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On December 29 2021 11:26 plasmidghost wrote: I feel like an absolute moron for thinking Biden would be better than Trump. My entire family has Covid and we live in Texas, so we've been thrown to the wolves by Congress and him
May I ask what you think Biden could have done to prevent your family from getting covid?
We could've had an actual shutdown that the federal government issued to override the states. Tell people to stay home at least two weeks and give them financial support to do so to stymie the unbelievable amount of cases we have. Instead, literally nothing happened at the federal level
I'm sorry what in the fuck? Do you remember when the governor of texas wanted to mobilize the texan national guard against operation jade helm because they thought it was a military coup? He was in camo for press conferences over something that was literally scheduled. If the federal government "override the states" with a shutdown half the states would call it a socialist takeover and go even more bonkers than usual.
People were given two weeks and financial aid to last those two weeks. Its not the fault of the federal government that half the states are filled with pro-covid fanatics that would rather choke down horse paste rather then wear a mask.
On December 30 2021 01:56 JimmiC wrote: It is pretty hard to blame the Dems for vaccine hesitancy when the single largest factor that the vaccine hesitant have in common is political affiliation to the Republicans.
"The Democrats keep pushing for vaccines so you see, we had to be against it".
The democrats are killing us by making us be anti vax because they supported getting the vax so much.
Was he? Because it was months and months after when he admitted he had been vaccinated and then again a long time after he got his booster and his own fans boo'd him because they were surprised to find out. And many of his media supporters are apoligizing for him about it. Publically and privately he had been asked to suoport it but refused.
Yes he pushed it, and it had a cacthy name but it was not very well organized or funded pre biden.
And QaNon is not funny, a shocking number of americans believe part or all of it including 40 Republicans in office.
Now that Trump is out of office, the press and others are willing to at least give him credit where it's due ("broken clock is right twice a day" type of thing). The facts show that trump has promoted the covid vaccine from the start. By any measure of what a president gets credit for, trump deserves credit for operation warp speed and the vaccines. (Which is funny because, prior to the 2020 election, dems and their allied media were united in expressing hesitancy towards any vaccine approved on an accelerated schedule during the trump admin. But that's politics - sometimes you've gotta express vaccine hesitancy during a global pandemic in order to defeat the other political party.)
For someone confidently declaring what the facts show you’ve included very few facts.
Basically Biden said he wouldn’t take medical advice from Trump but would absolutely take it from the experts.
There are many examples of trump promoting the vaccines. Here is one:
That politifact article is a good case study in the potential for fact checkers to be politically biased. It says "Biden and Harris were raising questions not about the vaccines themselves, but about then-President Donald Trump’s rollout of the vaccines and the risk that the effort would become rushed or politicized." But Biden said, even according to that same article, "People don’t believe that [Trump is] telling the truth, therefore they’re not at all certain they’re going to take the vaccine. And one more thing: If and when the vaccine comes, it’s not likely to go through all the tests that need to be done, and the trials that are needed to be done." Clearly, Biden was raising questions about the vaccine itself, contrary to the politifact author's argument.
I didn’t say that Trump didn’t promote the vaccine so I don’t know why you’re bringing up that he did.
Biden was clearly suggesting that a politically motivated rush to roll the vaccine out ahead of schedule before trials were complete would raise questions about safety, especially given the context of Trump’s post-truth administration. Vaccines are safe because of how extensively they are tested. That’s why they’re so safe.
Biden said that a warp speed vaccine was "not likely" to have gone through the requisite trials. In doing so, Biden expressed hesitancy about a warp speed vaccine. And Biden, and many other trump critics, were wrong about the feasible timing of the vaccine.
I think we all know that Biden (and his allied media) only doubted the feasibility of a warp speed vaccine in order to prevent trump from getting credit for a warp speed vaccine prior to the 2020 election. It's okay to admit that, on this one narrow issue, Biden was wrong and Trump was right.
I’ll definitely say that while what was said was “we have to be prudent and make sure we did our due diligence” it is not hard to come to the conclusion that the subtext was throwing shade at Trump and implying that he might have made bad vaccines. As it stands, Trump’s vaccine development and distribution was stellar, leaving Biden an easy time with making small changes and taking credit for a rollout that was already in motion by the time he took office. Whether it was throwing shade or just a standard statement of prudence is going to depend most highly on how charitable you are inclined to be.
On December 29 2021 15:03 plasmidghost wrote: Thought about it some more and I think I'm done with US politics as a whole. We're going to die in any number of ways soon, whether that be Covid or climate change, and the Dems and GOP will not do anything to stop it. Knowing that brings me some solace, as I won't have to be constantly stressed and depressed by every level of government in this country.
Do yourself a favor and take a break from politics at least. However bad things may or may not be, it isn’t worth losing your sanity over to think about it all the time.
how is the US record of vaccination anything but laughable with a paltry 61% vaccination rate? neither Trum nor Biden have managed to get it on a level comparable with other developed countries. And that is attributable to partisan division clearly sowed by Trump.
Btw what did Trump do but to mostly trivialise covid 19 and throw money at moderna? Whose technology (mrna) by the by has been funded for many administration and has like zero to do with any current president / government.
The antivax issue was a nonissue at the time of Trump’s presidency, when they had the opposite problem: not enough vaccines to go around. He funded development, and got production ramped up with the quickness. Biden disingenuously took credit for something like taking the numbers from 500k doses/day to 1 million, but Trump got to that 500k point from zero with some very rapid growth. Yes, some significant luck was involved in that a fly-by-night startup like Moderna that was US-based managed to have one of the big successful vaccines, but he threw money at all of them and got good priority on domestic vaccine availability in return. Definitely did better on availability than the EU, what with European factories sending all their good abroad before servicing local markets.
No doubt he would have failed to address the antivax problem when it became relevant if he had gotten re-elected. Biden certainly failed, and Trump’s attempts to say “get vaccinated” have done poorly. But you must have forgot that before antivax, we had to deal with availability in the first place. Trump succeeded there and Biden rode on the coattails of that, right after the whole “we can’t trust the Trump vaccine until the science people say we can” quip.
I think people are forgetting that there was a very real fear that trump would pressure for approvals for an unsafe vaccine if it helped him get re-elected. He wouldn't care if it hurt people or was ineffective as long as it helped him out because he is a sociopath and a narcissist.
The democrats did not start this antivax bullshit. We were dealing with a very real threat to our democracy at the time, as can be seen from the Jan 6th insurrection. It was prudent to be skeptical until it was backed by respected authorities.
Very real fears are not necessarily well founded fears. Biden and the rest of Trump’s critics should not have expressed hesitancy towards a warp speed vaccine at such a critical time. But that's politics.
The Jan 6th stuff is irrelevant, as it only came later.
On December 29 2021 02:58 Starlightsun wrote: I'm much more worried about congress than the next presidency. If the Republicans sweep congress then they will sabotage anything from being done for 2 years and then most likely ride that to presidential victory as well. Competitive races continue to disappear due to gerrymandering, and Trump seems quite interested in primarying Republicans who don't toe the line. So we might see not only Republican control of government again but an increasing number of Trump style politicians.
