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US PoliEra 2021 |OT 3| Rage Against The Manchin
- Thread starter SSF1991
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Prices rising month over month still technically increase. That's how math works.
As I've said already, to the average American (most of which live paycheck to paycheck), prices are rising. They don't think in terms of "two years ago." It's "Why is my grocery bill more than last month?" You can handwave it away as much as you want--still doesn't change the fact that PUBLIC PERCEPTION is key here.
I'm not blaming Biden or anyone. Not once did I do that. General fact is most people blame the president for increasing gas/food/etc. It's wrong, but that's what happens. It is delusional to think they don't.
On a side note, Florida is now averaging more Covid-19 deaths daily than they did at any previous point in the pandemic:
Weren't you the one constantly downplaying it, calling people dramatic and arguing this wave wouldn't be as bad?
Edit: Yep, it was you. To the ignore list.
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Trump was consistently low though and the ones left behind were quite literally ride or die cultists. Don't know if anything could shake those supports. Bidens 50% was always going to shake a bit given the big tent nature.
Wasn't he just trying to marry Tiffany Trump last year? so much for family values :p
Making the Covid recovery a huge pillar of your image as President means you're also going to bare the weight even more when things go wrong like they have with the Delta variant. People suddenly shifting from "some thing are returning to normal" to "things are the second worst they've ever been in cases and now we're seeing more kids in the hospital" is the type of thing that is absolutely going to cause some negativity and a reaction. Not to mention, I think Biden's approval numbers were already boosted a bit by the situation with Covid since I think the average person values that and the peace of mind more than most things and thus will react accordingly towards the President at the time.
Trump's approval was always low to begin with and if he was even a semi-competent leader, he probably could have exploited the early pandemic to gain a "rally around the flag" type moment like we saw with a lot of other leaders at the time, but he didn't get that either and he mostly just ended up with the same base as always. And plus, back then there was much less information to work with and people had no idea what a good response initially even meant until we saw true success stories in other parts of the world like New Zealand. I mean, the biggest steps have always been obvious to those familiar with infectious diseases, but the general public had much less of an expectation of things at the time and didn't fully grasp how horrendous the Trump administration was actually handling the disease.
But I think it also comes down to Biden making the idea of a Covid recovery a huge part of his image and sale as President, so he was always going to take a sizable hit when things went wrong, especially given he bet big on the idea of vaccinations getting the "American public through this" and didn't have nearly the kind of fail safes he arguably needed if vairants posed new challenges. If anything, I'm surprised Biden hasn't taken a larger hit at this point from it.
I mean, I'll be up front that I don't have a lot of, if any, good answers, here. But I'm also not in charge of leading the country. I don't know all the different levers people in power have to pull. Maybe he and his administration have really pulled all of them, but that doesn't seem true to me. How many times have people wondered why there's still not a vaccine mandate for domestic air travel? Why did it take until last week for the administration to determine the bare minimum action it could take to support school districts that ignore the mask bans in places like Florida? Why was the administration seemingly agreeing with those states on the issue of masks in schools up until a few weeks ago? They didn't go as far as saying a ban was a good idea, but it's more difficult to fight against a mask ban when you're out there at the same time telling people masks in schools aren't really necessary.
I've touched on this briefly before in the last thread, I think, but there just seems to be a complete lack of creative problem solving in government at all levels. It's too easy to just throw our hands up and blame whoever (unvaccinated masses, red state governors who seem intent to kill their own citizens, vaccinated people who don't want to wear masks again) instead of rolling up our sleeves and doing some real, hard work to try and move things forward in a positive direction. I mean, I saw a tweet thread a month ago from someone who organized a community vaccination block party and had great success in moving vaccine-hesitant people to getting their first shots. But the problem is it's a high touch operation that requires a lot of effort and outreach and community partnerships and it's a lot easier to just ship a few hundred doses of vaccine to the nearest Walgreens and watch as it expires and then blame unvaccinated people for not getting their shots.
Now, I think it's sad that some people require so much motivation to get a life saving vaccine! But it doesn't matter anymore. They do, and so the work must be done to make it happen. I know all too well of the red state Trumpers who may never be convinced, but there are plenty of Dem-leaning groups that are lagging as well. The sad thing is we could do two things at once, here! The Democratic party needs a lot of rebuilding in these same types of places that see lagging vaccination rates, so imagine if we could put in the effort to host these community vaccination events while also making sure people are aware of all the pandemic related assistance for which they may be eligible and making sure they understand who made sure they could get that assistance in the first place and make the case that the government can actually work for people. But instead we do... nothing, for months now?
