California, we’re hoping that this Omicron spike will be short lived.
Howdy neighbor. Things in Arizona aren’t much better at the moment. There is a mortuary that my BFF drives past on her way to work that does cremations. Before the world ended the mortuary never did cremations during the day because it bothered people to think about the smoke and what they were burning.
BFF is keeping track of when she sees smoke and it’s been constant for the last week. Two weeks ago, she only saw the smoke once in a while. Anecdotes are not data and she only drives past the mortuary 15-20 times a week.
I seriously do pray that things get better for CA soon.
Four-dimensional chess!
Hehehe, the Fat Orange Baboon sure managed to trump himself!
Go ahead and report me, I deserve to be banned for that, LOL!!!
Actually, I think Trump really would love everyone to get vaxxed, to validate (what he perceives as) his success in helping the vaccines get created so quickly. So maybe he’s finally figured out a way to make it happen without pissing off the MAGAts.
You know, I really can’t see that. I really don’t think that the Fat Orange Baboon is able to think that far in advance. The results are too subtle for him. I could be wrong, but I honestly don’t care that much at this point, I just want everyone vaxxed too.
Well, yes, it was lazy of me to use the words “figured out.” What I meant was, “his stupidity and blatant racism have accidently triggered people to behave in a way that happens to align with something that pleases him, and which coincidentally may help society.”
Now I am in full agreement with you!
To be fair, we did get vaccines pretty quickly and Trump had a hand in that. It’s probably the only thing I think he did in his presidency that I could give even lukewarm praise for. He had no plan to distribute the vaccines, and when Biden took over his administration basically had to start from scratch in getting the logistics set up. But at least the vaccines were there.
Totally agree. That’s why I was kind of surprised he didn’t spend 2021 pushing back on all the anti-vax idiocy coming from his followers. By the time he did, they booed him, and he backed down like the sniveling coward he is.
I’m not surprised, and I’ll tell you why I feel that way.
Trump wants adulation. He wants people to like him. (Not everyone, but he wants “certain people” to like him, usually by attacking other people.) He’s as pure a populist as I can think of.
There was a huge cry from people asking for vaccines to be made available. That’s what he heard, and he saw a chance to become a savior to people by getting them done. So he directed a lot of federal resources and support to getting them developed, and he did. And there was certainly praise from many corners for that.
But then his core followers, the nitwits dim enough to worship him, they are antivax conspiracy theorist nutjobs. And Trump does not bite the hand that’s petting him. If someone supports him, he won’t push back, at least not much.
Another example of that to look at how he handles the white supremacists who support him. I do think that Trump is a racist, in his words and through numerous stories about his behavior it seems clear that he is at least casually racist. I do not, however, think that he is a white supremacist. He doesn’t want to scourge the country of anyone who is of darker skin, he is no KKK member or follower of Nazi principles. He’s not an overt alt-right person. But when those people have supported him, he is hesitant to denounce them. To him, there is no greater virtue than supporting him.
Though I believe that he does have a handler that pointed out how not pushing back against openly racist groups polls poorly, so backpedals when he thinks that it serves him.
It’s a balancing act. How can he get the most people to like him? It’s almost like high school politics. Joey thinks you’re the coolest guy ever, and follows you around like a toady, so you let Joey hang around with you to heap praise on you. But Fred, Jack, and Sam all think Joey is a dork and makes you look like a dork if you hang out with him, so you tell Joey that you don’t have time for him anymore. It’s that same juvenile peer pressure mindset done on a national scale.
I think that explains some of the inconsistencies with Trump. If you look at it from the perspective of a narcissist trying to get the most adoration from people, it makes a sick kind of sense.
The sick sense. Wasn’t that a Bruce Willis movie?
Looking out over a sea of tightly-packed, unvaccinated and unmasked Trump worshippers shouting at the top of their lungs…
“I see dead people.”
You’re quite right, but I don’t think the antivax conspiracy theorist nutjobs actually were antivax conspiracy theorist nutjobs until it became clear that any positive COVID news would reflect well on Biden. There was a window there where Trump probably could have blunted the antivax idiocy and done a lot of good, but of course that might have helped Biden so of course the craven shitgibbon did nothing.
Exactly. It was the same with the early stages of the pandemic; Trump could have reacted swiftly and strongly and prepared the country better. It would have been impossible to avoid the pandemic, but he could have made it a lot better. And he might have looked pretty good for it. It would have been self-serving to do so. Instead, he downplayed it, he had intelligence on how bad it could be and sat on it.
I suspect that Trump thought that if he acknowledged the danger, it would have reflected badly on him, because he didn’t want to be known as having something like that happen under his watch. I think he also didn’t want to see the economic consequences of everything that needed to be done to prepare the country better. Maybe he could spin it as not a big deal and ride it out until the election. 2020 was an election year and he didn’t want anything tarnishing him.
Ironically, if he had acted as quickly to get the country prepared as he did in getting the vaccines developed, he might have had a solid claim to saving many lives and protecting the country from a worst disaster. It might have been enough to get him elected. He royally fucked things up for himself.
As reprehensible as he is as a person, what was far worse from the perspective of being a leader were the awful decisions he made that harmed the country.
I have maintained from the beginning of the pandemic that if Trump had taken the lead on masking, social distancing, quarantining, etc., he would have been re-elected relatively easily. But his asinine comments about the virus going away or bleach being the antidote or siding with the protestors against mandates finally convinced enough people of his stupidity and they realized they couldn’t vote for him.
And if my Aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle.
Trump is incapable of being smart, or taking the lead, because he’s a stupid fool who does not know how to lead.
I disagree. Yes, a certain portion of the electorate, the people that said things like “I like it that he cut taxes, but I wish he wouldn’t tweet stupid stuff” would’ve been thrilled, and he might have retained some voters that ultimately defected.
But he would’ve lost his “base” completely. Trump’s not a leader. Trump is a fraud that leads from behind, doing nothing more than directing people to the place they’re already heading and getting them to make a lot of noise during the trip.
He’s nothing more than a furry mascot whipping up the crowd for his team. His specialty is disinhibition. But he’s not setting the agenda, and he never did. He decided to run for President because he realized there was a universe of shitty assholes that believed the same shitty asshole stuff that he did, and that he could whip them up into a big shit tornado.
But the second he stops being a big shitty asshole, he’s losing them. He’s incapable of making his hordes of shitty assholes embrace something that’s responsible and kind - it’s as unlikely as a mascot inducing a stadium of rabid super fans to root for the other team.
You see how the crowds are reacting to his pro-vaccination stance, right? The same thing would’ve happened if he’d embraced masks and distancing and science and public health in Spring 2020.
I think there was actually a moment in the Spring during the initial 15 Days to Stop the Spread initiative when it looked like his base might start to slip away because he wasn’t being irresponsible enough - I remember noting the slippage with a smile - and they very next day he sent out the LIBERATE MICHIGAN tweet and started to blame the Covid response on Democrats.
I don’t think he could’ve made a difference.
(bursts into applause)
I agree. Trump knows how to exploit. Not lead.