Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Adam Jensen]

I mean, besides the usual "he's a Republican and I disagree with most of their policies", the worst thing GWB did was, as people said, the war in Iraq which was a complete mess based on false pretenses and should never have happened. Meanwhile, Trump probably would have done worse in a similar situation, and has done arguably just as terrible things like randomly withdrawing from the Middle East and leaving the Kurds to fend for themselves, on top of the absolute corruption, his complete inability to handle Covid which has now led to at least a quarter of a million American deaths.

I genuinely think the only US President who could be argued to be worse than Trump is Andrew Jackson and that's only because Jackson committed genocide against the Native American people and it's hard to top that.

Had Iraq not happened, Bush would have gone down as a run-of-the-mill Republican president who was kinda shitty but also forgettable. Iraq is the single thing I hate Bush for. Which isn't to say I supported his economic policies (I didn't) or other aspects of his Presidency, but those things just weren't even on the same order of magnitude of terrible.

- - - Updated - - -

with the rallies today and his refusal to concede power, it seems like he's trying to seat himself as a Lukashenko or permanently seated leader. Unless that's just plain doomed to fail, I've checked in every day to see how it goes.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/14/us/tr...ght/index.html

The votes will be certified for Biden. Trump won't get any legislatures or electoral college voters to betray their states either. The fraud cases will fail (and have, for the most part. The few victories they've had were meaningless.) If Trump isn't gone by January 20th at noon, the US Secret Service will drag him out.

And I hope to god they televise it.

[Poopymonster]

I'll never understand this oath with intelligence agencies and psychologists. If you had some top-secret intel that could change the world for the better (supposedly), why not just spill it

Jail time, losing that gov't pension, and some people take their oath seriously.

[Kathranis]

Do you people believe Trump as a president was worse than George W. Bush

Bush was not a good president, but he didn't damage the institution of government and the office of president itself the way Trump has.

For that I will say that Trump is far worse. He has eroded public confidence in the press, he has propagated racist rhetoric and conspiracy theories. He has undermined the election process. He probably isn't actually attempting a coup, but he's taking us right up to the precipice.

There are long lasting consequences to these actions.

In terms of foreign policy, immigration policy, economy, and disaster response... he's as bad or worse than Bush in most regards. Bush's wars are probably worse but Trump's response to Covid is threatening to tip things over. And Trump may not have started wars on foreign soil but he's helped grow a new generation of would-be domestic terrorists.

[Antiganon]

what did bush do better because the last bit sounds like straight up **evil.** At worst, Trump can be said to be incompetent but evil is debatable unless someone can reason otherwise

His policies killed less Americans and his tax policy was less bad for the middle class

[Slirith]

Holy shit every time @YUPPIE comes around the thread goes to shit as everybody and their brother tries to explain to a 8 year old what is going on in the world.

Pretty soon I'm gonna put everyone who responds to these Trump trolls on ignore.

[Masark]

I'm not a telemarketer, but "Go be annoying idiotic twats that everyone fucking hates in a video game" is far from a winning advertising strategy in my book.

Bannon has made it work for him so far.

[Benggaul]

157,081 new cases, about 29k more than last Saturday. I suppose we can be thankful it wasn't another 40-50k jump, but given that it's the weekend it's still pretty bad to see ANY jump, let alone nearly 30k.

Top 20:

Illinois: 11,028 new cases; 197 deaths (tied record)
Texas: 8,793 new cases; 118 deaths
Minnesota: 8,689 new cases (new record); 35 deaths
Indiana: 8,322 new cases (new record); 25 deaths
California: 7,747 new cases; 33 deaths
Ohio: 7,715 new cases; 14 deaths
Michigan: 7,430 new cases; 68 deaths
Missouri: 6,539 new cases; 9 deaths
Colorado: 5,196 new cases; 21 deaths
New York: 5,162 new cases; 21 deaths
Wisconsin: 5,146 new cases; 52 deaths
Tennessee: 4,662 new cases; 25 deaths
Iowa: 4,641 new cases; 24 deaths
Fuck Florida.
Pennsylvania: 4,395 new cases; 47 deaths
New Jersey: 4,058 new cases; 28 deaths
North Carolina: 3,885 new cases (new record); 36 deaths
Arizona: 3,476 new cases; 43 deaths
Utah: 3,450 new cases; 9 deaths
Kentucky: 3,293 new cases (new record); 11 deaths

Special mention:

South Dakota: 1,855 new cases; 53 deaths (new record) Fuck Kristi Noem and her fake as fuck "We're all in this together!" concern Tweeting while failing to implement any measures to keep her state from being held up to the world as an example of what NOT to do.

