The Democratic Primary is Upon Us! - Biden is the Presumptive Nominee

[tstorm823]

Patiently remind your doctor that the clinic would have needed a lot less and much cheaper effort to save if orange blobby had managed to tear himself away from Fox and Friends to take the pandemic seriously six weeks earlier, and hadn't defunded the CDC and canned pandemic resource teams in the previous few years.

Stop lying. I know you know those things are lies. Stop it.

He didn't can the pandemic response team, his administration put them in with the biological weapons department after the head of the team resigned his office, all they lost was that department head, their jobs and tasks by all accounts remained. He didn't defund the CDC, he recommended lower funding on budgets for a lot of things, including CDC programs, and then congress that actually writes the bills increased funding for CDC programs, and Trump's signed it every single year. Stop. Lying.

"Yes, but he wanted to cut the CDC and was negligent in not replacing that official" I hear you saying, but I don't care. You can't even begin to have a civil discourse about what was done right and what was done wrong until you stop lying. And what you said is lies.

 

[Agema]

Stop lying. I know you know those things are lies. Stop it.

No, I didn't lie. I just forgot it was only a planned cut to CDC funding.

He didn't can the pandemic response team...

To all intents and purposes, yes he did. Some of the staff remained, but were merged into a department with a wider remit. How that affected functionality is not totally clear, but it's unlikely to be positive. This was about efficiency savings. Efficiency means fewer staff - and in all likelihood less work, unless the staff were idle beforehand. Having a wider remit also tends to reduce clarity of purpose. There are potential upsides, of increasing interaction with other staff in related fields to get more value from wider and diverse experience.

You've got the president trying to defend himself saying no-one could have seen this coming. But the previous administration saw the risk, set up a program, a program which continued in at least some form in Trump's own administration, but which the administration failed to pay attention or respond to in a timely and effective fashion. So the US government did put out various documents 2017 & 2018 regarding biological threats - essentially considering the reaction to natural pathogens or designed bioweapons to be very similar (at least in terms of public health), which seems reasonable. At the thing is, the Trump administration even flubbed according to those. For instance:

Spoiler

Communicate with External Partners and the Public

Coordination of public and external communications is a key component of an effective biological incident response.

Key Objective

* Coordinate risk communication to develop a unified message across a range of media and involved entities to inform the public and external partners.

Key Federal Roles/Responsibilities

* Provide timely and coordinated messaging to the public for both warning and guidance throughout the incident

* Provide behavioral health messaging to the public, healthcare workers, and responders to the incident.

* Coordinate associated messaging for all of above through inter-agency process. Response and recovery outcomes for a biological incident are significantly tied to public reception and compliance with public health guidance on personal protective measures and access to health and medical interventions

I note this because Trump personally particularly urinated grandly all over this part of the plan.

You can have a read through some of these documents. They state things like preparation - even just stockpiling PPE etc., and yet the Federal government made no effort to prepare, suddenly going to turbo when it's already far behind. It talks about co-ordinating responses effectively nationwide, but (as stated above) it seems to be a bizarre competition where the states and Federal government are frantically fighting each other over limited resources.

You know, it's not like Trump didn't get around to doing some of the right things. But overall it's been shockingly slow, shambolic and reactive. Trump and his team weren't on top of this at all when they could and should have been.

* * *

And for heaven's sake. Stop bothing anyone, anyone at all in this forum about "lying" whilst you're busy defending a man who can barely open his mouth without a dozen grotesque lies spilling out straight into international media. All it does it make you look like a colossal hypocrite and demean everything you say.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Oh have you missed Trump bailing out hospitals and doctors, and possibly making COVID healthcare costs free for everyone? What happens in November after a few months of your doctor saying "Trump saved our clinic"?

Patiently remind your doctor that the clinic would have needed a lot less and much cheaper effort to save if orange blobby had managed to tear himself away from Fox and Friends to take the pandemic seriously six weeks earlier, and hadn't defunded the CDC and canned pandemic resource teams in the previous few years. And that the administration organised a response properly, instead of chaos such as pissing away taxpayer money needlessly by driving up equipment costs through the states and the federal government all trying to outbid each other.

