I hold out hope for one reason. He has an absolute slam dunk by just handing out money because of Covid but he still can't let his personal grift get in the way. This will still come down to 4-5 states and with him rushing people back to get sick to protect his economy, I just don't see his overall numbers improving once meemaws start dying.
I said earlier everyone is going to get checks. The economy will rebound by October and he’ll say look what I did, I saved you and the economy and he’ll cruise with like a 55% approval rating. Only way this doesn’t happen is if the virus rebounds or this drags all through the summer which I don’t think is likely
It’s funny you say that when most people who have spent their life studying viruses and outbreaks say it’ll do just that.
What odds do you give it dragging on into summer when he tells people to go back to work weeks to months before doctors think is safe because he wants to protect the market?
They aren't wrong by 43.9%. We've failed as a society if anyone but his idiot children approve of what he's done. He just implored someone to die from an unproven drug for no fucking reason, for crying out loud
I think it will drag on and we'll see hundreds dieing but because its not thousands every day, most of the population won't care as long as they have cash.
Right now the GOP plan calls for a one time check so if that happens the check Goodwill will be gone way before people stop dying. All I'm saying is that there is a slam dunk for Trump but he is too stupid to take it because it doesn't benefit him and he is a sociopath.
If people are dying by the hundreds of thousands, I think it's hard to predict how people will react when it's going to be death on a scale no one has ever experienced.
Sending people back to work with no guaranteed sick leave, no guaranteed access to health care. I mean what can even go wrong here.
Is it really a fair comparison to say no lockdown for the US when plenty of states have locked down? Federally no, but the hardest hit areas are now.
I hate working with Facebook Republicans. “Damn nanci pelosi is trying to fund abortion clinics instead of giving me $1200!” Me: where in the bill text does it say that? Them: I seen’t it on Facebook my friend shared it so it’s true! Me: you do realize with your pay/combined income you’d get $0 from the republican plan right? Also they’re fighting for protections for workers who will inevitably be laid off.
They're fucking terrible, but they're so much better at messaging. People who don't follow what's going on are falling for this narrative hook, line, and sinker. That's a lot of people.
and the President is literally tweeting that he is okay with potentially millions of deaths, yet Democrats can't come up with consistent messaging against it
I hope there is a breakthrough, but I just mean it’s disheartening that after the crimes and utter incompetence of the previous 3 years, it feels like the coronavirus is the thing that could take trump down. Fucking apathy and ignorance are dangerous.
this may be true, but Trump has (through complicit conservative propaganda and morons at CNN and elsewhere) flipped the narrative to the health of the economy, not the health of Americans, being the standard of success in fighting this virus and with the personality of Americans, if the stock market recovers halfway by October, people are generally back at work, and there aren’t hundreds of people dying of COVID every day, the partisan American voter isn’t going to care how woefully unprepared, ignorant, and dangerous, Trumps response to this was. I think everybody needs to realize that. If he can say that less people died from COVID than from the average flu season, the populace is literally not going to care at all. Not saying it’s right, just saying it’s true. ETA: the cognitive dissonance of “news outlets” to take the narrative flip on its face and not call it out for the propaganda / distraction that it is, is I guess par for the course but also disheartening. I mean it’s clear as day that this is a) dangerous distraction b) re-election campaign propaganda c) self (and friends) dealing policy and d) medical malpractice, but the average news outlet is going to present it as anything but those things.
People think the group of folks that haven't encouraged a death by poison are doing better than trump? I would bet that he'd have an approval rating of 80% if he'd just shut the fuck up and let fauci run every briefing. He just can't help himself.
Good piece of writing by David Roth here. (Likely posted in the rona thread, but idk, it's moving too quickly to follow every page of posts and still manage to do some work.)
Trump’s actions are disastrous for the health and lives of Americans. But those hand-wringing about polls, approval, and the eventual election need to step back and see how all this looks to a vote in late summer. Right now, the numbers are rising, but they are still low to the average person. And the average person thinks this will be over and done with by May. If we have 50k to 100k deaths by September, ppl won’t be giving him a high approval rating. It is currently based on hope and low numbers.
Both George Bushes were well over 90 percent in how they handled crises. This asshole isn’t yet above 60, and this crisis just started. Once the mindless “rally around the flag” sentiment that accompanies things like this fades we’ll really see how “popular” his lunacy is.
Most ppl are in their homes with their family, doing what they can, hoping for the best, and to their knowledge have been unaffected by the virus. Same sentiment won’t exist in May.
Thursday is the Unemployment Report. Estimates between 2.5M and 3.4M new claims. That is record breaking. Has never been that amount in our history. Would raise it by 2% this week. Largest monthly ever was in 1949 and it was 1.3% by comparison.
reminder, GOP are full of bullshit Collins' awful provision in coronavirus bill harms nursing homes, disability providers, and more The $500 billion corporate bailout slush fund bill from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and buddies that Democrats rejected Sunday has many, many shortcomings. Not just what it does do (unfettered giveaways to corporate America with no strings attached) but what it doesn't do, like provide funding to state and local governments, or food assistance, or health care, or worker protections, or expanded emergency leave, or adequate assistance to, you know, people. Lurking among all those provisions that aren't helping people is one from our old favorite, Maine Sen. Susan Collins. She and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio were responsible for the small business stimulus part of the bill, and included a provision that inexplicably and very specifically excludes nonprofits that get Medicaid funding from receiving any assistance. The obvious exclusion is Planned Parenthood, Collins' longtime (though no longer) defender. But as Greg Sargent explains, Senate Democrats and aides "think the language means a lot more than" just excluding Planned Parenthood. They pointed out that it "would exclude from eligibility for this funding a big range of other nonprofits that get Medicaid funding, such as home and community-based disability providers; community-based nursing homes, mental health providers and health centers; group homes for the disabled; and even rape crisis centers." The Senate Republicans are an immediate danger to the people. Please give $1 to our nominee fund to help Democrats end their majority. In other words, groups that are going to be stretched to the limit to provide assistance to some of the most vulnerable members of the community. Many of them are largely funded through their clients' Medicaid, and are historically underpaid for the services they provide. Coronavirus is going to create a surge in demand for these services and potentially put those providers at risk, particularly if they're competing with hospitals and first responders for protective gear. This provision would "prevent many small Medicaid-funded providers from accessing small business loans," Mara Youdelman, the managing attorney of the National Health Law Program’s D.C. office, told Sargent, noting that rural providers would also be cut out. "We should be doing everything possible to keep them in businesses, both to help manage the pandemic and to keep people needing routine care healthy and out of overwhelmed hospitals," Youdelman said. One such provider is The Arc, an advocacy organization for the disabled. Nicole Jorwic, senior director of public policy for The Arc, told Sargent that "It's a huge problem. […] Our chapters who provide services would all be impacted [making it harder to] provide home and community-based services all over the country." "The last thing anyone should do in the middle of a public health crisis is restricting access to health care providers that women, people with disabilities, people with substance abuse disorders and more rely on," Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said in a statement sent to Sargent. Meanwhile, Collins is bleating about how "It is essential that Congress stop its partisan bickering & work together to protect workers' paychecks. On the Senate Floor this evening, I implored my colleagues to deliver urgently needed aid for the employees of small businesses throughout our nation." Just not ALL small businesses. Only the ones that might cut her campaign fund a check.