing things for America if he asked.
- by behaving like the virus doesn’t matter it means the population can behave like the virus doesn’t matter. When that happens you get the very predictable result. They shouldn’t have bothered to lock down if this was their planned path forward in the end.
Both siding the current US crisis is ridiculous.
I'm not sure how much can be done. Each state has its own laws and fight for themselves. There will never be state compliance.
The populace is ADD and cannot listen to anyone
Testing: No
Masks: No
Contact Tracing: No
Reopening: hell yeah let's go to the bars
Yes Trump refusing to set an example is idiotic but again, he closed the border and wanted to lockdown early and was criticized for it. And he reopened too early and got criticized. But it comes down the the public, they cannot stay indoors. Perhaps the right solution was to not lockdown and let the virus run through everyone.
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[QUOTE=GirlySports;7494641Perhaps the right solution was to not lockdown and let the virus run through everyone.[/QUOTE]
Scary thought, but the US is at least on the path of shutting down the economy for no reason because they're basically just letting everyone catch it anyway.
I'm not sure how much can be done. Each state has its own laws and fight for themselves. There will never be state compliance.
The populace is ADD and cannot listen to anyone
Testing: No
Masks: No
Contact Tracing: No
Reopening: hell yeah let's go to the bars
Yes Trump refusing to set an example is idiotic but again, he closed the border and wanted to lockdown early and was criticized for it. And he reopened too early and got criticized. But it comes down the the public, they cannot stay indoors. Perhaps the right solution was to not lockdown and let the virus run through everyone.
Testing - government failure
Masks - government failure
Contact Tracing - government failure
These failures at the CDC level are the responsibility of the Trump administration.
Trump could have used emergency measures to force compliance or work with congress to use the spending powers to force states into compliance to solve each of the above issues by now. Let the states appeal to the courts for Injunctions where powers are overstepped. He didn’t have any issues with this kind of action when it was not Covid related.
On the Reopening problem setting the correct example would have at least reduced the issue but I agree the individualism of Americans is a part of the problem.
Even not locking down and going full on herd immunity would have required a plan. He did not have one at all. You can look at Sweden and look at how they handled it and disagree with it but a plan was executed. You can’t say the same about the US.
Last edited by GGG; 07-05-2020 at 03:18 PM.
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The crazy thing is that Trump had a much better chance of being re-elected than most people wanted to think before this. His response to this entire pandemic was out of fear of what it was doing to his re-election chances, when if he just would have taken the proper route during this, it would have given him a much higher chance at it. The economy would have taken a hit, and people still would have died, but he wouldn't have been able to attacked on it to great effect as it's an essentially unprecedented event.
Now, of course, asking why Trump didn't have the proper response is like asking why a rock doesn't just flap its wings, but still. Even 50% less head in the sand on this and the upcoming election would be very scary. Trying to pretend it was nothing because it would hurt him ended up hurting him way more.
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Originally Posted by MisterJoji
Johnny eats garbage and isn’t 100% committed.
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The crazy thing is that Trump had a much better chance of being re-elected than most people wanted to think before this. His response to this entire pandemic was out of fear of what it was doing to his re-election chances, when if he just would have taken the proper route during this, it would have given him a much higher chance at it. The economy would have taken a hit, and people still would have died, but he wouldn't have been able to attacked on it to great effect as it's an essentially unprecedented event.
Now, of course, asking why Trump didn't have the proper response is like asking why a rock doesn't just flap its wings, but still. Even 50% less head in the sand on this and the upcoming election would be very scary. Trying to pretend it was nothing because it would hurt him ended up hurting him way more.
Yeah if he had carried record low unemployment and record high stock market plus the 2%-3% electoral college advantage in abstract that would heavily favour the incumbent.
Scary thought, but the US is at least on the path of shutting down the economy for no reason because they're basically just letting everyone catch it anyway.
True however at least we know now that if massive people get it, it won't tie up the hospitals which was the fear of the being Italy back in March.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
Testing - government failure
Masks - government failure
Contact Tracing - government failure
These failures at the CDC level are the responsibility of the Trump administration.
Trump could have used emergency measures to force compliance or work with congress to use the spending powers to force states into compliance to solve each of the above issues by now. Let the states appeal to the courts for Injunctions where powers are overstepped. He didn’t have any issues with this kind of action when it was not Covid related.
On the Reopening problem setting the correct example would have at least reduced the issue but I agree the individualism of Americans is a part of the problem.
Even not locking down and going full on herd immunity would have required a plan. He did not have one at all. You can look at Sweden and look at how they handled it and disagree with it but a plan was executed. You can’t say the same about the US.
The problem is still individualism. If you have more testing people will just horde them or the people that don't need to be tested will go and the people that need them will not. remember testing may cost money in some circumstances, rich vs poor. Same with masks, in a recent article, Dr Fauci admitted he had to lie that masks didn't make a difference in order for people not to buy and horde them. Again the problem with people.And contact tracing is just a non-starter in the US.
It's impossible to track in the US with the combination of a large population, concentrated in major cities and states having their own laws.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nik-
The crazy thing is that Trump had a much better chance of being re-elected than most people wanted to think before this. His response to this entire pandemic was out of fear of what it was doing to his re-election chances, when if he just would have taken the proper route during this, it would have given him a much higher chance at it. The economy would have taken a hit, and people still would have died, but he wouldn't have been able to attacked on it to great effect as it's an essentially unprecedented event.
Now, of course, asking why Trump didn't have the proper response is like asking why a rock doesn't just flap its wings, but still. Even 50% less head in the sand on this and the upcoming election would be very scary. Trying to pretend it was nothing because it would hurt him ended up hurting him way more.
Trump is an idiot but no matter what he did, he would have been criticized. A pandemic is weaponized politically, that's the point of no return.
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If you define local as the whole of Europe N Africa, the Middle East or the whole of Asia, most of Russia and the Middle East for several hundred years as opposed to the always contested never certain control of anything beyond its own border for about 50 years, The US (as well as Russia and now China) have the power to destroy things due to technology but as empires go their military might have never translated into the ability to hold anything, the US has never even managed to dominate a land mass as effectively as the USSR let alone the other utterly dominant globally spanning empires of the past, the US has consistently lost war after war from the end of world war two onwards
Respectfully disagree with your premise here.
While it could be argued that US military dominance peaked shortly after WWII, their cultural reach grew massively through the last half of the 20th century until it dominated every corner of the globe. American brands are universal and the promise of the American Dream burns brightly.
As for historical empires, yes I use the term local as opposed to global which is exactly what America is. Your examples citing large geographical areas are fine but bear in mind that the population and population density of the areas in question were very small compared to today.
At the end of the Cold war America had (and still has) military bases on every continent and naval power with nuclear capability that can reach every corner of the globe basically uncontested. China and Russia are powerful actors in their own right, but they have virtually no reach beyond their local spheres. Japan is a US vassal state. Israel is a nuclear-armed extension of US power into the middle east, the geographical centre of the globe.
The successful takeover of Iraq and the installation of American-backed multinational oil companies into some of the world's largest conventional oil reserves is another power play. If they manage to crush Iran (certainly the plan) they will have basically locked up the middle east.
Arguably there has never been a nation as great and powerful s the United States.