You can congratulate someone for their efforts in capturing an escaped horse, whilst still ideally remembering that they should be fired for leaving the stable door open.

Accurate, but this is about public perceptions. And as Truly British pointed out on the last page, this is currently how things look because even if Trump flubbed the start, the Democrats are flubbing the response even harder than Trump is.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Snippy

Oh look, a well thought out take.

I genuinely can't tell if this is sarcastic.

It wasn't, but it should have been.

because they didn't have time to prepare them to pivot their support.

This is, quite simply, a delusional idea about the power Bernie Sanders has over his most enthusiastic supporters. He works for us, not the other way around. He's the compromise.

The best case scenario for the left voting for Biden (or Clinton) is that he (or she) wins and then that is used as evidence for why the Democratic Party must nominate "moderates" in the future. This whole dynamic is a large part of why we have Trump in the first place. Trump and Biden don't have to be the same to justify not voting for the other senile rapist. It's an open question whether Biden even makes it to November, but for the record I won't vote for Cuomo either.

 

[Avnger]

The best case scenario for the left voting for Biden (or Clinton) is that he (or she) wins and then that is used as evidence for why the Democratic Party must nominate "moderates" in the future. This whole dynamic is a large part of why we have Trump in the first place. Trump and Biden don't have to be the same to justify not voting for the other senile rapist. It's an open question whether Biden even makes it to November, but for the record I won't vote for Cuomo either.

There are two ways to change the American political system. From the inside or from the outside. Doing so from the inside will always be a game of small incremental changes; "stability" and aversion to change is one of the foundational pillars of American government. Doing so from the outside allows much larger and faster changes, but it would require a literal (most likely violent) revolution to happen.

Because you refuse to take option A (as it dilutes your "purity") but you also aren't willing to put yourself and society on the line by taking option B, you're never going to get anywhere. I'm sure you get a warm fuzzy feeling from pretending to hold the moral high ground, but you're never going to make any actual progress from there.

Neither Trump nor Biden are "great" options. Hell, neither are "good" options either. But to sit there an pretend they're equivalent is to be no less delusional than a full-on Trump cultist.

 

[SupahEwok]

And so our 6-8 month saga concludes: petty "nuh-uhs" and schoolyard slapfights.

Ah well.

 

[Seanchaidh]

The best case scenario for the left voting for Biden (or Clinton) is that he (or she) wins and then that is used as evidence for why the Democratic Party must nominate "moderates" in the future. This whole dynamic is a large part of why we have Trump in the first place. Trump and Biden don't have to be the same to justify not voting for the other senile rapist. It's an open question whether Biden even makes it to November, but for the record I won't vote for Cuomo either.

There are two ways to change the American political system. From the inside or from the outside. Doing so from the inside will always be a game of small incremental changes; "stability" and aversion to change is one of the foundational pillars of American government. Doing so from the outside allows much larger and faster changes, but it would require a literal (most likely violent) revolution to happen.

Because you refuse to take option A (as it dilutes your "purity") but you also aren't willing to put yourself and society on the line by taking option B, you're never going to get anywhere. I'm sure you get a warm fuzzy feeling from pretending to hold the moral high ground, but you're never going to make any actual progress from there.

Neither Trump nor Biden are "great" options. Hell, neither are "good" options either. But to sit there an pretend they're equivalent is to be no less delusional than a full-on Trump cultist.

Above is a cringe-inducing false dilemma coupled with a generalized to the point of uselessness essentialism about the American political system. The political analysis is vacuous, without any relevant detail and, perhaps worst of all, unjustifiably condescending.

When you write "to sit there an[d] pretend they're equivalent" in response to "Trump and Biden don't have to be the same to justify not voting for the other senile rapist", it suggests that you didn't even read what was written before spouting your vapid talking points. Attacking an argument that wasn't made sure is a good way of avoiding any actual engagement with the point, though, so good job on that.

The energy with which the Democratic party establishment and media opposed Bernie Sanders suggests that they are not simply a lesser evil but an enemy right there along with Trump who it is now obvious that they do not care in the slightest about defeating. You don't ram through a senile rapist (and tell voters to go spread a deadly virus in order to do it!) if your priority is to win. They are not incrementally moving toward something I want; they're not moving at all. The institutional conservatism you reference is not a necessity; it's a choice. And that choice can be rewarded or punished at the ballot box. I choose the latter. Pressure can also be applied in other ways. It's never either/or-- pretentious hand-wringing about violent revolution vs. electoral politics notwithstanding.

