Right? How about something like, “you’re all right about the size of Obama’s party and that outdoors is much safer than indoors, and that the vaccinations really are helping and …” Those are the main errors I can remember off the top of my head from this thread.
On the subject of frustrations, how about some about the Sturgis rally, which is, right on time, blowing up cases in SD?
Was Obama involved? If not, I’m guessing our Possum friend isn’t too concerned.
Well, Gavin better be careful, I reckon.
Okay, here’s another one. A Trump rally in Cullman, Alabama. Since Alabama is in a state of emergency at this time, almost any scenario (even outdoors) is going to be bad, particularly since Alabama has the lowest vaccination rate in the US.
MicroCovid projection of this scenario
Look what happens if people were vaccinated and wearing decent masks?
Of course you’re never gonna see that at a Trump rally.
We’ve established this. @PossumPie’s original beef (if I may presume) is that lots of people of both political persuasions only see two parties, without digging into the precautions each may or may not have taken. And they may think, Well, if two leaders from such opposite ends of the spectrum are both OK hosting parties like this, why should I worry about attending similar events?
Vax resisters might also think, Abbott was vaccinated and got Covid anyway. Why risk the vaccine if it doesn’t even work?
People don’t analyze, don’t research and go on first impressions 99% of the time. It’s really fucking hard to get them to understand facts that contradict those first impressions.
His original beef(and some of the follow-up) contained much misinformation that has yet to be corrected by him.
That’s true. My point is that those are exactly the kind of details that many people will never take the trouble to look into. Proof of vaccination? Negative tests? Flaps open? Indoor/outdoor? 200 vs 500 vs 700 people? They don’t know and can’t be bothered to care.
All they see is Obama had a big party.
I’m not saying Obama shouldn’t have done it. I’m saying it’s not a bad-faith argument that, all the science in the world aside, maybe it wasn’t the best move right here and now.
That doesn’t excuse the fact that misinformation was dispensed by the OP. The very premise of “Maybe the Democrats shouldn’t do A, B and C” is fundamentally flawed if it is pointed out that the Democrats did not do A, B and C and the fact that A, B and C did not happen is willfully ignored by the person making the argument in the first place. It is difficult, if not impossible, to avoid doing things that aren’t being done in the first place.
This.
Whether Obama’s birthday party was safe or not is irrelevant. In a 3-second jump-to-judgment society, people aren’t going to delve into further research to find out. They’ll just take the 3-second takeaway conclusion. And in this case, they’ll conclude that Democrats are hypocrites, even if they aren’t.
Like the saying, “Don’t tie your shoelaces in a watermelon field.”
I’m not really trying to defend @PossumPie. My argument is, regardless of whether he misrepresented A, B and C, we all agree that Obama did D. And maybe D (regardless of the mitigating factors of correctly represented A. B and C) wasn’t such a smart move.
What?
In a “Make it up if you can’t find it!” political environment, there is NO right move.
Don’t do something innocuous in a way that will lead people to jump to wrong conclusions. I.e., if you tie your shoelaces in a watermelon field, the farmer will think you’re stealing his melons.
A Chinese proverb warning against drawing suspicion on yourself needlessly. If you are walking through your neighbor’s melon patch and suddenly stoop, one could assume you are surreptitiously ‘liberating’ a melon.
This only makes sense if the same rules are applied to both sides. What specific “D” are you talking about-the fact that people of the leftish persuasion gathered in some way, shape or form? If that is ruled out as a “smart move” then essentially you have handed over Mr. Mike to the Right.
Ignorance fought!
I’m not talking about politics.
D = having a big party. People see Obama having a big party – that on a very superficial level looks a lot like Abbott’s – and they may think it’s safe to have their own, or attend one, without looking into all the factors that made Obama’s big party as safe as it could possibly be under the circumstances.
How this false image is spread, and who is doing the spreading, is totally about politics.
Sure, Fox and the other rightwing sleaze sources pushed the Obama is a hypocrite story, but didn’t plenty of mainstream pubs carry accounts and pictures of the event? If you saw it in People, for instance, you wouldn’t necessarily think Obama is a hypocrite, but you might think, Hey, if it’s good enough for Obama, it’s good enough for me. Honey, we’re goin’ out tonight!
Did the accounts that came with the pictures contain the same misinformation that was presented in this thread?
“They did it too!” doesn’t count if, in fact, they came nowhere close to doing the same thing in the first place.
I don’t know, and I’m too lazy to look. But whether they got every fact right or every fact wrong, there’s no disputing that Obama had a big party. And that is as deep as many people (whatever their motives or political affiliations) will ever probe.