You say you don't agree that the guidance we're getting is confusing, but then spend a lot of time talking about situations where the guidance doesn't make a lot of sense to you. Here are a few places I'm confused:
As a person who received his second dose in May:
- I don't understand what my risk of breakthrough infection actually is. Understanding that a lot of vaccinated people may not get tested for various reasons, why in the world is it still so hard to get data on the people who are getting tested? It would literally be like two additional questions any time someone gets tested: Have you been fully vaccinated? When did you receive your second dose? Some places are starting to report this, but why hasn't the CDC stepped in and worked with local and state agencies to make this more common, if not outright required? We should have a much clearer picture of the risk of breakthrough infections rather than this "99.9% of vaccinated people haven't experienced a breakthrough" BS.
- I don't understand how contagious I am if I actually do get a breakthrough. When the CDC updated its masking recommendations, it was based on data that even at the time experts said didn't actually point to how contagious a person might actually be. And as I mentioned in my previous post, new data is showing that the risk may actually be pretty low! This just further fuels the idea amongst vaccinated folks that the updated guidance was more about protecting the people who (mostly) can't be bothered to get vaccinated than based on any real solid scientific evidence.
- I don't understand the basis for the 8 month recommendation on boosters. Again, the same data they're using to say boosters are a good idea indicates a waning at 5 or 6 months. If the 8 month recommendation is based on making sure we have enough availability, or to prevent panic, or for economic reasons, then they should be transparent with that so I know that I should go back to being extra, extra cautious for a couple months before I get my third shot. If it's based on actual data that indicates 8 months is the appropriate timeframe, then release that data! I already indicated in my previous post why I fear this is going to be a huge mistake-- people are going to think they're more protected than they are right at peak travel season. I hope I'm wrong and this ends up not being the case, but it's certainly something I worry about.
- I don't understand why we've been so slow on vaccine mandates, even for the most common sense people, such as healthcare professionals. Again, these mandates have started happening recently, before full FDA approval, so was that ever actually the issue to begin with? Or was there just no political will to have the fight?
- I don't understand why we have to resort to Biden using a portion of his addresses to the nation to ask businesses to do the right thing and require their employees to be vaccinated without actually offering support to help make that more feasible in the form of actual centralized and trusted record keeping of vaccination records.
- I don't understand why we're not hearing regular updates on the status of the full FDA approval on the vaccines for 12+ and the status of the trials for children. I don't understand why we're not undertaking a very serious review of these processes to see why it's taking them so long and if there are ways to make them more efficient.
- I don't understand why we're constantly having to rely on data from the UK and Israel to figure out what we should be doing. Why aren't we leading on any of this?
- I don't understand why we continue to half ass this "time to limit spread!" strategy. Require masks, but leave restaurants and bars open where masks are next to useless? Depending on your location, mandate vaccines for entry but without clear understanding of how many breakthrough cases there are and how contagious those breakthrough cases end up being? I swear we figured out last year that in the absence of bars and restaurants, the next biggest source of spread was smaller, intimate gatherings at homes. Surely that won't be a problem when vaccinated people overestimate their level of protection during a peak travel period and attend smaller, more intimate gatherings for the first time in two years...
All we're doing is dumping a shit load of vaccine out there and watching it expire and then issuing some halfhearted masking advice that a lot of people can't be bothered to follow, anymore. And who can blame any of us anymore when we don't know what we're actually trying to achieve any longer? The strategy clearly needs an update, but instead we're just continuing to truck along while Florida reaches pandemic highs in deaths and hospitalizations. And we just accept it because, "I dunno, red state governor, what else can we do?"
Don't you think part of the approval was independents just hanging on because they couldn't find anything to feign outrage at? Biden had a pretty spotless presidency up to the troop withdrawal and Covid increase. Always feels like a democrat president has those numbers to deal with.
I'm not certain how he takes the blame for the Covid revival outside of the CDC/mask mandate ending. How is he responsible for red states having super low vaccine numbers?
I'm not certain how he takes the blame for the Covid revival outside of the CDC/mask mandate ending. How is he responsible for red states having super low vaccine numbers?
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I suppose.
Hopefully the Delta variant wave ends soon. I could see it peaking at some point in the near future, with over half of the country vaccinated and vaccination rates slowly climbing up again. And once this wave subsides, hopefully that finally puts an end to the pandemic as COVID finally runs out of energy due to the combined number of previously infected and people that have been vaccinated. Maybe that, as well as infrastructure bills passing, will help Biden's approval rating. But, I guess we'll see.