 

[TrulyBritish]

There are two ways to change the American political system. From the inside or from the outside. Doing so from the inside will always be a game of small incremental changes; "stability" and aversion to change is one of the foundational pillars of American government. Doing so from the outside allows much larger and faster changes, but it would require a literal (most likely violent) revolution to happen.

Because you refuse to take option A (as it dilutes your "purity") but you also aren't willing to put yourself and society on the line by taking option B, you're never going to get anywhere. I'm sure you get a warm fuzzy feeling from pretending to hold the moral high ground, but you're never going to make any actual progress from there.

Neither Trump nor Biden are "great" options. Hell, neither are "good" options either. But to sit there an pretend they're equivalent is to be no less delusional than a full-on Trump cultist.

I'm not sure that argument really works as you think it does, because the key part is you actually need someone on the inside, which is kind of what the whole issue is about with Bernie, progressives want their guy on the inside.
Your problem is you position the debate between Republicans and Democrats, where voting any democrat gets you your person on the inside and will incrementally push it your way. But to American progressives, the debate is between the Corporate establishment that controls both parties and the Progressive wing. Voting for Biden in this situation is not having a guy on the inside and does nothing to push changes in your direction.
The argument isn't that Trump and Biden are the same, most progressives I've seen will admit that even as they say they won't vote for Biden, it's that supporting Biden does nothing to aid their agenda and that arguably they stand to lose more if Biden wins and proves he doesn't need the Progressive vote to win an election. (The counterpoint to that of course is do you really want to risk whatever other damage Trump will do if he gets a second term, most people I've seen are worrying about his replacement to some judge people expect to leave soon).

 

[tstorm823]

And so our 6-8 month saga concludes: petty "nuh-uhs" and schoolyard slapfights.

Ah well.

I'd like to feed the trolls, but I don't know where you are to order you a pizza.

 

[Avnger]

Snip.

I fully understand this perspective. It's just entirely full of bs and rolls back to leftists not wanting to put in the work required to make changes at the slow pace necessary. They want to win 1 election and have their utopia magically spring into existence.

I'm not sure that argument really works as you think it does, because the key part is you actually need someone on the inside, which is kind of what the whole issue is about with Bernie, progressives want their guy on the inside.
Your problem is you position the debate between Republicans and Democrats, where voting any democrat gets you your person on the inside and will incrementally push it your way. But to American progressives, the debate is between the Corporate establishment that controls both parties and the Progressive wing. Voting for Biden in this situation is not having a guy on the inside and does nothing to push changes in your direction.

I position the debate between Rep and Dem because that is the literal reality of American politics; third parties have a chance to win presidential elections that is only barely non-zero. If leftists want to see their vision become reality, they need to start at the bottom and win their way up. This means first winning over the local county and state party organizations; then moving on to the national party. It means when your choices come down to someone with views like Warren running against someone with views like Pelosi, you vote for the Warren-like side (you can always replace them a few elections down the line). Replacing these local then state then national party officials will take (a lot of) time, but it is the only way to truly ensure a victory. Bernie is the literal poster-child (up until 2016 at least) for the wrong way to go about actually making change. You can't sit back and hope your ideological purity wins people over. You have to put in the ground-game to change the entire structure.

The argument isn't that Trump and Biden are the same, most progressives I've seen will admit that even as they say they won't vote for Biden, it's that supporting Biden does nothing to aid their agenda and that arguably they stand to lose more if Biden wins and proves he doesn't need the Progressive vote to win an election

Have you looked at Biden's platform recently? A public option is certainly more progressive than the currently gutted ACA rules (and Trump wants to roll back even those), and provides another chance to show more Americans how large-scale government-funded health care will succeed. Forgiving college loans (in part or entirely) is certainly more progressive than the current administration's actions to refuse waivers and raise the loan interest rates. Expanding medicare (even if its not nearly to M4A reach) is more progressive than the cuts Trump is actively pursuing. Any progressive doesn't believe those actions are a step closer to what they truly want than the alternative is a fool.

