It was too little too late. What was an alarmist overreaction was the WAY Trump talked about the virus, by blaming China, he is creating a misunderstanding that they were some how responsible for the outbreak, when in reality it could have happened anywhere. If Trump had taken the virus more serious sooner instead of in his mind "separating" it from the US, like it is a China only problem when Viruses do not work like that, He would have realized by that time, he needed to ban Travel from everywhere, not just China and this was " our problem to deal with at home" not just something happening in a far away land that he is free to demonize at will. Trump ignored pleas from his own administration to take it seriously while calling it "The Chinese virus" and a" Hoax" and wanted to talk about the flavors of vape we need to push to get back on store shelves instead.and yet Trump suggesting Travel restrictions etc as was pointed out in this thread was deemed an alarmist over-reaction etc.
China was doing what China always does, that is why the US and other nations should have acted on their own accord on their own intel regardless of what China states publicly. Germany was smart to have stockpiled early and because everyone else didn't everyone was complaining that Germany should have to give them their supplies I guess to take pity on them for being too stupid to act sooner. Germany was one of the only ones who actually acted accordingly earlier to what their intelligence was telling them, ignoring any claims by China. If other nations had taken their lead and did the same, everyone would have been in a better position right now. Germany was one of the only ones who was doing what they should early on and following their playbook properly, especially good moves on stockpiling PPE and increasing their stockpile of ECMO and training teams, Those actions likely saved countless lives there, and others should be taking notes about now.To be fair: China lied ever since the pandemic started so their criticism can't be taken seriously. Especially since they have themselves imposed the harshest lockdowns and also pretty much stopped internal travel. (But exporting the desease overseas was ok I guess)
And as for the WHO... They said China did well and silenced Taiwan, which wanted to warn the world and managed the pandemic very well. So yeah no, I am not going to believe one word from the WHO on this pandemic. (Not to say I will disagree by principle, but i'll wait until other more impartial organisms make recommendations)
This said, I agree Trump just did the bare minimum and shouldn't be praised for that. Travel restrictions on China were politically easy and convenient for him as it played right into his anti China and foreigners propaganda and could be implemented quite quickly.
Several african nations didn't want to declare an outbreak of ebola in 2014, didn't even want to acknowledge it. Because it would hurt politically and financially, yet the US still had the knowledge that something was going on and acted on it. It should've been possible to do the same for covid.China was doing what China always does, that is why the US and other nations should have acted on their own accord on their own intel regardless of what China states publicly. Germany was smart to have stockpiled early and because everyone else didn't everyone was complaining that Germany should have to give them their supplies I guess to take pity on them for being too stupid to act sooner. Germany was one of the only ones who actually acted accordingly earlier to what their intelligence was telling them, ignoring any claims by China. If other nations had taken their lead and did the same, everyone would have been in a better position right now. Germany was one of the only ones who was doing what they should early on and following their playbook properly, especially good moves on stockpiling PPE and increasing their stockpile of ECMO and training teams, Those actions likely saved countless lives there, and others should be taking notes about now.
I'm not making a comparison between the Europe-wide response and the US response: the only purpose of bringing Europe up was to demonstrate that the US had ample evidence of the scale of the problem on its doorstep weeks before they bothered to do anything on a federal level.US is several orders of magnitude larger than an EU nation, and is comparable to the entire EU landmass and population. The disparity in prosperity between states would be akin to the differences between Germany and Romania, or Norway and Spain. Some of the richest states in the union in New England, New York and California are twice as wealthy than other states such as West Virginia and Alabama. The first response to this was done in the state-level. It is very difficult to have a good comparison between the two.
Exactly, there is no reason that the US shouldn't have acted appropriately regardless of what ignorant politicians elsewhere were choosing to do. Instead the US behaved just as ignorantly as they did.Several african nations didn't want to declare an outbreak of ebola in 2014, didn't even want to acknowledge it. Because it would hurt politically and financially, yet the US still had the knowledge that something was going on and acted on it. It should've been possible to do the same for covid.
