Electile Dysfunction (Current students plz look!)

[ScottyB]

I guess I'm just jaded enough that I assume most cabinet positions have things like donor or lobby status taken into account for their appointment.

and i don't blame you. i expect every president to work that way in some capacity, because politics. i'm just saying i've never seen it this bad, and i've also never seen such an exodus of qualified, decorated senior appointees leave under duress (Mattis) or come under direct fire for not bowing to complete ignorance (Fauci). you don't end up with 8 of your closest presidential associates charged with serious federal crimes if you aren't actively attempting to subvert the position, and i've never seen such an attempt before.

again - what is an institution, really? is it equality? prosperity? freedom? upholding the amendments, and in what form? how far does one have to read between the lines of individual offenses to compile an overall picture of widespread incompetence that disregards those institutions? i'm not entirely sure, but i know in my adult life i've never seen an overall picture quite this flagrant.

I just want to know who they are and what specific harm has befallen them at his command.

well my nextdoor neighbor's 71 year old father was a healthy man, and then died in 3 weeks from COVID. they had gone to Florida because they were told COVID was no big deal and was under control, by the president. Trump said a couple days ago "almost nobody's died"....200k nobodies, and rising. is COVID's existence Trumps fault? nope. is his lack of leadership during COVID directly responsible for more dead Americans than we should have had? i don't see how it isn't.

i feel like the dismissal of anything other than hand-picked news sources (i.e. Fox) has affected everyone's ability to understand the truth, and to wage a war against the free press is in conflict with 1A IMO.

i've never seen so much abject racism in my adult life as i have since 2016, and i think it started with the C'ville riot response. its not just Trump's inherent racism that's a problem, its his willingness to enflame conflict and division (which is in large part due to his textbook narcissism and urge to be the center of attention, good or bad). his cult followers confuse it with being "straightforward" or "winning" - both characteristics to be celebrated in the right context - when its just straight up ignorance, and they in turn take this as a green light to take the restraints off their own behavior. Trust me, here in GA, it was under the surface the whole time but its really out there now and i see a celebration of that as harm to my community's pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.

or, i'd ask a non-white person what they feel Trump has improved in their lives over the last 4 years. are we a more perfect union? how would true leadership accomplish that, and what attempts were made lately?

is his lack of transparency and constant urge to obstruct others an affect on me, personally? its a stretch really. is constantly attempting to silence critics, the inability to accept expert direction, and lately the manic attempts to stop the release of his taxes the same as preventing the American people with knowing the truth, and therefore making an informed decision?



anyway. my 4.3 cents. we'll never have a truly "good" person as president, i'm sure of it. there's always baggage, and always favors to give. but i think we're at a high water mark right now, and i think the fallout has made our people worse for it.

[.RJ]

is his lack of transparency and constant urge to obstruct others an affect on me, personally?  its a stretch really.  is constantly attempting to silence critics, the inability to accept expert direction, and lately the manic attempts to stop the release of his taxes the same as preventing the American people with knowing the truth, and therefore making an informed decision?

I cant remember a time in with the president, his administration, and the gov't around it has been involved in so many lawsuits, both going and coming. Please correct me if I'm wrong here - but governing through what you can win in court is not what I'd like to see, its such a waste of time and money.

[Apoc]

My life has been pretty great under Trump, but life was always pretty great for middle-age, white, christian, hetero, males. Despite my growing bank account, I'm also able to identify many decisions and policies have eroded at attempt at equity for underrepresented groups, such as LGBTQ+. If I'm honest, all yesterday I wanted Jake to jump in with some examples because living it is much more traumatic than witnessing it. I'm glad he did and people are taking an honest read.

I honestly think the general distrust of everyone, including government agencies and the free press, is the worst outcome. I concede there is no single truth from these sources, but abject dismissal by a large portion of the population means we're eroding our ability to consider many sources and form an opinion through critical thinking. Everyone just seems so fucking angry all the time and that's not pure happenstance. It's cultivated by sowing mistrust and it's damaging to people's psyche. Those in this thread included.

[.RJ]

I honestly think the general distrust of everyone, including government agencies and the free press, is the worst outcome. Everyone just seems so fucking angry all the time and that's not pure happenstance. It's cultivated by sowing mistrust and it's damaging to people's psyche. Those in this thread included.

Russia is winning.

[ViPER1313]

A few examples on things that shouldn’t be political:

Rolling back fair housing policies - disproportionately impacts minorities and people of color.

Dismantling the CFPB (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/busin...rules.html) - again disproportionately impacts minorities and people of color.

200k+ people dead and counting from COVID, many preventable with a more robust federal response, again disproportionately impacting minorities and people of color.


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[CaptainHenreh]

is his lack of leadership during COVID directly responsible for more dead Americans than we should have had?  i don't see how it isn't. 

I'm not sure, to be honest. Covid 19 response is a valid criticism, but our per-capita covid deaths seems pretty on par (~600 deaths for every million people) with the rest of the western world (Uk: 626, Belgium 870, Spain 640, Italy 590 etc etc), especially when you consider the dumpster-ass-trash-fire that was NY nursing homes at the beginning, the at-times-potentially-questionable death cause reporting, and like, America being America.

Could it have been better? Maybe. Is Trump "directly responsible" for those deaths? Is Sophie Wilmes directly responsible for Belgium's death toll? (She was appointed at the very beginning of it, after all). Maybe it's King Philipp's fault. What about Spain? Is Sanchez directly responsible for Spain's death toll? It's easy to second guess after the fact, but Spain did a "President Madagascar" style shutdown...and still has had more deaths per million than the US. (although all dramatically smaller than the US too, so not a perfect comparison.)