As for "Biden proving he doesn't need progressive votes," the only ones they'd have to blame in that scenario is themselves. This goes back to wanting one big win to make all the changes at once. Instead they need to volunteer for the campaign/party. They need to work until they're in positions to influence policy. Aides and minor officials have a much larger impact upon the process of deciding party platforms and legislative goals than anyone gives them credit for. If progressives worked to make themselves invaluable to the DNC instead of this "if you give me everything I want, I'll support you otherwise fuck off" approach, they'd find themselves catered to much more often.

Look at how much control the far-right Republican base has over it's party structure. Progressive truly could do the same to the DNC if they wanted. The problem is that Reps started that takeover in roughly the early 90s and it only really bore fruit for them in 2016. Progressives has shown they have nowhere near the drive or ambition to put in a similar amount of planning and time. They'd rather take to twitter to complain because it makes them feel better.

 

[SupahEwok]

And so our 6-8 month saga concludes: petty "nuh-uhs" and schoolyard slapfights.

Ah well.

I'd like to feed the trolls, but I don't know where you are to order you a pizza.

"I know you are but what am I?"

Classic.

 

[tstorm823]

"I know you are but what am I?"

Classic.

If you think I've said anything wrong, you are welcome to make the argument. But when someone says Trump canned people that he didn't, then I correct the claim, and that user acknowledges that the original claim wasn't accurate by saying something more nuanced, but a few weeks later says the same thing in a different thread, that is no longer innocent ignorance. That's just a lie.

For reference:

Or, it's nasty because it's dishonest. The experts and resources of the Pandemic Response team still exist at the White House, they just got restructured underneath a different umbrella.

No, this was about efficiency savings. And efficiency savings are about reducing manpower and resources.

This is how works, because it's how it always works. Scrap a team with a dedicated remit and merge its functions into a wider department, it always gets diluted. A once-dedicated team leader becomes a generic manager with several other things to oversee, once-dedicated team workers and resources are part-diverted to other projects, and the once-dedicated remit becomes just another thing to balance against competing projects under the same unit.

Now:

...defunded the CDC and canned pandemic resource teams in the previous few years.

Saying something that Agema knows isn't true is a lie, SuperEwok. What do you want me to say to that?

 

[Agema]

Saying something that Agema knows isn't true is a lie, SuperEwok. What do you want me to say to that?

But it is true. The dedicated pandemic response team was scrapped.

That some of its personnel and resources were retained and merged into a different unit that had some overlap of purpose does not mean it isn't true. The loss of a dedicated director diminishes its "voice" in the government: essentially turning it into a bunch of drones without an obvious "go-to guy". There were already warnings about complacency over diseases outbreaks in the US government:
https://www.csis.org/analysis/ending-cycle-crisis-and-complacency-us-global-health-security

And this really does go into the attitude of the Trump administration. It might not have decreased CDC funding, but it tried multiple times to cut funding for the CDC's international dieases monitoring - although Congress declined to agree. And it also cut staff round the world involved in disease monitoring, including China. Irrespective of whether the staff cuts made any difference to the outbreak, it's a consistent pattern of behaviour.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-china-cdc-exclusiv/exclusive-u-s-slashed-cdc-staff-inside-china-prior-to-coronavirus-outbreak-idUKKBN21C3NF

The pattern of the Trump administration was complacency and a lack of preparedness, certainly a significant downgrading from the concerns of the previous.

And as we've seen and I note that you've not countered at all, the Trump administration response to Coronavirus was confused, weak, flawed - failing even to take heed of plenty of the guidance that did exist. A central figure in that has been Trump himself. Even now, he's too busy flattering his ego with lengthy and inefficient daily press briefings where he squanders their potential utility by putting himself centre stage, being unclear and inconsistent and re-enacting his stupid feuds. They've just replaced his rallies as a way of feeding his need for attention, and all he cares about are the TV ratings they're generating.

 

[tstorm823]

But it is true. The dedicated pandemic response team was scrapped.

They were not scrapped. Their leadership resigned, and then the team was reorganized. I've seen no evidence that a single person was fired from the pandemic response team. Not one.