This only really means that the USA, with a greater federal bureaucracy with more expansive rights and powers then the EU, should have been able to act more decisively then European nations. The states can act on their own, and some tried to the best of their abilities, but that's no excuse for the federal government to drop the ball so completely. Had the federal government called to action and unleashed FEMA you can bet that the states would not have dallied. As it was, the federal government kept telling everyone that there wasn't any danger, which also meant that several states decided to not act "rashly" because it would be bad optics if the federal government was right.
Good, I understand.I'm not making a comparison between the Europe-wide response and the US response: the only purpose of bringing Europe up was to demonstrate that the US had ample evidence of the scale of the problem on its doorstep weeks before they bothered to do anything on a federal level.
The fact that it was state-wide to begin with is part of the problem: the US has been mired in an inter-state bidding war over coronavirus equipment such as ventilators, pitting states against eachother and artificially driving up the price. The US government manual on epidemic response that tstorm posted yesterday quite explicitly states several time that the response needs to be federally coordinated.
Good, I understand.
Had it been 2014 or 2006 this wouldn't have been this way. However I think this is due to the open hostility between the President and the rival party and their representatives in the various states. inb4 I blamed the democrats or republicans - states would refuse to accept federal dictates (as is their right under most circumstance).
People had been freaking out about feds abducting people in the north-west, but FEMA could use location triangulation via cellphone towers, tracking people that met infected persons and placing them under quarantine. This is how you use epidemiological means to stop the disease. You find the people that spread it the most and quarantine them, follow the tracks of people that were infected to quarantine all of those that they came into contact with.
Imagine some alphabet agents come to your doorstep and inform you that you and your household are under quarantine because you came into contact with an infected person, and ought to stay that way for the next two weeks.
US Media obliterating Trump's image didn't help either because they were butthurt he didn't respect their traditional white house dinner-parties and decorumSure there is hostility between the federal government and a lot of state governments, because the federal government is incompetent and fails to communicate in an effective way.
You cannot have large scale quarantines because nobody trusts the guy who insisted that this was just a common cold and that it would be over by easter. You can't trust alphabet agencies when they've so blatantly violated constitutional rights in recent times.
Government requires the cooperation of the people, and to make the people cooperate you need their trust. Hence you should strive to appear trustworthy, not like a raving lunatic yelling about chinese plague or how it isn't a danger to anyone.
Trump's image is entirely a fabrication of The Apprentice. He's been a bankrupt punchline for years and most banks have stopped lending to him because of his reputation for tanking startups and exploiting the bankruptcy laws to protect himself while leaving investors holding the bag. He's over a billion dollars in debt right now. Trump only had the chances to fuck everything up this spectacularly because his criminal father was rich.US Media obliterating Trump's image didn't help either because they were butthurt he didn't respect their traditional white house dinner-parties and decorum
I honestly don't understand why you'd keep this up with this image of him, it only serves to make much of your country's people to be not very good...Trump's image is entirely a fabrication of The Apprentice. He's been a bankrupt punchline for years and most banks have stopped lending to him because of his reputation for tanking startups and exploiting the bankruptcy laws to protect himself while leaving investors holding the bag. He's over a billion dollars in debt right now. Trump only had the chances to fuck everything up this spectacularly because his criminal father was rich.
A lot of people regret their vote and are voting Biden this year. Good on 'em. Mistakes matter less than what you do about them. Some people would rather have Trump no matter what for various reasons, none of which are particularly flattering.I honestly don't understand why you'd keep this up with this image of him, it only serves to make much of your country's people to be not very good...
Even if I dislike a politician I don't go so far as to think of them this badly because I have some respect for the people who voted for him. Maybe this will help you understand why I'm opposed to this kind of thinking here.
We'll see what happens in Nov 4th. I supported Trump because he was hilarious, he still is. Here's a nice view of him:A lot of people regret their vote and are voting Biden this year. Good on 'em. Mistakes matter less than what you do about them. Some people would rather have Trump no matter what for various reasons, none of which are particularly flattering.
Trump is a malignant parasite and everything about him is phony. And if you choose to take my saying so personally, that ain't my problem. By all means, you may continue to play the part of the wounded ingenue if you please. But Trump supporters feeling validated was never my responsibility.