Were moving to a place where Trump is the Moderate Republican. He at least is pro vaccination. The out there Republicans now are full QaNon crazy (or at least playing that to the public).
RE: operation warp speed
Of course he's pro vaccination, it's something he worked to push into existence before his next run for office. I can't really stick up for qanon because it's dumb from start to finish, and as a conspiracy connoisseur it sucks to see the most dismissable ideas being brought to the public eye. Still funny though. Never stopped being funny.
Was he? Because it was months and months after when he admitted he had been vaccinated and then again a long time after he got his booster and his own fans boo'd him because they were surprised to find out. And many of his media supporters are apoligizing for him about it. Publically and privately he had been asked to suoport it but refused.
Yes he pushed it, and it had a cacthy name but it was not very well organized or funded pre biden.
Despite his involvement in spurring their development via Operation Warp Speed, Trump largely downplayed vaccines during his final months in office, and both Trump and First Lady Melania Trump received the vaccine in private before Joe Biden took office as the new president in January 2021
And QaNon is not funny, a shocking number of americans believe part or all of it including 40 Republicans in office.
Yeah, he downplayed it to his crowd, that's because he was trying to get re-elected. I honestly don't know of the logistics of getting the vaccines out during the Trump vs Biden times, so I'll take your word that Biden is being more efficient. I just found it relevant to point out that he sort of was a part of pushing through the vaccines that you see him supporting as a saving grace for him.
And as far as Qanon goes, that's just a matter of perspective, man. You're telling me that a shocking number of Americans are dumb as shit, and 40 Republicans are playing to their audience? I can't help but be tickled a bit when someone remarks on how much of a problem it is.
You do realize that the Nazis literally used such wild conspiracy theories as a springboard to power and then the Holocaust happened? I'm not being hyperbolic here. A large segment of the voters and politicians being completely detached from reality can be extremely dangerous.
the good thing about QAnon followers is that they follow classic conspiracy patterns and will quickly move to whatever the new shiny thing is. They hold no true beliefs. Nazis convinced the moderates in the population to fear ridiculous things. But that happened over a long period. QAnon is fickle and is a nothing burger
It’s a nothing burger until it isn’t. They do have beliefs, they’re just not particularly comprehensible to an outside viewer, and unlike other conspiracists there’s a considerable bleed through into real world politics and identity.
Which makes it a distinct phenomenon from your flat Earth/moon landing types.
I’d argue a storming of the Capitol alone is probably reason to not dismiss these folks, and this is assuming there isn’t further escalation in the future.
There’s a considerable amount of people who haven’t gone fully mental and are merely Q-adjacent as well to factor in.
There’s a multitude of lessons to be learned from Nazism, I feel people can be a tad reductive in putting it down to one or two things.
One clear lesson is both the appetite and the capability of moderates to rein in oppressive regimes can be a tad exaggerated.
On December 29 2021 11:26 plasmidghost wrote: I feel like an absolute moron for thinking Biden would be better than Trump. My entire family has Covid and we live in Texas, so we've been thrown to the wolves by Congress and him
May I ask what you think Biden could have done to prevent your family from getting covid?
We could've had an actual shutdown that the federal government issued to override the states. Tell people to stay home at least two weeks and give them financial support to do so to stymie the unbelievable amount of cases we have. Instead, literally nothing happened at the federal level
I'm sorry what in the fuck? Do you remember when the governor of texas wanted to mobilize the texan national guard against operation jade helm because they thought it was a military coup? He was in camo for press conferences over something that was literally scheduled. If the federal government "override the states" with a shutdown half the states would call it a socialist takeover and go even more bonkers than usual.
People were given two weeks and financial aid to last those two weeks. Its not the fault of the federal government that half the states are filled with pro-covid fanatics that would rather choke down horse paste rather then wear a mask.
Even Biden has apparently now admitted that "there is no federal solution" to covid. Back when Trump proposed a federal shutdown of just three states, his political opposition seized on the proposal as an instance of trump trying to be a tyrant. And notice how under Biden, death and case rates have continued apace, even though Trump has consistently promoted the vaccines. So it's not so clear that Trump is the covid devil who should be blamed for the covid deaths that occurred during his tenure.
On December 30 2021 01:56 JimmiC wrote: It is pretty hard to blame the Dems for vaccine hesitancy when the single largest factor that the vaccine hesitant have in common is political affiliation to the Republicans.
"The Democrats keep pushing for vaccines so you see, we had to be against it".
The democrats are killing us by making us be anti vax because they supported getting the vax so much.
I'm pretty sure you were joking, but "Democrats are using reverse psychology to get us to kill ourselves by not taking vaccines" managed to get published on Breitbart.
Because leftists like Stern and CNNLOL and Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Anthony Fauci are deliberately looking to manipulate Trump supporters into not getting vaccinated.
Nothing else makes sense to me.
In a country where elections are decided on razor-thin margins, does it not benefit one side if their opponents simply drop dead?
If I wanted to use reverse psychology to convince people not to get a life-saving vaccination, I would do exactly what Stern and the left are doing… I would bully and taunt and mock and ridicule you for not getting vaccinated, knowing the human response would be, Hey, fuck you, I’m never getting vaccinated!
On December 29 2021 11:26 plasmidghost wrote: I feel like an absolute moron for thinking Biden would be better than Trump. My entire family has Covid and we live in Texas, so we've been thrown to the wolves by Congress and him
May I ask what you think Biden could have done to prevent your family from getting covid?
We could've had an actual shutdown that the federal government issued to override the states. Tell people to stay home at least two weeks and give them financial support to do so to stymie the unbelievable amount of cases we have. Instead, literally nothing happened at the federal level
I'm sorry what in the fuck? Do you remember when the governor of texas wanted to mobilize the texan national guard against operation jade helm because they thought it was a military coup? He was in camo for press conferences over something that was literally scheduled. If the federal government "override the states" with a shutdown half the states would call it a socialist takeover and go even more bonkers than usual.
People were given two weeks and financial aid to last those two weeks. Its not the fault of the federal government that half the states are filled with pro-covid fanatics that would rather choke down horse paste rather then wear a mask.
Even Biden has apparently now admitted that "there is no federal solution" to covid. Back when Trump proposed a federal shutdown of just three states, his political opposition seized on the proposal as an instance of trump trying to be a tyrant. And notice how under Biden, death and case rates have continued apace, even though Trump has consistently promoted the vaccines. So it's not so clear that Trump is the covid devil who should be blamed for the covid deaths that occurred during his tenure.
Comparing pre to post-delta numbers is insanely silly. The two situations are note remotely comparable.
On December 29 2021 12:30 Doc.Rivers wrote: [quote]
Now that Trump is out of office, the press and others are willing to at least give him credit where it's due ("broken clock is right twice a day" type of thing). The facts show that trump has promoted the covid vaccine from the start. By any measure of what a president gets credit for, trump deserves credit for operation warp speed and the vaccines. (Which is funny because, prior to the 2020 election, dems and their allied media were united in expressing hesitancy towards any vaccine approved on an accelerated schedule during the trump admin. But that's politics - sometimes you've gotta express vaccine hesitancy during a global pandemic in order to defeat the other political party.)