Pick your favorite fact checker, they're going to tell you it's half true at best.

And as we've seen and I note that you've not countered at all, the Trump administration response to Coronavirus was confused, weak, flawed - failing even to take heed of plenty of the guidance that did exist. A central figure in that has been Trump himself. Even now, he's too busy flattering his ego with lengthy and inefficient daily press briefings where he squanders their potential utility by putting himself centre stage, being unclear and inconsistent and re-enacting his stupid feuds. They've just replaced his rallies as a way of feeding his need for attention, and all he cares about are the TV ratings they're generating.

You understand your position here, correct? You're arguing that Trump's role in the pandemic is bad because he didn't prioritize pandemic response enough, less than his predecessor for sure. That the pandemic experts remained but without dedicated leadership, or the offices in China studying unique viruses have fewer staff than before... May I ask what everyone else is doing? The Chinese scientists didn't prevent the pandemic. The European scientists didn't prevent the pandemic. Is no other nation on the planet fighting diseases, or are only Americans competent at it. Which of these poisoned arguments do you want to make?

And like, whose response do you want to compare to? How's Europe fairing? Oh, Germany is getting mega-praise for it's response. It's results are pretty similar to the US though, at least relative to the other big European countries that got hit harder and faster than we did over here, and with far more death on a per capita basis. Sounds like the US did, in fact, have a response to the pandemic. Like, you think it's a problem that Trump is president and didn't do enough to prevent a pandemic, but you should consider you've got a bigger problem if the US president has sole responsibility for the entire world's pandemic prevention.

We agree, there's plenty of room for criticism of Trump, and he didn't prioritize fighting global diseases the way Obama did. But you're repeating propaganda falsehoods meant to demonize the leader of the country that seems to be doing the most to fight this sort of thing even with Trump in office, and questioning whether the experts are still effective in one of the places that seems to have done a better job mitigating covid-19. Just a reminder, confirmed coronavirus cases hit Europe around the same time as the US, but we got the longer flatter curve in the US.

 

[Agema]

They were not scrapped. Their leadership resigned, and then the team was reorganized. I've seen no evidence that a single person was fired from the pandemic response team. Not one.

I think you're confusing the existence of an organisation with the employment status of its staff. The team was, undoubtedly, scrapped. And I'm sure the leaders saw the writing on the wall, to put "resign" into context.

Pick your favorite fact checker, they're going to tell you it's half true at best.

Snopes: "true"; Politifact: "needs context"; Reuters: "partly false".

Put it this way, if you're going to argue things like Trump saying he didn't believe influenza killed people meant he did in fact believe influenza killed people, then you are being selective about the latitude you're giving people.

And like, whose response do you want to compare to? How's Europe fairing? Oh, Germany is getting mega-praise for it's response. It's results are pretty similar to the US though, at least relative to the other big European countries that got hit harder and faster than we did over here, and with far more death on a per capita basis. Sounds like the US did, in fact, have a response to the pandemic. Like, you think it's a problem that Trump is president and didn't do enough to prevent a pandemic, but you should consider you've got a bigger problem if the US president has sole responsibility for the entire world's pandemic prevention.

Germany is doing considerably better than the USA. I've been quite open that some other countries have done as badly or worse than the USA. The UK made a hash of it. Italy did, although it was also the first and served as the "canary in the coal mine" which made several other countries (like the UK) realise how much shit they were in.

We agree, there's plenty of room for criticism of Trump, and he didn't prioritize fighting global diseases the way Obama did. But you're repeating propaganda falsehoods meant to demonize the leader of the country that seems to be doing the most to fight this sort of thing even with Trump in office, and questioning whether the experts are still effective in one of the places that seems to have done a better job mitigating covid-19. Just a reminder, confirmed coronavirus cases hit Europe around the same time as the US, but we got the longer flatter curve in the US.

The USA has the benefit of being huge and having low population density: that alone will mean the spread takes longer than in the average European country. Large quantities of the country got the benefit of protective measures before they went full New York. Also, some state governors - like Mike DeWine in Ohio - were very quick off the mark.