Other states with new records in cases or deaths: Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Maryland, North Dakota, Nevada, Montana, West Virginia (first time over 1k), Alaska and Wyoming.

Nebraska seems to be just consistently late with reports now so I won't be able to review them in a timely fashion until they get the fuck with the program.

It's the weekend, so the usual spiel applies: numbers heading down, tomorrow will (likely) be lower, fewer records--*rereads above*--okay, maybe just as many records, but not ones as staggering as the couple of days previous. Unfortunately this shit is still showing no signs of being contained anywhere and the states that were doing well earlier have pretty much all succumbed, either due to pressure from surrounding states or from their dumber, less careful internal populations. The writeups for the next couple of days will be brief just because there's not likely to be anything else to say except "this is lower than the past couple days but still WAY fucking worse than 7 days ago". Unless there are any surprises. I really don't want there to be surprises.

1,260 deaths is over 200 more than last Saturday and brings the total to 251,256. Illinois is, sadly, looking like it's going to become a more permanent fixture atop the charts in this category as well, joining the perennial Texas. The weekly average continues heading up, as expected, and we'll probably be passing 1,500-1,600 with some regularity next week...possibly heading towards 2k by the end of the month.

Related news:

U.S. Could See 13 Million More COVID Cases Before Biden Is Sworn in as President, Analysis Says--Given that we're seeing a million every week at this point this isn't that surprising, but still fucking depressing.

Elon Musk says he probably has coronavirus--Lie down with dogs, etc. etc...

Physician predicts 'unprecedented surge' in US Covid-19 cases after Thanksgiving--We all see this coming at this point. I wonder if the "Million" Moron March today will mean some of those people are too sick to go infect other people during the holiday, though.

I thought I had a "silver lining" story about how COVID might mean the end to the global fur trade, but the fine print is they're slaughtering literally millions of minks to stem the outbreak...so...I think I need a hug.

Stay safe, folks.

[YUPPIE]

so if/when Biden does undoes all of Trump's work right, does that mean we won't get another Republican president? It feels like one of the things they're striving toward is to set Trump as an example of failure going forward.

[Xyonai]

And Trump's dangerous rhetoric about COVID-19 spreads to the state level GOP to the tune of failing to report an outbreak to anyone other than politicians on their side of the aisle in Minnesota.

https://www.startribune.com/memo-war...d-19/573072342

The news that GOP senators and staffers were warned that COVID was spreading in their ranks but DFLers were not was met with distress late Friday.

“It is outrageous and completely unacceptable that Senate DFLers were not notified of the recent COVID-19 outbreak among Senate Republicans prior to Thursday’s floor session,” Senate Minority Leader Susan Kent, DFL-Woodbury, said in a statement. “This lack of transparency is a blatant disregard for the health and safety of others: our DFL and nonpartisan staff, members, and the communities we go home to.”

And for those of you who recall, PA's GOP did this same exact thing back in May.

These shitlords expect to be met in the middle when they pull shit like this? Fuck 'em.

[Lastgope]

so if/when Biden does undoes all of Trump's work right, does that mean we won't get another Republican president? It feels like one of the things they're striving toward is to set Trump as an example of failure going forward.

Peoples memories are short, there will be a Republican President again, be it 2024, 2028 or later.

What Republicans NEED to do, for the health of all American's, is to take a good long hard look at the soul of the party. If all they have is hate, hypocrisy and populist cult of personality, then they will never hold the executive branch for long.

[YUPPIE]

Peoples memories are short, there will be a Republican President again, be it 2024, 2028 or later.

What Republicans NEED to do, for the health of all American's, is to take a good long hard look at the soul of the party. If all they have is hate, hypocrisy and populist cult of personality, then they will never hold the executive branch for long.

i don't think people will forget Trump if the damage is this great. He's special though because of the hype that went into him. He was heralded to be the best Republican president ever and the end results are mixed.

[Lastgope]

i don't think people will forget Trump if the damage is this great. He's special though because of the hype that went into him. He was heralded to be the best Republican president ever and the end results are mixed.

They forgot G.W. in only 8 years, they will forget Trump eventually...sadly.

Best (Modern) Republican President is such a low bar to step over and yet they all trip over it and land right on their face.

[postman1782]

i don't think people will forget Trump if the damage is this great. He's special though because of the hype that went into him. He was heralded to be the best Republican president ever and the end results are mixed.