For someone confidently declaring what the facts show you’ve included very few facts.
That politifact article is a good case study in the potential for fact checkers to be politically biased. It says "Biden and Harris were raising questions not about the vaccines themselves, but about then-President Donald Trump’s rollout of the vaccines and the risk that the effort would become rushed or politicized." But Biden said, even according to that same article, "People don’t believe that [Trump is] telling the truth, therefore they’re not at all certain they’re going to take the vaccine. And one more thing: If and when the vaccine comes, it’s not likely to go through all the tests that need to be done, and the trials that are needed to be done." Clearly, Biden was raising questions about the vaccine itself, contrary to the politifact author's argument.
I didn’t say that Trump didn’t promote the vaccine so I don’t know why you’re bringing up that he did.
Biden was clearly suggesting that a politically motivated rush to roll the vaccine out ahead of schedule before trials were complete would raise questions about safety, especially given the context of Trump’s post-truth administration. Vaccines are safe because of how extensively they are tested. That’s why they’re so safe.
Biden said that a warp speed vaccine was "not likely" to have gone through the requisite trials. In doing so, Biden expressed hesitancy about a warp speed vaccine. And Biden, and many other trump critics, were wrong about the feasible timing of the vaccine.
I think we all know that Biden (and his allied media) only doubted the feasibility of a warp speed vaccine in order to prevent trump from getting credit for a warp speed vaccine prior to the 2020 election. It's okay to admit that, on this one narrow issue, Biden was wrong and Trump was right.
I’ll definitely say that while what was said was “we have to be prudent and make sure we did our due diligence” it is not hard to come to the conclusion that the subtext was throwing shade at Trump and implying that he might have made bad vaccines. As it stands, Trump’s vaccine development and distribution was stellar, leaving Biden an easy time with making small changes and taking credit for a rollout that was already in motion by the time he took office. Whether it was throwing shade or just a standard statement of prudence is going to depend most highly on how charitable you are inclined to be.
On December 29 2021 15:03 plasmidghost wrote: Thought about it some more and I think I'm done with US politics as a whole. We're going to die in any number of ways soon, whether that be Covid or climate change, and the Dems and GOP will not do anything to stop it. Knowing that brings me some solace, as I won't have to be constantly stressed and depressed by every level of government in this country.
Do yourself a favor and take a break from politics at least. However bad things may or may not be, it isn’t worth losing your sanity over to think about it all the time.
how is the US record of vaccination anything but laughable with a paltry 61% vaccination rate? neither Trum nor Biden have managed to get it on a level comparable with other developed countries. And that is attributable to partisan division clearly sowed by Trump.
Btw what did Trump do but to mostly trivialise covid 19 and throw money at moderna? Whose technology (mrna) by the by has been funded for many administration and has like zero to do with any current president / government.
The antivax issue was a nonissue at the time of Trump’s presidency, when they had the opposite problem: not enough vaccines to go around. He funded development, and got production ramped up with the quickness. Biden disingenuously took credit for something like taking the numbers from 500k doses/day to 1 million, but Trump got to that 500k point from zero with some very rapid growth. Yes, some significant luck was involved in that a fly-by-night startup like Moderna that was US-based managed to have one of the big successful vaccines, but he threw money at all of them and got good priority on domestic vaccine availability in return. Definitely did better on availability than the EU, what with European factories sending all their good abroad before servicing local markets.
No doubt he would have failed to address the antivax problem when it became relevant if he had gotten re-elected. Biden certainly failed, and Trump’s attempts to say “get vaccinated” have done poorly. But you must have forgot that before antivax, we had to deal with availability in the first place. Trump succeeded there and Biden rode on the coattails of that, right after the whole “we can’t trust the Trump vaccine until the science people say we can” quip.
I think people are forgetting that there was a very real fear that trump would pressure for approvals for an unsafe vaccine if it helped him get re-elected. He wouldn't care if it hurt people or was ineffective as long as it helped him out because he is a sociopath and a narcissist.
The democrats did not start this antivax bullshit. We were dealing with a very real threat to our democracy at the time, as can be seen from the Jan 6th insurrection. It was prudent to be skeptical until it was backed by respected authorities.
Very real fears are not necessarily well founded fears. Biden and the rest of Trump’s critics should not have expressed hesitancy towards a warp speed vaccine at such a critical time. But that's politics.
The Jan 6th stuff is irrelevant, as it only came later.
It worked out fine, I’m near certain Trump would have rushed vaccines out of the oven even if they were undercooked.
As it was, they were not, but it feels prudent to question basically anything he’s pushing out of his administration.
Considering a rather common refrain from the anti-vax crowd is they’re ‘untested’, It doesn’t appear to have remotely damaged confidence in the vaccine outside of that cohort
I’m loathe to give Trump credit for, well, anything. Even when something good comes it’s either through haphazard dart throwing, or comes with rather obvious ulterior motives attached.
Even with that, vaccine development/rollout was well handled under his administration, fair enough.
I’m unsure why you want to get people who have been sentient for the past two years to concede that Trump has been consistently pro-vaccine and ignoring the myriad bollocks he spouted that was in many ways detrimental to tackling a pandemic.
On December 29 2021 12:30 Doc.Rivers wrote: [quote]
Now that Trump is out of office, the press and others are willing to at least give him credit where it's due ("broken clock is right twice a day" type of thing). The facts show that trump has promoted the covid vaccine from the start. By any measure of what a president gets credit for, trump deserves credit for operation warp speed and the vaccines. (Which is funny because, prior to the 2020 election, dems and their allied media were united in expressing hesitancy towards any vaccine approved on an accelerated schedule during the trump admin. But that's politics - sometimes you've gotta express vaccine hesitancy during a global pandemic in order to defeat the other political party.)
For someone confidently declaring what the facts show you’ve included very few facts.
That politifact article is a good case study in the potential for fact checkers to be politically biased. It says "Biden and Harris were raising questions not about the vaccines themselves, but about then-President Donald Trump’s rollout of the vaccines and the risk that the effort would become rushed or politicized." But Biden said, even according to that same article, "People don’t believe that [Trump is] telling the truth, therefore they’re not at all certain they’re going to take the vaccine. And one more thing: If and when the vaccine comes, it’s not likely to go through all the tests that need to be done, and the trials that are needed to be done." Clearly, Biden was raising questions about the vaccine itself, contrary to the politifact author's argument.
I didn’t say that Trump didn’t promote the vaccine so I don’t know why you’re bringing up that he did.
Biden was clearly suggesting that a politically motivated rush to roll the vaccine out ahead of schedule before trials were complete would raise questions about safety, especially given the context of Trump’s post-truth administration. Vaccines are safe because of how extensively they are tested. That’s why they’re so safe.