I didn't ask, but that's your prerogative, my dude. Let's leave it at that.I supported Trump because he was hilarious
It could have happened anywhere.It was too little too late. What was an alarmist overreaction was the WAY Trump talked about the virus, by blaming China, he is creating a misunderstanding that they were some how responsible for the outbreak, when in reality it could have happened anywhere. If Trump had taken the virus more serious sooner instead of in his mind "separating" it from the US, like it is a China only problem when Viruses do not work like that, He would have realized by that time, he needed to ban Travel from everywhere, not just China and this was " our problem to deal with at home" not just something happening in a far away land that he is free to demonize at will. Trump ignored pleas from his own administration to take it seriously while calling it "The Chinese virus" and a" Hoax" and wanted to talk about the flavors of vape we need to push to get back on store shelves instead.
China calling Trump's ignorant reaction an overaction with the whole embassy thing was just another stunt Trump pulled that wasn't going to make a difference here one way or the other. Trump just repeatedly made a series of ignorant mistakes because he didn't understand the threat nor did he let his teams call the shots on this to begin with. When they saw this coming since November and Trump then took empty actions that didn't even slow or impact the spread at all, if anything his ignorant rhetoric made this so much worse than it ever had to be for what? There is no logical reason for Trump to behave like an idiot the way he did with the tragically stupid things that came pouring out of his mouth. It was like every time he opened it only stupid came out when he was supposed to be trying to keep Americans safe from a virus that was already spreading in the US and all over the world at that point and he thought that banning travel from China was going to do what exactly at that point? Trump's choice to make it seem like a problem far far away, was the opposite message people needed to hear.
The American people instead should have been told "That this virus is dangerous, deadly, and our problem to deal with because it is here, and we, as Americans, have to act now because this is now our responsibility to take action to save the lives of our friends, neighbors and loved ones, and if we fail to do so we very well could lose them through our our reckless actions" " He should have Called upon "Americans to unite in our diligence to take precautions to defeat this virus because we know we can do it if we just work together" Did Trump do that at all? No because he is an incompetent dumbass and gets people killed instead.
ALSO, He should have listened to our scientists and physicians in our own US military intelligence were telling him, Not what China has to say about it regardless. Any comments on his actions should really be irrelevant as Trump was the one with the intel being reported to him, not anyone else. It was Trump's call to make and he chose the "d) Do as little a possible action, ignore what the scientists are actually saying because I don't understand it anyways, lie to the public and make an ass out of myself instead" option instead. No one made him choose that option but he went all in on it when he did.
The difference there is they're not as sealed down. There's not stuff like "The great firewall" and quite such high levels of scrutiny of info leaving said nations. I mean we still barely know what goes on in North Korea and that's meant to be a state that's really not very advanced at all but they're very tight with information security.Several african nations didn't want to declare an outbreak of ebola in 2014, didn't even want to acknowledge it. Because it would hurt politically and financially, yet the US still had the knowledge that something was going on and acted on it. It should've been possible to do the same for covid.
And some people just outright hate Trump and will do anything to harm him.Sure there is hostility between the federal government and a lot of state governments, because the federal government is incompetent and fails to communicate in an effective way.
You cannot have large scale quarantines because nobody trusts the guy who insisted that this was just a common cold and that it would be over by easter. You can't trust alphabet agencies when they've so blatantly violated constitutional rights in recent times.
Government requires the cooperation of the people, and to make the people cooperate you need their trust. Hence you should strive to appear trustworthy, not like a raving lunatic yelling about chinese plague or how it isn't a danger to anyone.
I mean the UK's choices were.Or maybe the US people just made a bad call and got stuck with an incompetent buffoon in charge? It wouldn't be the first time a democracy has voted incompetent people into power (the UK managed the same feat with Mr. Johnson and they knew exactly how unsuited for the position he was). With Trump there are very few excuses, as he has 3,5 years of stumbling from one poor decision to the next and having scandal after scandal erupt around him or his administration. You don't need to dig deep to realize how terrible he is, so why shouldn't people think and speak badly of Trump? Because it is not nice? Because it means that US voters did an oopsie?
My dude in my imagination I see people here cutting ties with their family members over wrongthink and it scares me that politics have so much influence over people.