2024 Field
- Thread starter Jaw
- Start date
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-national-security-council-149285
Obama literally left Trump a playbook for fighting a pandemic that they developed during his Presidency because a future pandemic was so predictable to happen.
chop2chip
Well-known member
Nothing sums up bureaucratic leadership more than “we created a document for that.” Documents aren’t policy.
What did the playbook recommend that Trump didn’t do?
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
Did you even read the article before asking this question?
chop2chip
Well-known member
Yes. It’s okay if you don’t want to answer my very straightforward question.
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
Much of the answer you are looking for was in the article, the rest is in the 69 page document. If you really need me to explain what's there I can do that.
chop2chip
Well-known member
So you can’t answer with your own words. That’s what I thought.
I think I’ll pass on reading the 69 page document. Feel free to summarize it if you feel up to it.
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
I am tired of being peoples Google bot. No one ever admits their wrong no matter how many times I prove it. If you want to believe anyone else would have stood around with their thumb up their butt during the time Trump was calling covid a hoax go right ahead. No serious person could believe theres another politician who would have spent the extremely important first few months pretending it wasnt coming here.
chop2chip
Well-known member
I’ll happily discuss any specific policy that Trump actioned or didn’t action that you believe led to hundreds of thousands of excess deaths. So far you have linked a Politico article that poorly summarized a 69 page document (which basically focused generally on building up testing and masking infrastructure — if the Obama administration knew it was so painfully obvious then I’m not sure why they didn’t do more to build that up),
No one’s asked you to Google anything. I figured you were enough of a freethinker that you wouldn’t have to search for the answer for my question.
No one’s asked you to Google anything. I figured you were enough of a freethinker that you wouldn’t have to search for the answer for my question.
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
First I want to be clear there is no way to tell how many people would have died under different leadership. We can only guess and hypothesize. What I do here is take Trump logic and BS and use it against Republicans. I do this on purpose. What I was doing with the virus deaths and 9/11 was phrasing it the way Republicans would if they happened under Dem Presidents. 9/11 like the virus none of us can 100% say doesnt happen under a Dem President but what is certain is that Trump would be claiming today that he would have prevented the virus if it happened under Obama much the same way he does everything else like the Russian invasion of Ukraine. All that said heres what could have been done differently.
We had a US pandemic official in China and specifically Wuhan that was eliminated 3 months before the pandemic. If that person was there we wouldnt have had to rely on Xi for information and could have ramped up production of n95 masks and other PPE months earlier. We could not only have cut off flights from China much earlier but warned other countries so they could do the same. Its not so much the policies but when they were enacted. We might have been able to start those policies as early as November 2019. Another key aspect would have been having one person give out information to the public so they get a consistent message rather than all the games and shenanigans from Trumps admin who were desperate to try to avoid any and all blame. Odds are if Hillary wins in 2016 we see half as many covid deaths and she loses in 2020 based on Republicans destroying her for failing to protect the country from it.
We had a US pandemic official in China and specifically Wuhan that was eliminated 3 months before the pandemic. If that person was there we wouldnt have had to rely on Xi for information and could have ramped up production of n95 masks and other PPE months earlier. We could not only have cut off flights from China much earlier but warned other countries so they could do the same. Its not so much the policies but when they were enacted. We might have been able to start those policies as early as November 2019. Another key aspect would have been having one person give out information to the public so they get a consistent message rather than all the games and shenanigans from Trumps admin who were desperate to try to avoid any and all blame. Odds are if Hillary wins in 2016 we see half as many covid deaths and she loses in 2020 based on Republicans destroying her for failing to protect the country from it.
Runnin
Well-known member
Yes, and the Rep talking point would be how Hillary murdered millions of people.
chop2chip
Well-known member
You and I agree that Trump is a pathetic loser and a lunatic. I have zero doubt he would made his Monday morning quarterback opinions known if it was Hilary. I agree with your other general point about Republicans. Amash hit the nail when he criticized Republicans for trafficking too much in victimhood. I tend to align more closely with conservative positions, but it’s unbelievable how the leaders of the party always seem to come across as saying the right thing for the wrong reasons.
Interesting points on Covid, but I don’t think it holds up to scrutiny.
1) Enacting an earlier travel ban would have accomplished what exactly? It probably wouldn’t have really delayed community spread in the US (New York got the Italian strain IIRC). Even if it did delay it some, everyone was always going to get exposed to this virus at some point.
2) n95 masks… what’s the consensus on masks at this point? Early on in the pandemic I would have agreed with you that this was a missed opportunity. But between fuzzy understand on their efficacy and what I said in point 1 that everyone was exposed to Covid anyways (I have always had n95 masks and wore them quite dutifully until masks mandates were lifted - I still got Covid
)3) I don’t know enough to discuss about the Wuhan diplomat situation. I would add that we know government officials were briefed on Covid at least as early as December (probably sooner). Hence why some of our noble government officials used this valuable information in their stock transactions. But again I question what actions could have been taken to make a meaningful difference. I think the only thing that realistically would have improved life and death outcomes is a huge expansion of hospital infrastructure as in more doctors, nurses, beds.
As a final clarification, I am not trying to come across as a red-pilled Trump defender. Never voted for him and won’t in 2024 under any circumstance. There’s just zero evidence that any policy would have materially changed outcomes… and again I find it very dubious that Biden or Hilary would have done anything differently.
msstate7
Well-known member
Any president that's oversaw that many deaths doesn't deserve to be president anymore -
Some politician in 2020 race
Vote for me! I’ll shut down the virus!!