Biden said that a warp speed vaccine was "not likely" to have gone through the requisite trials. In doing so, Biden expressed hesitancy about a warp speed vaccine. And Biden, and many other trump critics, were wrong about the feasible timing of the vaccine.
I think we all know that Biden (and his allied media) only doubted the feasibility of a warp speed vaccine in order to prevent trump from getting credit for a warp speed vaccine prior to the 2020 election. It's okay to admit that, on this one narrow issue, Biden was wrong and Trump was right.
I’ll definitely say that while what was said was “we have to be prudent and make sure we did our due diligence” it is not hard to come to the conclusion that the subtext was throwing shade at Trump and implying that he might have made bad vaccines. As it stands, Trump’s vaccine development and distribution was stellar, leaving Biden an easy time with making small changes and taking credit for a rollout that was already in motion by the time he took office. Whether it was throwing shade or just a standard statement of prudence is going to depend most highly on how charitable you are inclined to be.
On December 29 2021 15:03 plasmidghost wrote: Thought about it some more and I think I'm done with US politics as a whole. We're going to die in any number of ways soon, whether that be Covid or climate change, and the Dems and GOP will not do anything to stop it. Knowing that brings me some solace, as I won't have to be constantly stressed and depressed by every level of government in this country.
Do yourself a favor and take a break from politics at least. However bad things may or may not be, it isn’t worth losing your sanity over to think about it all the time.
how is the US record of vaccination anything but laughable with a paltry 61% vaccination rate? neither Trum nor Biden have managed to get it on a level comparable with other developed countries. And that is attributable to partisan division clearly sowed by Trump.
Btw what did Trump do but to mostly trivialise covid 19 and throw money at moderna? Whose technology (mrna) by the by has been funded for many administration and has like zero to do with any current president / government.
The antivax issue was a nonissue at the time of Trump’s presidency, when they had the opposite problem: not enough vaccines to go around. He funded development, and got production ramped up with the quickness. Biden disingenuously took credit for something like taking the numbers from 500k doses/day to 1 million, but Trump got to that 500k point from zero with some very rapid growth. Yes, some significant luck was involved in that a fly-by-night startup like Moderna that was US-based managed to have one of the big successful vaccines, but he threw money at all of them and got good priority on domestic vaccine availability in return. Definitely did better on availability than the EU, what with European factories sending all their good abroad before servicing local markets.
No doubt he would have failed to address the antivax problem when it became relevant if he had gotten re-elected. Biden certainly failed, and Trump’s attempts to say “get vaccinated” have done poorly. But you must have forgot that before antivax, we had to deal with availability in the first place. Trump succeeded there and Biden rode on the coattails of that, right after the whole “we can’t trust the Trump vaccine until the science people say we can” quip.
I think people are forgetting that there was a very real fear that trump would pressure for approvals for an unsafe vaccine if it helped him get re-elected. He wouldn't care if it hurt people or was ineffective as long as it helped him out because he is a sociopath and a narcissist.
The democrats did not start this antivax bullshit. We were dealing with a very real threat to our democracy at the time, as can be seen from the Jan 6th insurrection. It was prudent to be skeptical until it was backed by respected authorities.
Very real fears are not necessarily well founded fears. Biden and the rest of Trump’s critics should not have expressed hesitancy towards a warp speed vaccine at such a critical time. But that's politics.
The Jan 6th stuff is irrelevant, as it only came later.
Believing the word of an insane liar who has promoted "demon sperm" doctor sounds like a really dumb mistake. The democrats stated that they would not believe trump, but would believe the word of the FDA and other institutions.
That politifact article is a good case study in the potential for fact checkers to be politically biased. It says "Biden and Harris were raising questions not about the vaccines themselves, but about then-President Donald Trump’s rollout of the vaccines and the risk that the effort would become rushed or politicized." But Biden said, even according to that same article, "People don’t believe that [Trump is] telling the truth, therefore they’re not at all certain they’re going to take the vaccine. And one more thing: If and when the vaccine comes, it’s not likely to go through all the tests that need to be done, and the trials that are needed to be done." Clearly, Biden was raising questions about the vaccine itself, contrary to the politifact author's argument.
I didn’t say that Trump didn’t promote the vaccine so I don’t know why you’re bringing up that he did.
Biden was clearly suggesting that a politically motivated rush to roll the vaccine out ahead of schedule before trials were complete would raise questions about safety, especially given the context of Trump’s post-truth administration. Vaccines are safe because of how extensively they are tested. That’s why they’re so safe.
Biden said that a warp speed vaccine was "not likely" to have gone through the requisite trials. In doing so, Biden expressed hesitancy about a warp speed vaccine. And Biden, and many other trump critics, were wrong about the feasible timing of the vaccine.
I think we all know that Biden (and his allied media) only doubted the feasibility of a warp speed vaccine in order to prevent trump from getting credit for a warp speed vaccine prior to the 2020 election. It's okay to admit that, on this one narrow issue, Biden was wrong and Trump was right.
I’ll definitely say that while what was said was “we have to be prudent and make sure we did our due diligence” it is not hard to come to the conclusion that the subtext was throwing shade at Trump and implying that he might have made bad vaccines. As it stands, Trump’s vaccine development and distribution was stellar, leaving Biden an easy time with making small changes and taking credit for a rollout that was already in motion by the time he took office. Whether it was throwing shade or just a standard statement of prudence is going to depend most highly on how charitable you are inclined to be.
On December 29 2021 15:03 plasmidghost wrote: Thought about it some more and I think I'm done with US politics as a whole. We're going to die in any number of ways soon, whether that be Covid or climate change, and the Dems and GOP will not do anything to stop it. Knowing that brings me some solace, as I won't have to be constantly stressed and depressed by every level of government in this country.
Do yourself a favor and take a break from politics at least. However bad things may or may not be, it isn’t worth losing your sanity over to think about it all the time.
how is the US record of vaccination anything but laughable with a paltry 61% vaccination rate? neither Trum nor Biden have managed to get it on a level comparable with other developed countries. And that is attributable to partisan division clearly sowed by Trump.
Btw what did Trump do but to mostly trivialise covid 19 and throw money at moderna? Whose technology (mrna) by the by has been funded for many administration and has like zero to do with any current president / government.
The antivax issue was a nonissue at the time of Trump’s presidency, when they had the opposite problem: not enough vaccines to go around. He funded development, and got production ramped up with the quickness. Biden disingenuously took credit for something like taking the numbers from 500k doses/day to 1 million, but Trump got to that 500k point from zero with some very rapid growth. Yes, some significant luck was involved in that a fly-by-night startup like Moderna that was US-based managed to have one of the big successful vaccines, but he threw money at all of them and got good priority on domestic vaccine availability in return. Definitely did better on availability than the EU, what with European factories sending all their good abroad before servicing local markets.
No doubt he would have failed to address the antivax problem when it became relevant if he had gotten re-elected. Biden certainly failed, and Trump’s attempts to say “get vaccinated” have done poorly. But you must have forgot that before antivax, we had to deal with availability in the first place. Trump succeeded there and Biden rode on the coattails of that, right after the whole “we can’t trust the Trump vaccine until the science people say we can” quip.