It's not remotely obvious to me that the USA is doing "the most" against coronavirus, except in the sense it's probably doing 5-6 times more than large European countries because it's 5-6 times larger by population / economy. And again, I would actually suggest lots of its huge response is a reaction to that fact the administration was initially slow, disorganised, and inconsistent: in other words, it had a lot to make up for.

It's not just his prior disinterest in international disease, or the weeks of inaction. It's his whole attitude to it, from the start that it wasn't serious, business as normal, etc. Even now, he's up there touting what might be snake oil (that's potentially very dangerous - although an ECG should identify most high risk patients). He's up there suggesting he's going to remove restrictions for Easter, or May, no wait he's not determined to, he's going to take advice from the scientists, or the economists, or who knows who... what sort of way is this to govern? It's not a reality TV show.

I think the US government has people who can get things done, thank goodness, even despite the likes of Trump, his nepotistically-installed, underskilled, son-in-law and other cronies.

 

[tstorm823]

Snopes: "true"; Politifact: "needs context"; Reuters: "partly false".

Snopes follows their long=standing tradition of answering a different question than they asked. Snopes does this all the time. Headline: "The Trump administration fired the U.S. pandemic response team in 2018 to cut costs." TRUE. The article: "It?s thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it, eliminating Ziemer?s position [after he departed] and reassigning others." Ok Snopes, what about the question you were actually asked? Cause it sounds like nobody was fired and your headline is full of crap.

Politifact: "Mostly False" [https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/17/instagram-posts/celebrities-are-sharing-misleading-post-about-trum/]
Reuters: "partly false"

Put it this way, if you're going to argue things like Trump saying he didn't believe influenza killed people meant he did in fact believe influenza killed people, then you are being selective about the latitude you're giving people.

Disagree. I think I give everyone lots of latitude. Miscommunications are understandable, and benefit of the doubt is always in play. I never want to be the person saying "nuh-uh, you said that before, no take-backs!" That's what gets me with you going back to saying they were canned. We already had this discussion once, and moved beyond the misleading headline version. I can't give you normal latitude on that, because we've already done this once. You know the team wasn't fired, you know people reading it are going to read it as "he fired them", I can no longer believe you did that by accident.

Germany is doing considerably better than the USA. I've been quite open that some other countries have done as badly or worse than the USA. The UK made a hash of it. Italy did, although it was also the first and served as the "canary in the coal mine" which made several other countries (like the UK) realise how much shit they were in.

Germany is doing better, it is. But its currently 33 deaths per million compared to the US at 61 per million, Spain/France/Italy/UK are all in the hundreds. The jump in damage done is smaller from Germany to the US than it is from the US to the rest of Europe combined.

Was Italy the first, or were they just less responsive? Many countries had their first positive the end of January. Up until the 20th of February, Italy had fewer recorded positives (I understand, no testing) than other countries like Germany and the US. Italy was worried about hate crimes and the Mayor of Florence was telling residents to hug Chinese people as encouragement. At the same time, Germany was confirming human-to-human spread by asymptomatic carriers. At the same time, the CDC here was evacuating US citizens from China into 14-day quarantines and releasing federal guidelines on social distancing. I love the google function that lets you limit search results by date, and it's handy here if you want to take a look at what places were taking it seriously in early February.

It's not remotely obvious to me that the USA is doing "the most" against coronavirus, except in the sense it's probably doing 5-6 times more than large European countries because it's 5-6 times larger by population / economy. And again, I would actually suggest lots of its huge response is a reaction to that fact the administration was initially slow, disorganised, and inconsistent: in other words, it had a lot to make up for.

When I said doing "the most", I meant not about response to this specific virus because there are absolutely other places that did better. I meant with regards to cutting back some of the virus prevention teams here and abroad. The US is very large and prosperous, but not more so than the entire rest of the world combined. Where was the rest of the world? Maybe this would have been averted or mitigated if Trump had better prioritized viral research in China, but that argument supposes that nobody else prioritized that either. That's not good.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Snip.

I fully understand this perspective. It's just entirely full of bs and rolls back to leftists not wanting to put in the work required to make changes at the slow pace necessary. They want to win 1 election and have their utopia magically spring into existence.

Entirely unsubstantiated bullshit. Nothing whatsoever indicates this narrative you're attempting to construct.

 

[Agema]

Snopes...

