Biden v. Trump Election Mega Thread

Who will win the election?

  • SleepyJoe

    Votes: 15 30.0%
  • Donald Trump

    Votes: 9 18.0%
  • It doesn't matter who wins, because we will all lose in some way.

    Votes: 26 52.0%

  • Total voters
    50
Status
Not open for further replies.

lil devils x

🐐More Lego Goats Please!🐐
Legacy
May 1, 2020
3,330
1,045
118
Country
🐐USA🐐
Gender
♀
and yet Trump suggesting Travel restrictions etc as was pointed out in this thread was deemed an alarmist over-reaction etc.
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.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Dalisclock

lil devils x

🐐More Lego Goats Please!🐐
Legacy
May 1, 2020
3,330
1,045
118
Country
🐐USA🐐
Gender
♀
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.
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.
 

dreng3

Elite Member
Aug 23, 2011
679
326
68
Country
Denmark
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.
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.
 

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
11,027
5,795
118
Country
United Kingdom
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.
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.
 

lil devils x

🐐More Lego Goats Please!🐐
Legacy
May 1, 2020
3,330
1,045
118
Country
🐐USA🐐
Gender
♀
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.
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.
 

XsjadoBlayde

~it ends here~
Apr 29, 2020
3,216
3,354
118
Bonding exercise for 'The Left(TM)' (i do not know how to make letters go high and small😔) hopefully...? Minimise harm for fellow citizens and world citizens plz? Sometimes minimising harm for others requires uncomfortable comprises.

 

Iron

BOI
Sep 6, 2013
1,741
259
88
Country
Occupied Palestine
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.
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.
 

dreng3

Elite Member
Aug 23, 2011
679
326
68
Country
Denmark
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.

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.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Buyetyen

Iron

BOI
Sep 6, 2013
1,741
259
88
Country
Occupied Palestine
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.
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
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dwarvenhobble

Buyetyen

Elite Member
May 11, 2020
3,129
2,362
118
Country
USA
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
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.
 

Iron

BOI
Sep 6, 2013
1,741
259
88
Country
Occupied Palestine
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.
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.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dwarvenhobble

Buyetyen

Elite Member
May 11, 2020
3,129
2,362
118
Country
USA
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.
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.
 

Iron

BOI
Sep 6, 2013
1,741
259
88
Country
Occupied Palestine
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.
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:
 

Dwarvenhobble

Is on the Gin
May 26, 2020
5,912
646
118
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.
It could have happened anywhere.
It happened in China.
China didn't lock down travel try and control it and protect the rest of the world.
China lied about it.
China suppressed research about it spreading person to person.
China did everything in it's power to hide this and downplay it.
China got a lot of help from the world with PPE being donated to help them. Then when China had it under control they then refused to reciprocate and send some of the spare PPE back and tried to profit off it by selling it back.
A number of foreign companies has stock stored in China including PPE stuff that was their own stock but when they came to try and get it back the CCP blocked attempts by the companies to bring it back and tried to extort the companies for money.

China has done almost everything in it's power to profit off this outbreak and to make it worse globally.

The virus is global now. France has had multiple outbreaks so have places in Europe too. The USA is a big country and a busy one so it's ability to stop the virus getting in was always going to be near 0 without shutting down most flights and full military quarantines at airports and even then thanks to the lies and suppression of information it's quite possible the virus was already in the USA without people knowing.

You also couldn't just test for it easily.
The tests take 24 hours minimum to come back. They're what 80% accurate and you need a minimum of 2 tests 24 hours apart that are negative to e considered low risk. It's 3 tests to be fully sure. so at minimum that's 48 hours quarantine (hence I said military quarantine) to test for the virus as it can be asymptomatic or not show easily identifiable symptoms.

Trump can be blamed for his failings but China has a lot to answer for here.
 

Dwarvenhobble

Is on the Gin
May 26, 2020
5,912
646
118
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.
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.
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.
And some people just outright hate Trump and will do anything to harm him.
E.G. certain states just pushing people into nursing homes with suspected Covid or saying people should attend the street parties and celebrations because otherwise you just look like a racist who hates people of other cultures, hell early on some were suggesting wearing masks was a sign of being a racist or something.


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?
I mean the UK's choices were.

Johnson.
A person literal Russian agents called Agent Cob whose own party were so bad at pre-election finance promises they'd publicly said they'd spend the same lot of money 4 times on 4 different things.
A over-eager wall flower who managed to have her office spell her own constituencies name wrong.
Oh and an ex Banker who helped Trump get elected.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.