Trump saying "Ok Governors, handle your shit and call us if you need us" is personally precisely what I want the federal government to do, and I think it worked out, frankly, about as well as anything else would have.

We've had precisely two good presidents, and the rest have been basically shit.


The problem with asking people if they "Feel" more successful, secure, safe, etc etc etc is that Feelings are just that. Feelings are easily manipulated. I know, I know, "Objectivity and the Scientific Method is white supremacy" or whatever but I'm less concerned in regards to a Chief Executive with how people feel and way more concerned with how things are.

I have no desire for a second term of Donald J. Trump as president.

But I'm not convinced that what is presented as an alternative to me will be "better" by an objective measure, and potentially worse.

[Apoc]

The US has 50-100% more GDP per capita than those example countries. I'm ashamed that our death per capita is on par with what's considered the fail case of Belgium. What about our death per capita being 2.4x of our neighbor to the north and being higher than Mexico? The UK has similar death per capita and the blame is placed squarely at ole Boris's feet.

The governors screamed they needed help and it didn't come. It was a way to pass the blame and framed as state's rights. A global pandemic is not the time to index on state's rights.

The feds did a bang up job helping the govnas here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-healt...SKBN22Y2F4

[.RJ]

is his lack of leadership during COVID directly responsible for more dead Americans than we should have had?  i don't see how it isn't. 

I'm not sure, to be honest.

For sure there is a lot of blame to go around - from the white house, to the CDC, HHS, Governors, and the American individuals that still dont believe this thing is anything of consequence and spreading enough of it around to keep killing people at 1,000 per day - so the deaths per capita is trucking on along.

But that doesnt absolve Trump from standing up and lying to the american people about this every day, for being dismissive of the people that have died and the families that have been affected, for the businesses shut down, for the people that have lost their healthcare. Or the manipulation of the messaging, the dismissal of science, removing funding/participating in the WHO, blaming China as the end all, the rejection of a plan to send face covers to every household or the shitcanning of a plan because they thought it would help his reelection which seems to have spectacularly backfired.

All the blame doesnt go to the top, but, it should as shit could have been a lot better, and I hope they are held accountable for it in November at the polls.

[Gordonovski]

There's also evidence that COVID deaths (or deaths related to COVID) have been underreported in the US:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaint...le/2767980

https://www.sciencealert.com/2020-has-ki...-us-so-far

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...125506.htm

[SlimKlim]

I don't know how anyone can play down the Trump presidency when he's the worst president we've ever had by far. I feel like I'm taking fucking crazy pills watching people try to have pRagMatIc conversations about what just makes him so bad anyway. My stock portfolio looks great and no one in my family is dead so things are looking pretty swell in my world too. But watching a toddler shit all over every concept of leadership or fundamental decency is getting really fucking old.

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-...889#update

[Apoc]

If a vaccine is approved in the next three months, how many are injecting their kids with it?

We're gonna treat this like the first year of a new gen auto - let everyone else deal with the gremlins. Because my family can hole up in our house while still getting paid to wait it out. Otherwise known as privilege. I am a strong anti-anti-vaxer but now I'm calling into question the safety and efficacy of anything that comes down the line in short order? The media didn't do that to me - weighing Fauci's words, reading medical research, and weighing them against Trump's words did. Our uncertainty was cultivated from years of obvious self-interest from Trump and I loathe him for it.

[SlimKlim]

Our uncertainty was cultivated from years of obvious self-interest from Trump and I loathe him for it.

Man if that ain't the state of the Nation right now, well said. My liberal rage gets so off the charts it's hard to make smart words about it

[Apoc]

Should we also talk about the assault on mail-in ballots and the admin's suing of Nevada, New Jersey, and others to curtail it? I guess states' rights don't apply to everything. Unless you believe that mail-in ballots are an assault on our democracy. If that's the cause, are all my votes over the last nine years somehow less valid that people who voted in person? Did anyone care that our entire state did mail-in before 2020? It didn't appear so.

[SlimKlim]

That and the sheer hypocrisy of attempting to fill RBGs seat in 45 days after delaying Garland's appointment for a fucking year.

[JPolen01]

Nobody gave a fuck about states that have done mail in voting for decades because they weren't on the cusp of losing an election after spending a cool billion dollars on their campaign.

Notice how all mail in ballots must be fraud and is a "Democrat" scam? I'm very confused as to how every single mail in ballot would only benefit the Democratic side of the aisle. If anyone figures that out please let me know.


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[SlimKlim]

All in all, this will be me submitting my ballot:










I just hope enough people do the same. And they don't all get lost in the mail.

[CaptainHenreh]

There's also evidence that COVID deaths (or deaths related to COVID) have been underreported in the US:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaint...le/2767980

https://www.sciencealert.com/2020-has-ki...-us-so-far

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...125506.htm

Now THIS was a cool use of data! I mean, sad topic of course but thank you for posting this!

[ViPER1313]

Lastly - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...de/616424/

“Let us not hedge about one thing. Donald Trump may win or lose, but he will never concede. Not under any circumstance. Not during the Interregnum and not afterward. If compelled in the end to vacate his office, Trump will insist from exile, as long as he draws breath, that the contest was rigged.”

I firmly believe this to be true.


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[Apoc]

There's also evidence that COVID deaths (or deaths related to COVID) have been underreported in the US:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaint...le/2767980

https://www.sciencealert.com/2020-has-ki...-us-so-far

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...125506.htm

Now THIS was a cool use of data! I mean, sad topic of course but thank you for posting this!

Oh, yes, please do more reading about expected deaths. It's fascinating.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail...-countries

[Senor_Taylor]

I'm voting in person and voting Blue. Trump can lick the seats in my e21.