What is particularly infuriating is this specific leader made it much worse by doing things like closing the pandemic response team a couple years ago and calling it a big Democratic hoax until recently.
TBH, it's very difficult to look at that 538 chart and not come to the conclusion that a large portion of Americans are idiots. And I'm not even talking about whether or not they support Trump, I'm talking about how it is quite clear they are not able to make logical inferences of true cause and effect (e.g. what Trump is possibly responsible for and what he's not), instead they are just like reeds in the wind blowing whichever way their TV sets or friends tell them.
That’s democracy for you, where the ruler is whoever controls the discussion, which is usually the media.
It doesn’t help that leadership is a revolving door and nobody is accountable. At least with monarchies you could lose your head.
Your hoax remark is purely false. From the quite-liberal Snopes: "Despite creating some confusion with his remarks, Trump did not call the coronavirus itself a hoax."
He said Democrats were politicizing it, which is fair. It's obvious he was just playing politics as well, and also trying to keep people from panic-buying. Meanwhile, the border was already shut down with China, before February, far earlier than many other countries.
You're running around calling Americans idiots just like Hillary called them deplorables. Meanwhile you obviously are buying false narratives and pulling at selectively chosen data that affirms your narrative... all I'll say is, the problem may not be "Americans".
OK, here is the full text of what Trump actually said:
> Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa, they can’t even count. No they can’t. They can’t count their votes.
> One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over, they’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax. But you know, we did something that’s been pretty amazing. We’re 15 people [cases of coronavirus infection] in this massive country. And because of the fact that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that.
So I'll just let his words stand for themselves. What is exactly is it that he is referring to as a "hoax" then? That the virus needs to be taken very seriously and is definitely not in the same vein as seasonal flu, as he's done multiple times, or directly contradicted actual experts like Dr. Fauci right on the same podium? Saying "your hoax remark is purely false" is total bullshit. Again, I'll just let Trump's words above stand for themselves.
Yea it’s pretty clear he’s saying the Democrats/media, not the virus, is the hoax, here. He already sees them propagandizing it, so he’s saying, “watch out here we go again, another thing they’ll try and twist”.
Which is funny - because you’re literally trying to twist it right here.
The “hoax” is just him saying they’re smearing him either for things he didn’t do or did wrong, even refers to it in the next sentence when he defends his early action containing the virus. He never suggests the virus itself is a hoax. That’s just plainly obvious. If you aren’t catching that, I think you’re seeing things through a very narrow liberal lense.
The border was closed to China in January. That’s a pretty early response, a lot faster than many other countries.
Sure, hes made mistakes. But your quote doesn’t make him look bad like you think it does.
One of the key issues in American politics is epistemic. Many voters on the right will not receive any information about just how badly the initial response was bungled. There is a relatively closed media ecosystem of TV, web, and social media which completely blots out truth with conspiracy theories, half truths, lies of omission, or whataboutism.
Many of these people really truly believe they are well informed and also believe themselves to be true patriots. How this dynamic can be changed is beyond me and it is deeply problematic.
TBH, it's very difficult to look at that 538 chart and not come to the conclusion that a large portion of Americans are idiots. And I'm not even talking about whether or not they support Trump, I'm talking about how it is quite clear they are not able to make logical inferences of true cause and effect (e.g. what Trump is possibly responsible for and what he's not), instead they are just like reeds in the wind blowing whichever way their TV sets or friends tell them.