He isn't close to being the best of ANYTHING other than killing people. I knew who he was before he even started running for office.

[Tinfoy Lat]

Nebraska seems to be just consistently late with reports now so I won't be able to review them in a timely fashion until they get the fuck with the program.

We had 1912 new cases here today. This week didn't have the highest day so far for us, but it did have the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th highest days. It was the worst week for us by far. Positivity numbers from the state as of last saturday were 17.3%. So, we're probably over 20% now.

As a Nebraskan I wish we'd get with the program also, but i don't hold out much hope for it. Last week we got new restrictions from the governor....bars and restaurants can not have standing room crowds and other businesses are at 50% capacity. Pissing on a forest fire is the phrase that comes to mind. Numerous cities and counties have requested to be allowed to implement indoor mask mandates, but have been refused by Gov. Pete Ricketts. Back in May, Ricketts' idea on how to solve the surge in cases in meat packing plants was to stop reporting numbers from the plants.

We haven't heard a whole lot from Ricketts this week as he's currently in quarantine after exposure to covid last weekend.

[Adam Jensen]

We had 1912 new cases here today. This week didn't have the highest day so far for us, but it did have the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th highest days. It was the worst week for us by far. Positivity numbers from the state as of last saturday were 17.3%. So, we're probably over 20% now.

As a Nebraskan I wish we'd get with the program also, but i don't hold out much hope for it. Last week we got new restrictions from the governor....bars and restaurants can not have standing room crowds and other businesses are at 50% capacity. Pissing on a forest fire is the phrase that comes to mind. Numerous cities and counties have requested to be allowed to implement indoor mask mandates, but have been refused by Gov. Pete Ricketts. Back in May, Ricketts' idea on how to solve the surge in cases in meat packing plants was to stop reporting numbers from the plants.

We haven't heard a whole lot from Ricketts this week as he's currently in quarantine after exposure to covid last weekend.

Like I said earlier in this thread or the other one, you can generally tell a person's political stance by whether or not their COVID positive.

I've wished all my life that stupidity would be painful, and it seems that wish is coming true. So many stupid people who don't take the virus seriously, who ignore lock downs, quarentines, mask mandates and social distancing, end up with the virus.

Now I'm obviously not saying everyone who catches COVID is stupid, I'm saying everyone who flagrantly disregards the rules and then gets COVID is stupid.

[Antiganon]

They forgot G.W. in only 8 years, they will forget Trump eventually...sadly.

Best (Modern) Republican President is such a low bar to step over and yet they all trip over it and land right on their face.

Nixon is the best modern Republican President.

That speaks volumes about the quality of leadership we get from the GOP.

[Breccia]

1,260 deaths

The time to turn these death numbers around, was two weeks ago.

And over the last two weeks we broke case records...how many times? Ten? More?

Is there any realistic way the US can avoid 2,000+ deaths per day? With half the country refusing to believe masks work?

[Tinfoy Lat]

Like I said earlier in this thread or the other one, you can generally tell a person's political stance by whether or not their COVID positive.

I've wished all my life that stupidity would be painful, and it seems that wish is coming true. So many stupid people who don't take the virus seriously, who ignore lock downs, quarentines, mask mandates and social distancing, end up with the virus.

Now I'm obviously not saying everyone who catches COVID is stupid, I'm saying everyone who flagrantly disregards the rules and then gets COVID is stupid.

My older sister is among them. She spent the summer telling my brother and I how foolish we were for staying home and wearing masks when we had to go out. She tested positive last week. She's getting over it, but is still having breathing problems. She may be one of the people for whom the breathing issues are permanent. I hope not and i'm glad she getting better, but i have very little sympathy for her considering she didn't do anything to keep from getting it.

[Antiganon]

My older sister is among them. She spent the summer telling my brother and I how foolish we were for staying home and wearing masks when we had to go out. She tested positive last week. She's getting over it, but is still having breathing problems. She may be one of the people for whom the breathing issues are permanent. I hope not and i'm glad she getting better, but i have very little sympathy for her considering she didn't do anything to keep from getting it.

Has she changed her rhetoric at all?

I'm wondering if these are people that were can reach if we can take the problem and shove it directly in their faces, or if they have drink the Kool aid and are beyond help.

[YUPPIE]

another thing of concern:

people are talking 4 - 8 years time frame for another Republican shot. Are any of you worried Trump might *die* in those estimates? He's 74 and people say he's not in good shape for the age (obese[?] if anyone can confirm how they know that). Also, he got COVID once, which is said to leave permanent issues.