The frustration is why we're not doing more to try and get answers to those questions. I mean, again, ask two questions to anyone who gets a test and we begin to get a clearer picture, even if it's not a complete picture. It at least moves us in the right direction. Why is it acceptable that we need to wait for a study from the Netherlands as one of the first actual data points to demonstrate how infectious a Delta breakthrough infection is (when the CDC used vaccinated people as being infectious as the reasoning to say vaccinated people should wear masks again!). Look at what Isreal and the UK are doing and the data they're regularly releasing and then the data we're producing. It's not a favorable comparison and we should be doing better.
I mean, all my posts are trying to do is point out that I think there are legitimate criticisms of how Biden and the administration have handled the pandemic since Delta became dominant and to blame the falling approval on some media narrative ignores the frustration and uncertainty most of the country is living in, at the moment, and it's not crazy to think their recent handling deserves more disapproval than their handling back in the winter and spring.
Pelosi hasn't held on as long as she has by being easy to push around.
I don't know what to tell you, scientists here and elsewhere are indeed working hard on those exact questions. They're just very difficult to distill down to something easily quantified and communicable to the public because there are lots of variables and we still don't have a great handle on even how some of the mechanics of infection work with this virus.
I get that's frustrating, but lacking that knowledge doesn't mean people aren't trying. It's just a very difficult thing to study and observe, which is part of why the data we do see come out is often at odds with other data from elsewhere.
I think the idea of being "over Covid" needs to be put from people's minds until vaccination numbers globally are substantially higher than they currently are and I think it's even worse for politicians to stake so much on the idea of "beating Covid" versus managing it in the meantime. The reality is that no matter how well the US does with vaccinations, the country is always going to be susceptible to new variants that emerge in countries with much, much lower vaccination rates that are not as privileged as the US and other major Western countries. We simply have too many vectors of infection due to the global nature of the country, and worse yet, there is zero political will to entertain the kinds of lock downs that would be needed to stop outbreaks before they become an issue. As variants emerge that have different reactions to the existing vaccines, we're going to have to deal with each and every one of them. And vaccinations alone aren't going to be enough in cases like the Delta variant and potential other variants.
I think if Biden continually tries to paint himself as the one helping us "move on from Covid" without taking even more important steps and seriously pushing the US to lead a global vaccination effort, he's going to keep running into declarations of victory followed by a difficult backlash as the virus continues to return with different variants that will cause further problems. And I think each time he does something like that, it's going to more hollow and result in further disapproval when we see a new rise in cases And if we ever get a truly vaccine resistant strain, something our current "wealthy people of the world vaccinated, poorer people forced to be the petri dish of new strains" mentality only further pushes, I think the Biden administration is going to be seriously screwed. It's going to take a lot more time and effort than I think is politically advantageous for anyone in his situation and I think it's going to be an ongoing thing until we can globally get a better handle on the spread of the virus. Fingers crossed future variants aren't vaccine resistant, but I do think we need to be prepared for that possibility and admit to ourselves vaccines alone in the US aren't going to do the job and we still have a long way to go for even that.
I don't know what else that poster has said for you to want to ignore them, but just to that point, it shows here for the US the peak daily deaths:
1st wave (Apr 2020): 2,768
2nd wave (Jul 2020): 1,833
3rd wave (Jan 2021): 4,489
4th wave (now): 1,101
And AFAIK the vast majority of the current deaths are people who could have been vaccinated if they wanted to.
United States COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer
United States Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.
www.worldometers.info
ignored as well. You are way too much of a dramatic baby it's insane. I said collectively as a whole not one fucking state. Jesus
How does that "completely ignore" kids and immune compromised people? In my example everyone had been required to get PCR tests, the gold standard of tests, which I'm reading are 97.2% accurate. They also boast of having a better air filtration system than an operating theater. Tell me how I'd be putting any masked person at risk if I wasn't wearing my mask (and to be clear, I was), and why at the same time as that we allow cinemas and restaurants to be open to 100% capacity with no pre-testing requirements and inferior air filtering, and masks not necessarily required either. How does that make sense?
The CDC guidance specifically states those not fully vaccinated should wear masks indoors, and those who are fully vaccinated should still consider it. What's wrong with that guidance? If you're talking about how you think people may choose to read into it, or how the media may spin it, well I'm really not sure that should be the domain of the CDC.
I don't know what else that poster has said for you to want to ignore them, but just to that point, it shows here for the US the peak daily deaths:
1st wave (Apr 2020): 2,768
2nd wave (Jul 2020): 1,833
3rd wave (Jan 2021): 4,489
4th wave (now): 1,101
And AFAIK the vast majority of the current deaths are people who could have been vaccinated if they wanted to.