I think people are forgetting that there was a very real fear that trump would pressure for approvals for an unsafe vaccine if it helped him get re-elected. He wouldn't care if it hurt people or was ineffective as long as it helped him out because he is a sociopath and a narcissist.
The democrats did not start this antivax bullshit. We were dealing with a very real threat to our democracy at the time, as can be seen from the Jan 6th insurrection. It was prudent to be skeptical until it was backed by respected authorities.
Very real fears are not necessarily well founded fears. Biden and the rest of Trump’s critics should not have expressed hesitancy towards a warp speed vaccine at such a critical time. But that's politics.
The Jan 6th stuff is irrelevant, as it only came later.
Believing the word of an insane liar who has promotes "demon sperm" doctor sounds like a really dumb mistake. The democrats stated that they would not believe trump, but would believe the word of the FDA and other institutions.
I don't think the belief that trump might manage to get the institutions to approve a vaccine before it was proven safe was a credible belief. I think it was just more of the reflexive opposition to trump that we frequently saw. And it was during trumps re-election campaign (in fact very close to the election), further raising a presumption of purely political motives.
Ultimately all I'm saying is that on one narrow issue, Trump was right and his critics were wrong. Which, given our partisan politics, is very difficult for Trump’s opposition to ever admit.
That politifact article is a good case study in the potential for fact checkers to be politically biased. It says "Biden and Harris were raising questions not about the vaccines themselves, but about then-President Donald Trump’s rollout of the vaccines and the risk that the effort would become rushed or politicized." But Biden said, even according to that same article, "People don’t believe that [Trump is] telling the truth, therefore they’re not at all certain they’re going to take the vaccine. And one more thing: If and when the vaccine comes, it’s not likely to go through all the tests that need to be done, and the trials that are needed to be done." Clearly, Biden was raising questions about the vaccine itself, contrary to the politifact author's argument.
I didn’t say that Trump didn’t promote the vaccine so I don’t know why you’re bringing up that he did.
Biden was clearly suggesting that a politically motivated rush to roll the vaccine out ahead of schedule before trials were complete would raise questions about safety, especially given the context of Trump’s post-truth administration. Vaccines are safe because of how extensively they are tested. That’s why they’re so safe.
Biden said that a warp speed vaccine was "not likely" to have gone through the requisite trials. In doing so, Biden expressed hesitancy about a warp speed vaccine. And Biden, and many other trump critics, were wrong about the feasible timing of the vaccine.
I think we all know that Biden (and his allied media) only doubted the feasibility of a warp speed vaccine in order to prevent trump from getting credit for a warp speed vaccine prior to the 2020 election. It's okay to admit that, on this one narrow issue, Biden was wrong and Trump was right.
I’ll definitely say that while what was said was “we have to be prudent and make sure we did our due diligence” it is not hard to come to the conclusion that the subtext was throwing shade at Trump and implying that he might have made bad vaccines. As it stands, Trump’s vaccine development and distribution was stellar, leaving Biden an easy time with making small changes and taking credit for a rollout that was already in motion by the time he took office. Whether it was throwing shade or just a standard statement of prudence is going to depend most highly on how charitable you are inclined to be.
On December 29 2021 15:03 plasmidghost wrote: Thought about it some more and I think I'm done with US politics as a whole. We're going to die in any number of ways soon, whether that be Covid or climate change, and the Dems and GOP will not do anything to stop it. Knowing that brings me some solace, as I won't have to be constantly stressed and depressed by every level of government in this country.
Do yourself a favor and take a break from politics at least. However bad things may or may not be, it isn’t worth losing your sanity over to think about it all the time.
how is the US record of vaccination anything but laughable with a paltry 61% vaccination rate? neither Trum nor Biden have managed to get it on a level comparable with other developed countries. And that is attributable to partisan division clearly sowed by Trump.
Btw what did Trump do but to mostly trivialise covid 19 and throw money at moderna? Whose technology (mrna) by the by has been funded for many administration and has like zero to do with any current president / government.
The antivax issue was a nonissue at the time of Trump’s presidency, when they had the opposite problem: not enough vaccines to go around. He funded development, and got production ramped up with the quickness. Biden disingenuously took credit for something like taking the numbers from 500k doses/day to 1 million, but Trump got to that 500k point from zero with some very rapid growth. Yes, some significant luck was involved in that a fly-by-night startup like Moderna that was US-based managed to have one of the big successful vaccines, but he threw money at all of them and got good priority on domestic vaccine availability in return. Definitely did better on availability than the EU, what with European factories sending all their good abroad before servicing local markets.
No doubt he would have failed to address the antivax problem when it became relevant if he had gotten re-elected. Biden certainly failed, and Trump’s attempts to say “get vaccinated” have done poorly. But you must have forgot that before antivax, we had to deal with availability in the first place. Trump succeeded there and Biden rode on the coattails of that, right after the whole “we can’t trust the Trump vaccine until the science people say we can” quip.
I think people are forgetting that there was a very real fear that trump would pressure for approvals for an unsafe vaccine if it helped him get re-elected. He wouldn't care if it hurt people or was ineffective as long as it helped him out because he is a sociopath and a narcissist.
The democrats did not start this antivax bullshit. We were dealing with a very real threat to our democracy at the time, as can be seen from the Jan 6th insurrection. It was prudent to be skeptical until it was backed by respected authorities.
Very real fears are not necessarily well founded fears. Biden and the rest of Trump’s critics should not have expressed hesitancy towards a warp speed vaccine at such a critical time. But that's politics.
The Jan 6th stuff is irrelevant, as it only came later.
Believing the word of an insane liar who has promotes "demon sperm" doctor sounds like a really dumb mistake. The democrats stated that they would not believe trump, but would believe the word of the FDA and other institutions.
I don't think the belief that trump might manage to get the institutions to approve a vaccine before it was proven safe was a credible belief. I think it was just more of the reflexive opposition to trump that we frequently saw. And it was during trumps re-election campaign (in fact very close to the election), further raising a presumption of purely political motives.
Ultimately all I'm saying is that on one narrow issue, Trump was right and his critics were wrong. Which, given our partisan politics, is very difficult for Trump’s opposition to ever admit.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day .
Trump very publicly pressured every branch of government to help his personal political causes. From the DoJ harassing his political opponents to the DoS tying aid to investigating Biden to the DoD making tactical decisions for his benefit. At one point he made the national weather service claim a hurricane went to another state in order to not contradict him.
The idea that he would be above instructing the FDA to perform his bidding is nonsense. Trump viewed every part of government as there to serve him rather than the American people. He constantly attempted to compel every department to serve his political needs.
On December 29 2021 12:30 Doc.Rivers wrote: [quote]
Now that Trump is out of office, the press and others are willing to at least give him credit where it's due ("broken clock is right twice a day" type of thing). The facts show that trump has promoted the covid vaccine from the start. By any measure of what a president gets credit for, trump deserves credit for operation warp speed and the vaccines. (Which is funny because, prior to the 2020 election, dems and their allied media were united in expressing hesitancy towards any vaccine approved on an accelerated schedule during the trump admin. But that's politics - sometimes you've gotta express vaccine hesitancy during a global pandemic in order to defeat the other political party.)