...supplied an answer you don't like, so you attacked it's credibility.

Politifact: "Mostly False" [https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/17/instagram-posts/celebrities-are-sharing-misleading-post-about-trum/]

Okay, you're the one demanding total honesty... that is the overall grade of a social media post with four individual claims of varying accuracy. The explanation of that individual point is more illuminating than the summary of all four given at least two are basically untrue.

Disagree. I think I give everyone lots of latitude. Miscommunications are understandable, and benefit of the doubt is always in play. I never want to be the person saying "nuh-uh, you said that before, no take-backs!" That's what gets me with you going back to saying they were canned. We already had this discussion once, and moved beyond the misleading headline version.

I'm not wading through that lengthy discussion for other users when I just want to snap off a quick comment. I think it's close enough, and given the wider context of the Trump adminstration's lack of attention to disease threat, I don't see much reason to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Was Italy the first, or were they just less responsive?

The first in Europe for the outbreak to get so big they needed extreme measures.

When I said doing "the most", I meant not about response to this specific virus because there are absolutely other places that did better. I meant with regards to cutting back some of the virus prevention teams here and abroad. The US is very large and prosperous, but not more so than the entire rest of the world combined. Where was the rest of the world? Maybe this would have been averted or mitigated if Trump had better prioritized viral research in China, but that argument supposes that nobody else prioritized that either. That's not good.

Probably no other country (except China?) would, because the economics don't scale up the same way. You need a certain critical mass of size to run certain things effectively, even countries like major EU members are on the small side. It's a bit like aircraft carriers: a navy and naval budget need to a certain size to make an aircraft carrier viable. The EU has the ECDC, but it has a different remit and a budget a tiny fraction of the US CDC; and of course getting the EU to do something involves a 20+ country negotation. The UK for instance is essentially the government organising committees and research from some heathcare professionals and academics, who all have day jobs.

Probably the obvious group to do international pandemics should be the WHO. Unfortunately, member states fuck with the WHO when it suits them: denying entry / access / info, etc. China has before deliberately denied letting the WHO know what's going on, and Trump recenty threatened to defund the WHO (since backtracked), both examples of how national interest can make the WHO's role very difficult. That's the sort of advantage of having a CDC.

 

[Avnger]

Snip.

I fully understand this perspective. It's just entirely full of bs and rolls back to leftists not wanting to put in the work required to make changes at the slow pace necessary. They want to win 1 election and have their utopia magically spring into existence.

Entirely unsubstantiated bullshit. Nothing whatsoever indicates this narrative you're attempting to construct.

Mate, your (and several other users') posts here alone substantiate it even if we all ignored what the leftist circles on reddit, twitter, and every other social media site publicly say every single day.

It's definitely a generalization though; I'll give you that. As I said, Bernie and others clearly realized actions mean more than holier-than-thou posturing when they started making moves to influence/control the party's platform and leadership positions after the 2016 primary was wrapped up instead of entirely retreating back to being an "independent."

 

[Seanchaidh]

Snip.

I fully understand this perspective. It's just entirely full of bs and rolls back to leftists not wanting to put in the work required to make changes at the slow pace necessary. They want to win 1 election and have their utopia magically spring into existence.

Entirely unsubstantiated bullshit. Nothing whatsoever indicates this narrative you're attempting to construct.

Mate, your (and several other users') posts here alone substantiate it even if we all ignored what the leftist circles on reddit, twitter, and every other social media site publicly say every single day.

It's definitely a generalization though; I'll give you that. As I said, Bernie and others clearly realized actions mean more than holier-than-thou posturing when they started making moves to influence/control the party's platform and leadership positions after the 2016 primary was wrapped up instead of entirely retreating back to being an "independent."

You're jumbling things as incoherently as one of Joe Biden's sentences.

There is nothing about changing the party platform that requires me to vote for Joe Biden.
There is nothing about leadership positions in the DNC that requires me to vote for Joe Biden.
There is nothing about making some limited progress electorally that requires me not to urge a general strike.

You're not presenting a thing to argue against here because your conclusion has no relation whatsoever to your premises. It's just a collection of disconnected thoughts. If those thoughts have a single animating spirit, it is a presumably willful disregard of what the movement behind Sanders has been all about.