Wow, newfound respect for AOC.
WTG, Mike. Ouch, that smarts!
Same! Although I have always found AOC’s appeal much more understandable than Bernie’s.
Despicable and desperate, even by the subterranean far he has set. And he incredibly disingenuously earlier whined that Chuck Schumer was hurting the country by saying the $2.5 billion was insufficient. When Democrats score points against him he suddenly discovers some sort of impulse for us all to come together and rise above politics. But then he can’t even sustain it for one day before he makes extreme and egregious charges against the Democrats.
It’s truly beneath any level I could have ever expected for an American political leader. And we have seen some rough stuff before! (I remember as a kid being appalled by then-Vice President Bush campaigning at a fucking flag factory and calling Mike Dukakis a “card-carrying member of the ACLU”, but that now seems quaint by comparison.)
If there are any swing voters at all, they will now swing. If there aren’t, then I guess nothing matters.
ETA: CNN just said, I should lnote without playing a clip, that Trump also said at this rally that “two weeks ago you would have never expected this outbreak to happen”. If they have a clear soundbite of that, it definitely needs to go in attack ads.
I just heard a clip on MSNBC of Mick Mulvaney speaking at CPAC. Wow is that guy a scumbag. He and Trump are perfect for each other. “This is not SARS.” Yeah, it’s worse!
Sure. As long as they don’t say the quiet part out loud. If they do, it could easily turn against them.
To me, the funniest thing about that story is that apparently “What exactly is a Y chromosome?” is the Republican idea of a really hard science question.
Even in the face of recession and pandemic, I expect this president’s “deny, deflect, attack” strategy to work with his base.
And let me note that Pat Buchanan’s latest column puts the epidemic down to… globalization and open borders.
What was that even supposed to mean? AOC can’t possibly know what a Y chromosome is because she doesn’t have one? Men are more equipped to make uninformed medical decisions for the country than women are?
Yeah, I too was wondering where he was going with that. 
(The fact that he never replied indicates…maybe nowhere? IDK)
On looking around, some were saying it might have been meant as a transphobic comment. I.e., he was hoping to get AOC to reply that a Y chromosome creates a male and then he could zing her for supporting trans rights yet “admitting” that an XY person is male.
Which if that’s what he was going for is all kinds of crazy plus has nothing to do with the subject of Coronavirus.
Some of us skim, so I’m repeating this nugget:
Originally Posted by Ted Cruz
As you are speaking as the oracle of science, tell us, what exactly is a Y chromosome?
Originally Posted by AOC
Sen. Cruz, while I understand you judge people’s intelligence by the lowest income they’ve had, I hold awards from MIT Lincoln Lab &others for accomplishments in microbiology.
Secondly, I’m surprised you’re asking about chromosomes given that you don’t even believe in evolution…
And since I'm a self-confessed skimmer ...
@ **Octopus** - Did you ever comment on the cites you were provided in response to request?
[quote="octopus, post:17, topic:848630"]
So Trump eviscerated the CDC? By cutting its budget by how much? Surely you have a cite.
[/QUOTE]
First, it would appear that the American public isn’t very good at holding their elected officials accountable for nuanced policy decisions.
Second, I tend to think the outbreak is more advantageous for Trump because it potentially introduces the chaos necessary to manipulate the 2020 election. Declare certain polling centers as too dangerous to use, force people to use absentee ballots, invalidate those ballots for late registration… there are just so many ways to use the epidemic as a way to manipulate the electoral process. This is exactly the kind of pot-stirring event that he lives to exploit.
Oh yes and let’s not forget, starting in August 2020 let’s expect Fox to start running earlier footage of immigrant caravans, except this time some of them will be coughing and sneezing.
It’s a huge opportunity for Trump, in that opportunity there is a huge opportunity to blame dems that somehow there is a huge opportunity for them, which there is not.
Trump stands to benefit greatly from the virus to the point that one could say it is within his ability and part of his MO that he could have ordered a mission to released this virus in China to gain more power. It gives him so much of what he wants - more power and control, but here are some things that Trump would love to do and this virus is a perfect excuse: blame the media and dems, get more funding for homeland security (which most of the money he got for the virus he put there), control the information released, going further, close the boarders and halt international shipments, invoke martial law, control and censorship of the internet to make it harder for us to get facts from the international community, even kill off more people in blue states who have a higher likelihood of infection then those of red states due to the larger concentrations of people living in close proximity to each other and more international travel - and just in time for the census count.
So this virus is a great benefit for a person that does not believe in democracy and it’s ideals, but only in his authoritarian rulership. That fits Trump like a glove.
Add to the above (board hiccuped and I could’t edit), get people deadly sick during the elections again blue states would most likely get hit hardest, so Trump is re-elected, and perhaps suspend the elections and just go with the electoral collage.
Trump has motivation and presumably means and does not seem hindered by morality to do such a thing and strive for his life’s dream.
I think Democrats need to be careful not to blow this up too big, yet. If this turns out to be just a blip like every other “pandemic”, such as SARS, bird flu, swine flu, the millennium bug, etc. then the Dems could look pretty foolish. Bernie’s already got a statement during the last debate that could make him look like a Chicken Little if this all blows over in April.
Democracy has turned into a game of poker. The ‘pot’ is peoples lives.
Tweet from Rachel Maddow @maddow
(Ninja’d on Clusterfuck thread.)
The pot is the entire planet. The stakes are that big. What sort of world my kids and maybe someday my grandkids will be having to manage.
When the stakes are that big you better believe you game out all sorts of scenarios that may occur, including very ugly ones, and ones that are not so bad. It can be cold and calculating to consider some of the what ifs but with this pot? It would be negligence to not consider them and how they might impact the practical.
Monocracy’s point is well made.
The upcoming pandemic benefits Tramp, not any Dem challenger. Watch the White House focus any relief efforts on red states while denying aid to blue states. At that level, it’s massive votive suppression. But if / when the crisis spirals out of control with a large portion of the populace infected, that’s just a great excuse to declare a State Of Emergency, round up sick dissidents, and cancel the November election.
How about a conspiracy hypothesis? Team Tramp knew of China’s biowar lab, encouraged development of CoViD-19, and arranged for its release, precisely as a 2020 voter suppression tool. No, that assumes someone at Team Tramp can think ahead that far. Likely a bad assumption. No, it’s just the luck of the draw.