For someone confidently declaring what the facts show you’ve included very few facts.
That politifact article is a good case study in the potential for fact checkers to be politically biased. It says "Biden and Harris were raising questions not about the vaccines themselves, but about then-President Donald Trump’s rollout of the vaccines and the risk that the effort would become rushed or politicized." But Biden said, even according to that same article, "People don’t believe that [Trump is] telling the truth, therefore they’re not at all certain they’re going to take the vaccine. And one more thing: If and when the vaccine comes, it’s not likely to go through all the tests that need to be done, and the trials that are needed to be done." Clearly, Biden was raising questions about the vaccine itself, contrary to the politifact author's argument.
I didn’t say that Trump didn’t promote the vaccine so I don’t know why you’re bringing up that he did.
Biden was clearly suggesting that a politically motivated rush to roll the vaccine out ahead of schedule before trials were complete would raise questions about safety, especially given the context of Trump’s post-truth administration. Vaccines are safe because of how extensively they are tested. That’s why they’re so safe.
Biden said that a warp speed vaccine was "not likely" to have gone through the requisite trials. In doing so, Biden expressed hesitancy about a warp speed vaccine. And Biden, and many other trump critics, were wrong about the feasible timing of the vaccine.
I think we all know that Biden (and his allied media) only doubted the feasibility of a warp speed vaccine in order to prevent trump from getting credit for a warp speed vaccine prior to the 2020 election. It's okay to admit that, on this one narrow issue, Biden was wrong and Trump was right.
I’ll definitely say that while what was said was “we have to be prudent and make sure we did our due diligence” it is not hard to come to the conclusion that the subtext was throwing shade at Trump and implying that he might have made bad vaccines. As it stands, Trump’s vaccine development and distribution was stellar, leaving Biden an easy time with making small changes and taking credit for a rollout that was already in motion by the time he took office. Whether it was throwing shade or just a standard statement of prudence is going to depend most highly on how charitable you are inclined to be.
On December 29 2021 15:03 plasmidghost wrote: Thought about it some more and I think I'm done with US politics as a whole. We're going to die in any number of ways soon, whether that be Covid or climate change, and the Dems and GOP will not do anything to stop it. Knowing that brings me some solace, as I won't have to be constantly stressed and depressed by every level of government in this country.
Do yourself a favor and take a break from politics at least. However bad things may or may not be, it isn’t worth losing your sanity over to think about it all the time.
how is the US record of vaccination anything but laughable with a paltry 61% vaccination rate? neither Trum nor Biden have managed to get it on a level comparable with other developed countries. And that is attributable to partisan division clearly sowed by Trump.
Btw what did Trump do but to mostly trivialise covid 19 and throw money at moderna? Whose technology (mrna) by the by has been funded for many administration and has like zero to do with any current president / government.
The antivax issue was a nonissue at the time of Trump’s presidency, when they had the opposite problem: not enough vaccines to go around. He funded development, and got production ramped up with the quickness. Biden disingenuously took credit for something like taking the numbers from 500k doses/day to 1 million, but Trump got to that 500k point from zero with some very rapid growth. Yes, some significant luck was involved in that a fly-by-night startup like Moderna that was US-based managed to have one of the big successful vaccines, but he threw money at all of them and got good priority on domestic vaccine availability in return. Definitely did better on availability than the EU, what with European factories sending all their good abroad before servicing local markets.
No doubt he would have failed to address the antivax problem when it became relevant if he had gotten re-elected. Biden certainly failed, and Trump’s attempts to say “get vaccinated” have done poorly. But you must have forgot that before antivax, we had to deal with availability in the first place. Trump succeeded there and Biden rode on the coattails of that, right after the whole “we can’t trust the Trump vaccine until the science people say we can” quip.
I think people are forgetting that there was a very real fear that trump would pressure for approvals for an unsafe vaccine if it helped him get re-elected. He wouldn't care if it hurt people or was ineffective as long as it helped him out because he is a sociopath and a narcissist.
The democrats did not start this antivax bullshit. We were dealing with a very real threat to our democracy at the time, as can be seen from the Jan 6th insurrection. It was prudent to be skeptical until it was backed by respected authorities.
Very real fears are not necessarily well founded fears. Biden and the rest of Trump’s critics should not have expressed hesitancy towards a warp speed vaccine at such a critical time. But that's politics.
The Jan 6th stuff is irrelevant, as it only came later.
Jan 6th proved the democrats were right to question his motives. The man wanted to use anything possible to get elected, peoples lives and democracy be damned
On December 29 2021 02:58 Starlightsun wrote: I'm much more worried about congress than the next presidency. If the Republicans sweep congress then they will sabotage anything from being done for 2 years and then most likely ride that to presidential victory as well. Competitive races continue to disappear due to gerrymandering, and Trump seems quite interested in primarying Republicans who don't toe the line. So we might see not only Republican control of government again but an increasing number of Trump style politicians.
Were moving to a place where Trump is the Moderate Republican. He at least is pro vaccination. The out there Republicans now are full QaNon crazy (or at least playing that to the public).
RE: operation warp speed
Of course he's pro vaccination, it's something he worked to push into existence before his next run for office. I can't really stick up for qanon because it's dumb from start to finish, and as a conspiracy connoisseur it sucks to see the most dismissable ideas being brought to the public eye. Still funny though. Never stopped being funny.
Was he? Because it was months and months after when he admitted he had been vaccinated and then again a long time after he got his booster and his own fans boo'd him because they were surprised to find out. And many of his media supporters are apoligizing for him about it. Publically and privately he had been asked to suoport it but refused.
Yes he pushed it, and it had a cacthy name but it was not very well organized or funded pre biden.
Despite his involvement in spurring their development via Operation Warp Speed, Trump largely downplayed vaccines during his final months in office, and both Trump and First Lady Melania Trump received the vaccine in private before Joe Biden took office as the new president in January 2021
And QaNon is not funny, a shocking number of americans believe part or all of it including 40 Republicans in office.
Yeah, he downplayed it to his crowd, that's because he was trying to get re-elected. I honestly don't know of the logistics of getting the vaccines out during the Trump vs Biden times, so I'll take your word that Biden is being more efficient. I just found it relevant to point out that he sort of was a part of pushing through the vaccines that you see him supporting as a saving grace for him.
And as far as Qanon goes, that's just a matter of perspective, man. You're telling me that a shocking number of Americans are dumb as shit, and 40 Republicans are playing to their audience? I can't help but be tickled a bit when someone remarks on how much of a problem it is.