United States COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer
United States Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.
First, the stat I gave was for the state of Florida only, where it actually IS worse than last wave, and that was one of the states that got hit earliest this time around. It is picking up in other states and hospitalizations/deaths always lag by weeks. Add to the fact that schools are opening in many states with no mask mandates and the numbers are going to skyrocket. For instance, Michigan is currently projecting a wave that quite possibly ends up worse:
Michigan could see another spring-level COVID-19 surge this fall, models project
The state health department provided models developed by the University of Michigan during a coronavirus update Wednesday, Aug. 18.
www.mlive.com
Second, he's been combative in Covid threads, downplaying the threat of Covid at every possible juncture. It adds nothing to the conversation and often detracts from any meaningful discussion. I have had enough of it, so I put him on ignore. Life is better as a result.
I'm aware you gave FL stats only. That poster says they were talking national. Cherry picking this or that state doesn't negate that.First, the stat I gave was for the state of Florida only, where it actually IS worse than last wave, and that was one of the states that got hit earliest this time around. It is picking up in other states and hospitalizations/deaths always lag by weeks. Add to the fact that schools are opening in many states with no mask mandates and the numbers are going to skyrocket. For instance, Michigan is currently projecting a wave that quite possibly ends up worse:
Michigan could see another spring-level COVID-19 surge this fall, models project
The state health department provided models developed by the University of Michigan during a coronavirus update Wednesday, Aug. 18.
Second, he's been combative in Covid threads, downplaying the threat of Covid at every possible juncture. It adds nothing to the conversation and often detracts from any meaningful discussion. I have had enough of it, so I put him on ignore. Life is better as a result.
You do you. You're saying that someone you don't fully agree with doesn't add anything to the conversation, which looks a bit to me like wanting an echo chamber, as so many people here do. If that's what you want though.
Nah. Echo chambers are bad. Conversation is great, but people need to be civil or else it derails fast.
Again, let's see how this wave progresses. Looking at the timing of waves last year, most likely we are right at the beginning and will start to see it spread rapidly with school coming back into session. Hopefully it is tempered but vaccination rates are still low and doctors are saying their ICUS are filled more now than last year.
Florida looks bad. DeSantis needs a shelter in place order + indoor capacity policies. Treat it like the first wave.
How India got out of Delta catastrophe is because the state CM's (equivalent of Governors) re-imposed ultra strict lockdown orders. The problem with implementing lockdowns in developing countries is that it severely impacts the poor people. For ex, day laborers, who basically travel from nearby villages to cities to do any menial work in construction, labor, cleaning, etc any given day. There are 100s of millions of day laborers in India and they got hit really bad. They actually do have to think about laborers, farmers, street vendors and other service sector people whos very lives are at stake before deciding on a lockdown policy. A day on a lockdown could literally mean families could starve.
Florida is not implementing lockdown just because...? To please the resident orange idiot? Fuck everything.
How India got out of Delta catastrophe is because the state CM's (equivalent of Governors) re-imposed ultra strict lockdown orders. The problem with implementing lockdowns in developing countries is that it severely impacts the poor people. For ex, day laborers, who basically travel from nearby villages to cities to do any menial work in construction, labor, cleaning, etc any given day. There are 100s of millions of day laborers in India and they got hit really bad. They actually do have to think about laborers, farmers, street vendors and other service sector people whos very lives are at stake before deciding on a lockdown policy. A day on a lockdown could literally mean families could starve.
Florida is not implementing lockdown just because...? To please the resident orange idiot? Fuck everything.
So my 13 year old daughter who I raised to appreciate science and vaccinations has been converted into not wanting the covid vaccination by my antivax exwife. My wife and I are currently expecting a child and because my daughter refuses to get vaccinated she's not allowed to sleep over.
fuck antivax adults.
fuck antivax adults.
don't even bother. The guy is a drama queen in every single thread he goes in. It's exhausting even engaging with him because he's the most negative person imaginable. Couldn't even think of being around some in real life as pessimistic about life. It's why the media does what it does because it baits people like him over and over and he can't stop convincing everyone he knows the world is ending.
How many are left? I wonder how many we eventually moved out of Saigon.
Yeah my company has a big event with our clients at the end of October in Florida and it will be interesting to see if we actually have it. We recently decided to pull back on advertising it.
I actually just went to Texas from Sunday through Wednesday for a work conference with around 200 people mainly from Texas and got my negative covid test results earlier today despite consonantly being indoors in pretty close quarters with people and pretty much no one besides the hotel staff wearing masks.
