Okay, I’m way overthinking this, but humor me, or preferably, slap me upside the head and tell me this could never happen.
What if trump starts foaming at the mouth, collapses at the podium, and has to be carried away, permanently incapacitated? Pence takes over. He’s no intellectual giant, no Churchill, no star, but he looks, acts, and talks like a normal person. Let’s say he listens to experts, puts some things in place, and tries to get a handle on this crisis like a normal person of average intelligence would. He becomes not wildly popular, but MILDLY popular.
Here’s the question: would that normalcy be enough to get him elected president in November?
Assuming the Pubbies nominated him, which they might if the answer to my question is even remotely yes. Tell me this can’t happen.
I think so, yes. Trump’s haphazard, irresponsible style serves to make an otherwise boring person like Pence look very good. If Trump contracted Covid-19 or something else happened to him and Pence became president, he would look downright regal in comparison. Pence can’t whip up a frenzy at campaign rallies like Trump can, but with the pandemic, chances are there would be no campaign rallies anyway.
Pence doesn’t need to win over Trump voters who hate Biden, he needs to win over the soccer moms and moderates who are disgusted with Trump’s juvenile behavior. That won’t be hard. He just needs to play the comforting, decent Ford to Trump’s Nixon - and Ford nearly beat Carter. Candidate Pence should be slightly favored to beat Biden in such a scenario.
This really deserves highlighting.
There is a depressing amount of critical basic information that we do not know and/or that numbers reported are pretty meaningless. We do not know the rate of asymptomatic cases or a confirmed sense of kids lack of contagiousness; we have a report of undocumented infections (which includes but is not only the asymptomatic) as about 55% as infectious as symptomatic individuals - both of which are very important numbers to have to model out what the curve might look like when.
But those numbers mentioned by Dr Paprika are real ones, and right now the number of deaths per day in the United States, which likely reflects the number of those who became symptomatic first about 19 days ago, (and caught it 5 on average days before that) is doubling roughly every two days.
Given the lack of critical basic information we have NO idea what the peak will be. No idea at what point we start to get enough recovered (or functioning as if they are in that bin) to start flattening off.
Go with only 1/3 being not sick enough (including the asymptomatic) to know they are sick enough to stay home, children are as contagious as adults, and the asymptomatic are 67% as contagious as the symptomatic, and you get one result.
Go with more than half (maybe lots more) being asymptomatic, kids minimally contagious, and the asymptomatic only half as contagious as the symptomatic and the peak would be something else entirely.
We don’t know which is the case because the critical basic information needed for that is still not there. BUT we do know that whatever is the expected top of the surge we are seeing current exponential growth in daily death rates, which is likely also reflected in much higher exponential numbers of ICU demands and in-patient needs demands.
What we do today likely won’t impact death rate growth for more than three weeks, won’t impact ICU admissions until two weeks out (-ish) … and will only impact first symptoms in about 5d. Shelter in place orders from a week back won’t effect death rates for two weeks.
The single best hope is that the highest risk (those over 70 and some others) were already social distancing 3 weeks ago, and that those who were sick were already self-isolating then as well. Or maybe that the unknown rate of asymptomatic infections is a very very huge iceberg. Or both. If so then the exponential rise in death rates flattens out before three weeks out.
It occurs to me that Mitch may figure this out very soon and take behind-the-scenes steps to remove trump so that everyone can get used to President Pence in time to elect him for real in November. They don’t have time to groom a new candidate, and I don’t see how trump can physically last for eight more months.
The lack of basic PPE is real. The lack of test material is real. We are being instructed to place gowns and N-95 masks in brown paper bags after use, labeling them with our name and the date and then re-using them 72 hours later. Here we are back to only testing admitted respiratory patients.
“In some cases you can use hand sanitizer to clean your gloves between patients..”
Now that West Virginia has a case, there goes my theory about inbreeding providing some degree of protection.
Hawaii now has 37 cases, 28 of them here on Oahu. Community transmission has been confirmed in some, not just travel-related. Lots of stuff closed. The island of Kauai has a nighttime curfew.
So let’s say the GOP uses the 25th Amendment next week to turn Pence into the acting President, and they also make him the GOP nominee. Let’s further suppose that (a) Pence provides what appears to be effective leadership with respect to COVID-19, and (b) the U.S. death toll is ‘only’ in the tens of thousands. (AFAICT, the possibility of deaths in the low millions is still very much on the table.)
