US Politics: Pandemic Political Petard

[A Horse Named Stranger]

20 minutes ago, Fez said:

If COVID-19 gets truly bad, I don't think so. Much like the opioid epidemic ravaging white America forced a lot of Republicans to become supportive of substance use treatment programs (and for Congressional Republicans to reject out of hand Trump's attempts to cut funding); if the virus spreads rapidly and is serious it'll force another reckoning.

So we are now on team corona? And here I thought I was the cynic. On the other hand, I might as well run with it.

C'mon kill a million one, million one. My Corona.

Anyway, came here for the Buttigieg exit from teh campaign, Butt out, if you will.

My initial reaciton was, ok, he gained enough standing for bigger things. Then I realized, he is from Indiana, so what can he possibly hope to accomplish there? It's not like the senate races there look particularly attractive for a Democrat. Or does he want to be Hoosier Beto? Or does he want to run for Governor? Again Hoosier Beto.

[Fragile Bird]

Jack Welch has died. He was 84.

As someone who was an in-house lawyer there for 10 years, I have very mixed feelings about the man. He was a titan of industry, no question about it. He always demanded that his businesses be number 1 or number 2 in their field. If they weren’t, he sold off the business. Mind you, his predecessor grew the company by buying everything in sight, turning the company into a true conglomerate. Iirc, there were more than 250 businesses by the time Welch took it over.

One of his greatest sins, imo, was his drive for quarterly results, which influenced so many other companies. GE was also planning for the future at the same time, but many other companies didn’t, just thinking of the short term. Certainly while I was there many people thought GE only looked at those quarterly numbers too. If you didn’t make your numbers, your future was in serious doubt.

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

And even a fractured Dem party should be united against Trump, unless we're all full of shit. 

Yeah the notion the Dem party will be too "fractured" against in incumbent as broadly and intensely disliked as Trump defies both logic and history.  Dan Hopkins checked his long-running panel study recently, and found 8% of Biden voters were unwilling to vote for Sanders while 3% vice versa.  These numbers are actually quite encouraging when you consider around 12% of Sanders supporters in 2016 voted for Trump, and even a higher percentage of Hillary supporters in 2008 voted for McCain.  This rate of crossover is fairly common - an estimated 12% of GOP primary voters also voted for Hillary in 2016.

8 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Then I realized, he is from Indiana, so what can he possibly hope to accomplish there? It's not like the senate races there look particularly attractive for a Democrat.

Evan Bayh was a Democratic Senator from Indiana up to 10 years ago.  If Buttigieg is as good galvanizing "middle of the road" voters as he purports to be, especially with his raised profile now, he should be able to find a statewide race where he could win - even in Indiana.  Or he could take the safe route and just take a House seat.  Regardless, for his sake I hope he doesn't try just being the "perpetual candidate" and actually does run and win some office in the next couple cycles.  That's the best way to build up to another run, outside of getting a cabinet post.

[Ormond]

22 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The thing that gives me pause is that Trump fans are among those who claimed Sandy Hook never happened.  Whats to stop them from doing the same thing here?

Scot, the way you have phrased that it seems like you are saying that "Trump fans" all claim Sandy Hook never happened, and that they are only PART of those who believe Sandy Hook never happened. With the highest figures I've found for believing Sandy Hook never happened to be 20% of the population, that just doesn't work mathematically. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, Ormond said:

Scot, the way you have phrased that it seems like you are saying that "Trump fans" all claim Sandy Hook never happened, and that they are only PART of those who believe Sandy Hook never happened. With the highest figures I've found for believing Sandy Hook never happened to be 20% of the population, that just doesn't work mathematically. 

Ormond,

I don’t believe “Trump fans” and “Sandy Hook truthers” are coextensive terms but there is significant overlap.  I hope you are correct.  I’ve just seen so many people I care about who support President Trump buy his BS over and over again. 

[Maithanet]

All Presidential elections are won on the margins.  If even 5% of Trump supporters are unhappy with the Coronavirus response and stay home, that would guarantee a Democratic victory.  While Trumpism is a lot like a cult, there are still a fair number of soft supporters of the guy who aren't exactly ready to accept the company line that everything is A-OK.

12 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah the notion the Dem party will be too "fractured" against in incumbent as broadly and intensely disliked as Trump defies both logic and history.  Dan Hopkins checked his long-running panel study recently, and found 8% of Biden voters were unwilling to vote for Sanders while 3% vice versa.  These numbers are actually quite encouraging when you consider around 12% of Sanders supporters in 2016 voted for Trump, and even a higher percentage of Hillary supporters in 2008 voted for McCain.  This rate of crossover is fairly common - an estimated 12% of GOP primary voters also voted for Hillary in 2016.