You do realize that the Nazis literally used such wild conspiracy theories as a springboard to power and then the Holocaust happened? I'm not being hyperbolic here. A large segment of the voters and politicians being completely detached from reality can be extremely dangerous.
the good thing about QAnon followers is that they follow classic conspiracy patterns and will quickly move to whatever the new shiny thing is. They hold no true beliefs. Nazis convinced the moderates in the population to fear ridiculous things. But that happened over a long period. QAnon is fickle and is a nothing burger
It’s a nothing burger until it isn’t. They do have beliefs, they’re just not particularly comprehensible to an outside viewer, and unlike other conspiracists there’s a considerable bleed through into real world politics and identity.
Which makes it a distinct phenomenon from your flat Earth/moon landing types.
I’d argue a storming of the Capitol alone is probably reason to not dismiss these folks, and this is assuming there isn’t further escalation in the future.
There’s a considerable amount of people who haven’t gone fully mental and are merely Q-adjacent as well to factor in.
There’s a multitude of lessons to be learned from Nazism, I feel people can be a tad reductive in putting it down to one or two things.
One clear lesson is both the appetite and the capability of moderates to rein in oppressive regimes can be a tad exaggerated.
@Wombat That’s fair, I forgot there was a sizable amount of rioters and bystanders at the Jan6 events that were QAnon conspiracists.
However, the capitol riot was clearly dangerous due to the mob mentality and size, not the fervor of the belief before... Now, if one of these JFK returning or Elvis resurrection events turns into a bloodbath, I might change my mind. Jan6 was more Trumpers spilling their seed rather than devout QAnon beliefs. Because, as I have said, their beliefs are flimsy and change by the week. They’ll turn against Trump with his recent pro Vax stance anyways
On December 30 2021 01:56 JimmiC wrote: It is pretty hard to blame the Dems for vaccine hesitancy when the single largest factor that the vaccine hesitant have in common is political affiliation to the Republicans.
"The Democrats keep pushing for vaccines so you see, we had to be against it".
The democrats are killing us by making us be anti vax because they supported getting the vax so much.
I'm pretty sure you were joking, but "Democrats are using reverse psychology to get us to kill ourselves by not taking vaccines" managed to get published on Breitbart.
Because leftists like Stern and CNNLOL and Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Anthony Fauci are deliberately looking to manipulate Trump supporters into not getting vaccinated.
Nothing else makes sense to me.
In a country where elections are decided on razor-thin margins, does it not benefit one side if their opponents simply drop dead?
If I wanted to use reverse psychology to convince people not to get a life-saving vaccination, I would do exactly what Stern and the left are doing… I would bully and taunt and mock and ridicule you for not getting vaccinated, knowing the human response would be, Hey, fuck you, I’m never getting vaccinated!
I was joking and referencing that very article It was an incredible moment.
On December 29 2021 11:26 plasmidghost wrote: I feel like an absolute moron for thinking Biden would be better than Trump. My entire family has Covid and we live in Texas, so we've been thrown to the wolves by Congress and him
May I ask what you think Biden could have done to prevent your family from getting covid?
We could've had an actual shutdown that the federal government issued to override the states. Tell people to stay home at least two weeks and give them financial support to do so to stymie the unbelievable amount of cases we have. Instead, literally nothing happened at the federal level
I'm sorry what in the fuck? Do you remember when the governor of texas wanted to mobilize the texan national guard against operation jade helm because they thought it was a military coup? He was in camo for press conferences over something that was literally scheduled. If the federal government "override the states" with a shutdown half the states would call it a socialist takeover and go even more bonkers than usual.
People were given two weeks and financial aid to last those two weeks. Its not the fault of the federal government that half the states are filled with pro-covid fanatics that would rather choke down horse paste rather then wear a mask.
Even Biden has apparently now admitted that "there is no federal solution" to covid. Back when Trump proposed a federal shutdown of just three states, his political opposition seized on the proposal as an instance of trump trying to be a tyrant. And notice how under Biden, death and case rates have continued apace, even though Trump has consistently promoted the vaccines. So it's not so clear that Trump is the covid devil who should be blamed for the covid deaths that occurred during his tenure.
There is no federal solution to covid when all the states get to/ want to do their own thing. When Trump proposed a "federal shutdown of three states" he was pulling from his ass something that is impossible, its very much like when he proposed repeatedly to denmark that he wanted to buy greenland.
Trump is/was a tyrant in that case because he wanted to use his self-imagined godlike power to control 3 states, I very much wonder if you remember what those 3 states were and who they voted for in the last election.
Trump has constantly not promoted the vaccines and constantly has pushed that every person should make the decision for themselves instead of listening to him or any of the professionals he trusted to make the vaccine. If he once ever said or insinuated that everyone should/needed to get the vaccine to save their lives and you can show me proof of that I will admit I am wrong but the constant line he has always walked was to appeal to those pro-covid fanatics that refuse to do a simple, safe, basic duty to their nation.
On December 29 2021 02:58 Starlightsun wrote: I'm much more worried about congress than the next presidency. If the Republicans sweep congress then they will sabotage anything from being done for 2 years and then most likely ride that to presidential victory as well. Competitive races continue to disappear due to gerrymandering, and Trump seems quite interested in primarying Republicans who don't toe the line. So we might see not only Republican control of government again but an increasing number of Trump style politicians.
Were moving to a place where Trump is the Moderate Republican. He at least is pro vaccination. The out there Republicans now are full QaNon crazy (or at least playing that to the public).
RE: operation warp speed
Of course he's pro vaccination, it's something he worked to push into existence before his next run for office. I can't really stick up for qanon because it's dumb from start to finish, and as a conspiracy connoisseur it sucks to see the most dismissable ideas being brought to the public eye. Still funny though. Never stopped being funny.
Was he? Because it was months and months after when he admitted he had been vaccinated and then again a long time after he got his booster and his own fans boo'd him because they were surprised to find out. And many of his media supporters are apoligizing for him about it. Publically and privately he had been asked to suoport it but refused.
Yes he pushed it, and it had a cacthy name but it was not very well organized or funded pre biden.
Despite his involvement in spurring their development via Operation Warp Speed, Trump largely downplayed vaccines during his final months in office, and both Trump and First Lady Melania Trump received the vaccine in private before Joe Biden took office as the new president in January 2021
And QaNon is not funny, a shocking number of americans believe part or all of it including 40 Republicans in office.
Yeah, he downplayed it to his crowd, that's because he was trying to get re-elected. I honestly don't know of the logistics of getting the vaccines out during the Trump vs Biden times, so I'll take your word that Biden is being more efficient. I just found it relevant to point out that he sort of was a part of pushing through the vaccines that you see him supporting as a saving grace for him.
And as far as Qanon goes, that's just a matter of perspective, man. You're telling me that a shocking number of Americans are dumb as shit, and 40 Republicans are playing to their audience? I can't help but be tickled a bit when someone remarks on how much of a problem it is.
You do realize that the Nazis literally used such wild conspiracy theories as a springboard to power and then the Holocaust happened? I'm not being hyperbolic here. A large segment of the voters and politicians being completely detached from reality can be extremely dangerous.
the good thing about QAnon followers is that they follow classic conspiracy patterns and will quickly move to whatever the new shiny thing is. They hold no true beliefs. Nazis convinced the moderates in the population to fear ridiculous things. But that happened over a long period. QAnon is fickle and is a nothing burger
It’s a nothing burger until it isn’t. They do have beliefs, they’re just not particularly comprehensible to an outside viewer, and unlike other conspiracists there’s a considerable bleed through into real world politics and identity.