Much as I don’t want to see a Pence Administration, my deepest desire is to see this thing handled well and the damage limited, whatever the political ramifications might be.
I am hoping the voting public will finally see what should have been painfully obvious before: Do not, EVER, vote in a Republican administration again.
I’m hoping the voting public has a chance to do so in November. I was never one for the “Trump will suspend elections!” hyperbole, but then, the deferred primaries before the shit has even hit the fan gives me serious pause. Not everyone can vote remotely, and if the whole thing goes mail-in at the last minute (or even starting now), I’m not sure what will happen. Even queues at the post office are a bad idea.
In terms of politics, get rid of Trump and it becomes very easy to characterize this whole mess as really being the fault of big government and inefficient, hide-bound bureaucracies. CDC wouldn’t allow tests! FDA wanted to run clinical trials for years! Big government caused this! Now, that’s INSANE, because I can’t see how having even less government oversight would have helped this, but that’s what they will run with.
Because if they get this under control, they’re going to spin it as another hoax, the Democrats and media destroyed the economy to get Trump. They’re dog whistling it already.
Plus,he really wants to move on to another episode. This plot line isn’t working for him. The whole situation is miserable but I love watching him squirm.
And speaking of dishonesty, they kept waving around this publication that talks about 15 days to slow the spread and talking about how we are 6 days in. Giving the public the impression that this is ending in a week and a half.
And I got my Trump toilet brush and my little novelty roll of Trump TP today. I’m saving the TP until a take a bigly stinky crap like no one’s ever seen before, but my toilet has never been so clean.
BTW, Animal Planet is running a Too Cute! Marathon - hours on end of kittens and puppies. I’ve been switching over when I can’t take CNN anymore
And why would the Dems agree to do it now? “We tried to impeach him, but noooo - you guys said he’s fit for office. So be it. See you in Novenber!”
(The GOP can’t use the 25th by themselves. They don’t have the numbers. If Trump objects to the invocation of the 25th by Pence and Cabinet, it goes to Congress, and it needs a two-thirds vote in both houses to confirm the Prez is unable to act and the Veep takes over.)
[ul]
[li]Despite the crisis, Austria’s parliament is continuing to operate more or less normally, albeit with extraordinary weekend sessions. By contrast, the parliament of neighbouring Hungary is poised to hand over emergency powers to its prime minister Viktor Orbán, allowing him to rule by decree. (This move is permitted by the Hungarian constitution but will probably reinforce Orbán’s reputation abroad, and among the domestic opposition, as an undemocratic ruler. People will be watching very closely to see whether he abuses his new dictatorial powers.)[/li]
[li]In order to inform recent immigrants about the coronavirus problem, the government has launched a special information website in 14 different languages, including English. The website covers how to protect oneself against the virus, what to do in the event of an actual or suspected infection, what restrictions the government has placed on individuals and businesses, and what aid is available to individuals and businesses. Most localized versions of the site include a video introduction in the respective language.[/li]
[li]The government has set up an aid program for self-employed workers and non-profit organizers.[/li]
[li]Two Austrian Airlines cargo planes loaded with 130 tonnes of masks, gloves, and protective clothing are now on their way from China.[/li]
[li]Since the crisis began, the government has rescued 3500 citizens living abroad by chartering flights home for them. Those rescued are still expected to pay for their own tickets (at prices that seem to be around pre-crisis market rates).[/li]
[li]Current statistics: 2814 infected, 8 dead, 9 recovered. Of the infected, 100 are in hospital, and of those, 15 are in critical care.[/li][/ul]
States that do a lot of (or all) mail-in voting usually set up drop-off points, at which you can just drive up and hand the envelope to an authorized person. Video of such drop-offs in recent weeks showed the authorized people in protective gear, which would make sense. Minimizes chances of transmission quite well.
(my emphasis in quote)
Yes, ‘hoax’ and ‘blame Democrats’ and ‘previous Administrations forced us to…’ will continue. But apparently the main emphasis will be on encouraging xenophobia:
Get people blaming China instead of Trump’s bungling…that’s the ticket! So what if hate crimes against people who appear to have east-Asian ancestry ramp up—that’s just more welcome distraction. Such violence will crowd out stories on Trump Admin delays, profiteering, and other potentially embarrassing topics.