Yeah, that is actually a really good number.  Because right at the height of campaign season is when tensions will be the highest on this question.  Once the primary ends and Democrats have four more months of swallowing Trump's bullshit, they'll be a lot more ready to accept a candidate they may not particularly like in Sanders or Biden.  

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Yeah, that is actually a really good number.  Because right at the height of campaign season is when tensions will be the highest on this question.  Once the primary ends and Democrats have four more months of swallowing Trump's bullshit, they'll be a lot more ready to accept a candidate they may not particularly like in Sanders or Biden.

Well, two important caveats for Hopkins' findings - first, he re-surveyed respondents the last week of January, so the impressions are about a month old; second, because the panel study started 12 years ago, there are no respondents under the age of 30.  The latter suggests the Sanders number might be considerably higher as he obviously has a lot of young supporters and they're pretty unreliable anyway.  But, obviously I agree and expect Dems to unite pretty solidly after a nominee is chosen.

[Maithanet]

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

Well, two important caveats for Hopkins' findings - first, he re-surveyed respondents the last week of January, so the impressions are about a month old; second, because the panel study started 12 years ago, there are no respondents under the age of 30.  The latter suggests the Sanders number might be considerably higher as he obviously has a lot of young supporters and they're pretty unreliable anyway.  But, obviously I agree and expect Dems to unite pretty solidly after a nominee is chosen.

Yeah, I read the article after I responded, but even if Sanders is undercounted (and he clearly is), and the number is more like 8% for both of them, that's still better than normal, and IMO really good indicator that Trump may be a sufficient unifier for the Democrats after all. 

[Lord of Rhinos]

1 hour ago, lancerman said:

I don’t think either will unite the Party. I’ve also heard the song about Republicans defecting. Never happens. They’ll slam Biden on the Ukraine and shit and that will be their excuse 

Aside from the millions of Republicans that refused to vote for Trump in 2016.

[Paladin of Ice]

4 hours ago, Jeor said:

I don't think the coronavirus is as clearly a negative for the Trump administration as some people think it is. Firstly, at a fundamental level his supporters (and some moderates) can correctly claim that, out of all the things he's started, this one genuinely isn't down to him - the coronavirus is just a freak external thing that happened on his watch.

Of course, how the federal government responds to the crisis is still something Democrats can hammer him on, but that is more a messaging thing and we know how good the Dems are at that...

Their best chance is probably to keep banging on about healthcare in general, especially in light of coronavirus where people will think it could happen to them and they might need a functioning health system, but while the debate is still raging on the left about Medicare for all vs other systems, the messaging gets cluttered and isn't as easy a sell as it should be.

It’s true that the virus is an impossible to predict natural issue/disaster... but it’s also inarguably true that Trump has bungled the response so far. Trump has been saying that the Chinese had it all under control even as it spread all over the Earth. Trump has been contradicting his own heads of the CDC and HHS to say the virus is no big deal. Trump is the one who ripped up the system that was in place to have coordinated response and clear chain of command in such a situation. The Trump administration were the ones who had a working and verified test kit from the WHO and insisted on using their own instead, which healthcare workers who’ve used it say it doesn’t work. Trump has blatantly and transparently aimed most of his efforts to prop up the stock market instead of helping people or setting up the means to help people or set up an adequate response.

NPR did a pretty substantive dive into issues not just with the virus but also the confused and often self contradictory response in their On The Media podcast. It’s a fairly long segment at about half an hour, but I think it’s genuinely worth a listen. Link

 I find it pretty hard to imagine that if this does turn into a big deal that the same “but the liberal media is covering it all so unfairly” crap will get Trump excused. But maybe it will. And maybe despite my own misgivings this won’t be a big deal. But do I trust the guy who threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans, suggested nuking hurricanes, raking the forests and waterbombing an 800 year old cathedral to handle a situation like this, especially if there’s any risk that handling it the right way might make him look bad? Hell no!

[Fez]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So we are now on team corona? And here I thought I was the cynic. On the other hand, I might as well run with it.

C'mon kill a million one, million one. My Corona.

Well, hold on now. I want Trump to lose as much as the next person, probably moreso. But I'm not rooting for a Captain Tripps scenario to get us there. My point is just that the Republican delusion bubble usually becomes untenable when the people inside start being directly hurt by something in a clear way.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Ormond,

I don’t believe “Trump fans” and “Sandy Hook truthers” are coextensive terms but there is significant overlap.  I hope you are correct.  I’ve just seen so many people I care about who support President Trump buy his BS over and over again. 