Which makes it a distinct phenomenon from your flat Earth/moon landing types.
I’d argue a storming of the Capitol alone is probably reason to not dismiss these folks, and this is assuming there isn’t further escalation in the future.
There’s a considerable amount of people who haven’t gone fully mental and are merely Q-adjacent as well to factor in.
There’s a multitude of lessons to be learned from Nazism, I feel people can be a tad reductive in putting it down to one or two things.
One clear lesson is both the appetite and the capability of moderates to rein in oppressive regimes can be a tad exaggerated.
@Wombat That’s fair, I forgot there was a sizable amount of rioters and bystanders at the Jan6 events that were QAnon conspiracists.
However, the capitol riot was clearly dangerous due to the mob mentality and size, not the fervor of the belief before... Now, if one of these JFK returning or Elvis resurrection events turns into a bloodbath, I might change my mind. Jan6 was more Trumpers spilling their seed rather than devout QAnon beliefs. Because, as I have said, their beliefs are flimsy and change by the week. They’ll turn against Trump with his recent pro Vax stance anyways
This was my point though. Those are conspiracies as essentially hobbies, they’re not conspiracies as part of all-encompassing world views that manifest in real political terms.
Trump merely taps into a set of, pretty consistent gripes against elites, their machinations etc etc, and QAnon is just that taken in extremis, with an insane narrative on top.
On December 29 2021 14:31 KwarK wrote: [quote] I didn’t say that Trump didn’t promote the vaccine so I don’t know why you’re bringing up that he did.
Biden was clearly suggesting that a politically motivated rush to roll the vaccine out ahead of schedule before trials were complete would raise questions about safety, especially given the context of Trump’s post-truth administration. Vaccines are safe because of how extensively they are tested. That’s why they’re so safe.
Biden said that a warp speed vaccine was "not likely" to have gone through the requisite trials. In doing so, Biden expressed hesitancy about a warp speed vaccine. And Biden, and many other trump critics, were wrong about the feasible timing of the vaccine.
I think we all know that Biden (and his allied media) only doubted the feasibility of a warp speed vaccine in order to prevent trump from getting credit for a warp speed vaccine prior to the 2020 election. It's okay to admit that, on this one narrow issue, Biden was wrong and Trump was right.
I’ll definitely say that while what was said was “we have to be prudent and make sure we did our due diligence” it is not hard to come to the conclusion that the subtext was throwing shade at Trump and implying that he might have made bad vaccines. As it stands, Trump’s vaccine development and distribution was stellar, leaving Biden an easy time with making small changes and taking credit for a rollout that was already in motion by the time he took office. Whether it was throwing shade or just a standard statement of prudence is going to depend most highly on how charitable you are inclined to be.
On December 29 2021 15:03 plasmidghost wrote: Thought about it some more and I think I'm done with US politics as a whole. We're going to die in any number of ways soon, whether that be Covid or climate change, and the Dems and GOP will not do anything to stop it. Knowing that brings me some solace, as I won't have to be constantly stressed and depressed by every level of government in this country.
Do yourself a favor and take a break from politics at least. However bad things may or may not be, it isn’t worth losing your sanity over to think about it all the time.
how is the US record of vaccination anything but laughable with a paltry 61% vaccination rate? neither Trum nor Biden have managed to get it on a level comparable with other developed countries. And that is attributable to partisan division clearly sowed by Trump.
Btw what did Trump do but to mostly trivialise covid 19 and throw money at moderna? Whose technology (mrna) by the by has been funded for many administration and has like zero to do with any current president / government.
The antivax issue was a nonissue at the time of Trump’s presidency, when they had the opposite problem: not enough vaccines to go around. He funded development, and got production ramped up with the quickness. Biden disingenuously took credit for something like taking the numbers from 500k doses/day to 1 million, but Trump got to that 500k point from zero with some very rapid growth. Yes, some significant luck was involved in that a fly-by-night startup like Moderna that was US-based managed to have one of the big successful vaccines, but he threw money at all of them and got good priority on domestic vaccine availability in return. Definitely did better on availability than the EU, what with European factories sending all their good abroad before servicing local markets.
No doubt he would have failed to address the antivax problem when it became relevant if he had gotten re-elected. Biden certainly failed, and Trump’s attempts to say “get vaccinated” have done poorly. But you must have forgot that before antivax, we had to deal with availability in the first place. Trump succeeded there and Biden rode on the coattails of that, right after the whole “we can’t trust the Trump vaccine until the science people say we can” quip.
I think people are forgetting that there was a very real fear that trump would pressure for approvals for an unsafe vaccine if it helped him get re-elected. He wouldn't care if it hurt people or was ineffective as long as it helped him out because he is a sociopath and a narcissist.
The democrats did not start this antivax bullshit. We were dealing with a very real threat to our democracy at the time, as can be seen from the Jan 6th insurrection. It was prudent to be skeptical until it was backed by respected authorities.
Very real fears are not necessarily well founded fears. Biden and the rest of Trump’s critics should not have expressed hesitancy towards a warp speed vaccine at such a critical time. But that's politics.
The Jan 6th stuff is irrelevant, as it only came later.
Believing the word of an insane liar who has promotes "demon sperm" doctor sounds like a really dumb mistake. The democrats stated that they would not believe trump, but would believe the word of the FDA and other institutions.
I don't think the belief that trump might manage to get the institutions to approve a vaccine before it was proven safe was a credible belief. I think it was just more of the reflexive opposition to trump that we frequently saw. And it was during trumps re-election campaign (in fact very close to the election), further raising a presumption of purely political motives.
Ultimately all I'm saying is that on one narrow issue, Trump was right and his critics were wrong. Which, given our partisan politics, is very difficult for Trump’s opposition to ever admit.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day .
Trump very publicly pressured every branch of government to help his personal political causes. From the DoJ harassing his political opponents to the DoS tying aid to investigating Biden to the DoD making tactical decisions for his benefit. At one point he made the national weather service claim a hurricane went to another state in order to not contradict him.
The idea that he would be above instructing the FDA to perform his bidding is nonsense. Trump viewed every part of government as there to serve him rather than the American people. He constantly attempted to compel every department to serve his political needs.
Well you've provided a bunch of examples of trump completely failing to bend the agencies to his will. That actually undercuts your argument. I don't think the DOJ harassed his political opponents, to the contrary the DOJ investigated whether he was compromised by Russia. Trump was impeached for pressuring DOS to withhold aid from Ukraine.
The agencies have some independence from the president (by law), and people know that. In any case, people knew that the FDA and public health professionals would be publicly commenting on the efficacy of the vaccines. And people knew that the trump admin leaked like a sieve.
It is also curious that the concerns about the vaccine being overly rushed disappeared after the election:
EPT
.