Sooooo.. opinions on what is going on with Gaetz?
I have a feeling he's going to get perp walked this week.
The eloping thing being a way to protect his assets.
I have a feeling he's going to get perp walked this week.
The eloping thing being a way to protect his assets.
Meet the Press panel: "Afghanistan will really stick as an issue."
*pulls up word clouds of issues Democrats and Republicans care most about, biggest one is "Economy/Jobs", Afghanistan doesn't appear on either one.
*pulls up word clouds of issues Democrats and Republicans care most about, biggest one is "Economy/Jobs", Afghanistan doesn't appear on either one.
Did they see if all Americans have left?
Biden Administration told Americans back in May to leave but apparently not everybody listened to them.
Basically, the coverage of Afghanistan has become emotional instead of objective because reporters there made connections and it is clouding their reporting.
That's a spicy back-and-forth, and I respect both sides of the argument. The problem is that journalists want to cast away objectivity on this issue, but they'll still treat conservatives with "both sides" kid gloves the next time Dear Leader sics his goons on the "enemy of the people."
Mo Brooks spoke at Donald's cult rally on Saturday and got booed for telling them that they should put the 2020 election behind them and look forward.
www.rollingstone.com
Trump Rally-Goers Lose Their Minds When Rep. Mo Brooks Tells Them to Move Past 2020 Election
Attendees of Trump's rally booed when Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) mentioned the 2020 election and told the crowd to "put that behind you."
www.rollingstone.com
Attendees of Trump's rally were less than pleased when Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), whose remarks immediately preceded the former president's, brought up the 2020 election and told the crowd to "put that behind you."
"There are some people who are despondent about the voter fraud and election theft in 2020," Brooks said at the Saturday night event in Cullman, Ala. "Folks, put that behind you, put that behind you."
The crowd immediately broke into boos and chants of "no!" in response. It's clear what Brooks is trying to do here. He is running for an Alabama senate seat in the upcoming 2022 election, and he needs Trump supporters to vote for him. But that's not what Trump's loyalists were focused on.
"Yes," Brooks told the booing crowd, who only intensified their cries of dissent. "Look forward, look forward, look forward. Beat them in 2022, beat them in 2024."
Sensing the crowd was not going to budge, Brooks shifted tactics. "All right," he said. "Well, look back at it, but go forward and take advantage of it. We have got to win in 2022. We've got to win in 2024."
My sister in the UK is terrified about sending her kids back to school there in a week or two. I asked her if they were masking, and she explained that masking for children 'isn't a thing' in the UK. I sort of tried to nudge her towards masking her kids by asking if it was allowed, but she didn't really get it. She doesn't doubt that masking works or anything and in the same conversation was showing me her N-95 (which I guess they call something else but it looked identical to the N-95s I've used), so I'm not really sure what the hesitation there would be. Maybe concerns they get bullied or othered.
The UK has remained in denial about the factor children play in spread, and the level of risk to children, throughout the entire thing. It frustrates the hell out of me. The evidence is crystal clear on this, and even common sense (which I generally feel is highly over valued, but in terms of predicting what people will accept or believe it helps to be aware of) would tell you children spread disease.
Just put masks on kids in schools. It will measurably reduce spread, and reduce the number of kids getting sick. This issue remains the most frustrating to me. I know people call the election 'the big lie' but I do honestly believe the lies about masking to have been much more harmful. If Trump had called it patriotic and not worried about how he looked wearing a mask we would be doing so so so much better and tens of thousands less people would have died.
It feels like he's ratcheting up the antics and bluster in a Giuliani manner and is no smarter than Giuliani about it. He thinks he's going to brazen his way through and use his "persecution" to spin the grift to new heights on the other side.
I get the sense though he doesn't grasp how bad it could be with the stuff they've been collecting on him.
Do we have access to the poll to see breakdowns in rural/urban, state by state, etc?
This will be interesting. I continue to wonder whether Biden getting dinged on Covid is more because people feel like measures should be more aggressive. Things like vaccine mandates, etc. Not necessarily that he's being callous or incompetent in his response like Trump was.
I think it's really simple, actually. Biden's numbers were good when it looked like the pandemic was ending and are taking a hit as delta surges. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.
What? Masking for children has definitely been a thing in the UK. In Scotland, masks are currently required for 12+ (they go to high school, 5-11 go to primary school), and under 12's can wear a mask if they want.
I'm sure all those "skeptics" because of FDA approval will rush out to get it...
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