A ridiculous number of MAGAS are howling that 1) covid-19 is a hoax created by Dems to attack their Beloved; 2) covid-19 is a blue state disease; 3) gawd sent covid-19 to kill Dems and lose the election.

 

[Kalbear]

35 minutes ago, Lord of Rhinos said:

Aside from the millions of Republicans that refused to vote for Trump in 2016.

They didnt refuse to vote for trump. They voted for someone else. This is a crucial difference. Without that libertarian on the ballot they are not sworn to not vote for trump.

[Maithanet]

Acknowledging that that Coronavirus is almost assuredly going to get worse in America over the next month is not "rooting for it".  I am very concerned about the health of my family and friends.  I am also very angry about the Trump administration's incompetent response/coverup of the virus, and hope that this becomes a larger political problem for him. 

[argonak]

12 minutes ago, Paladin of Ice said:

It’s true that the virus is an impossible to predict natural issue/disaster... but it’s also inarguably true that Trump has bungled the response so far. Trump has been saying that the Chinese had it all under control even as it spread all over the Earth. Trump has been contradicting his own heads of the CDC and HHS to say the virus is no big deal. Trump is the one who ripped up the system that was in place to have coordinated response and clear chain of command in such a situation. The Trump administration were the ones who had a working and verified test kit from the WHO and insisted on using their own instead, which healthcare workers who’ve used it say it doesn’t work. Trump has blatantly and transparently aimed most of his efforts to prop up the stock market instead of helping people or setting up the means to help people or set up an adequate response.

NPR did a pretty substantive dive into issues not just with the virus but also the confused and often self contradictory response in their On The Media podcast. It’s a fairly long segment at about half an hour, but I think it’s genuinely worth a listen. Link

 I find it pretty hard to imagine that if this does turn into a big deal that the same “but the liberal media is covering it all so unfairly” crap will get Trump excused. But maybe it will. And maybe despite my own misgivings this won’t be a big deal. But do I trust the guy who threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans, suggested nuking hurricanes, raking the forests and waterbombing an 800 year old cathedral to handle a situation like this, especially if there’s any risk that handling it the right way might make him look bad? Hell no!

I'm already seeing people on Facebook talk about how Trump fired the pandemic team, and these are people who I don't have muted for talking about politics on facebook.  seems like it might be getting into the general concious more.  This also seems like a topic that Bloomberg has a chance to show how having an intelligent leader who hires the actual best people rather than cronies would be good, and score some points.  

Also its a chance for Bernie to push how much better having medicare for all would be for folks, so that they wouldn't be afraid to get sick.  Interesting if this is the determining issue for the election.  Its getting a lot of people very scared.

[Lord of Rhinos]

You're making a distinction without a difference.  No one is required to vote the way they did in 2016.  Claiming that all Republicans are going to line up behind Trump is defeatist and counter to reality.

[Guest]

I suppose it says something about how anxious I am about the election in November that I take breaks from reading about politics to read about a (near) pandemic, and I feel better after reading about the pandemic.

[Kalbear]

From Peter sagal of npr/waitwait, on Pete Buttigieg- perhaps he dropped out because...it was the right thing to do?

 

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Jack Welch has died. He was 84.

As someone who was an in-house lawyer there for 10 years, I have very mixed feelings about the man. He was a titan of industry, no question about it. He always demanded that his businesses be number 1 or number 2 in their field. If they weren’t, he sold off the business. Mind you, his predecessor grew the company by buying everything in sight, turning the company into a true conglomerate. Iirc, there were more than 250 businesses by the time Welch took it over.

One of his greatest sins, imo, was his drive for quarterly results, which influenced so many other companies. GE was also planning for the future at the same time, but many other companies didn’t, just thinking of the short term. Certainly while I was there many people thought GE only looked at those quarterly numbers too. If you didn’t make your numbers, your future was in serious doubt.

As a GE stockholder, the stock has been nothing but misery for the longest time. I have no mixed feelings. 

[DMC]

15 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

From Peter sagal of npr/waitwait, on Pete Buttigieg- perhaps he dropped out because...it was the right thing to do?

I don't think Buttigieg's withdrawal indicates anything other than trying to maintain goodwill with the Democratic organization - which certainly is very rationale for an emergent 38 year old politician.  Its effect on tomorrow's results are very likely to be minimal at best: (1) he's doesn't have much support nationally or in most states competing tomorrow anyway; (2) as other have mentioned, his support is likely to be parceled out fairly evenly among the remaining candidates; (3) early voting mitigates any potential effects even after considering (1) & (2).

I could see Biden & his camp pressuring Buttigieg to get out and the latter acquiescing.  But just because Biden's camp thinks it will have much of a substantive impact on the results tomorrow doesn't make it so.