Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/nytimes-shows-video-of-trump.html
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Just breaks my heart. Watching people who live in countries who give a damn, not ONLY about themselves, but about people in the United States.
The true measure of a nation’s might is its compassion.
We can do better. We MUST do better.
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And yet a lot of Americans are still in denial. I just read someone arguing that US is actually doing a better job than places like Germany with Coronavirus, even with 150000+ deaths, because our mortality rate is only 3% (Germany is at 4%). As if the 4.75 million cases in the US isn’t relevant.
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Just great. Not only has the U.S. become a reviled plague state, but Americans are not regarded as world-class half-wits.
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50 9/11s
Just think about that, and think about the fact that 45 and turtle are trying to sweep it under the rug instead of dealing with it with massive income redistribution so people most affected can stay at home and not be evicted.
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That was a real gut-punch, knowing that people elsewhere are crying over the US dead while that’s not something anyone in this administration will ever do. For Trump, the whole concept is utterly alien. I was struck at one point, when he was blaming someone else for some part of the coronavirus response, he said the rest of the world was “laughing at us,” when the rest of the world was clearly horrified and saddened. The only negative response he can imagine, even in the face of mass death, is someone laughing at “us” (i.e. him).
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This also ignores the fact that one reason we have a lower mortality rate than some other countries is because we allowed the virus to infect a wider cross-section of our population so we have a lot of young, otherwise healthy people fighting the virus along with elderly/“high risk” people.
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I’ve always thought that the only metric that makes sense for an A-to-B comparison between different countries, regions, etc is the number of deaths per capita, which are far more accurate (and consequential) than the number of total detected cases. And, of course, by that metric we’re doing very poorly. More than 4X the deaths per capita of Germany. There are still a few European countries with higher death per capita numbers (looking at you, Sweden and U.K.) but they’ve largely got things under control now and we’re sure to pass them up soon at the rate things are going.
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Trump and his administration should be brought up on ‘crimes against humanity’ charges. It will never happen because of the US’ status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and US general refusal to acknowledge the authority of international courts.
The best we can hope for is that he will be tried in the US for treason, for overseeing the largest number of preventable deaths in US history. If he is found guilty, execution is the only sensible option.
The Republican Party has lost all credible reason to exist. It no longer represents the average fiscal or social conservative, it now only represents those who will stop at nothing to “earn” another billion.
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So I just wrote this comment:
I’m perfectly able to be horrified with the situation in the US’s and laugh at Trump. Although that laugh has long since become gallows humour.
but before I hit ‘reply’ I realised that wasn’t true. I haven’t laughed at Trump once. Not during his campaign and certainly not after. Every time I see or hear him my only feeling is one of revulsion and disbelief.
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Watch Trump try and weaponize this for November. "See?!! Foreigners are against the US… and whoever agrees with these foreigners – like the liberals – is against the US!!!
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Yeah, I can’t ever really laugh, no matter how absurd Trump’s being. At first, it was more of a horrified head shaking response, but now… just a mix of rage and horror. And when Trump was talking about “the world laughing at us” he was talking about deaths and how badly the virus was impacting the country, imagining how the rest of the world was viewing the US, so it was the kind of statement that would be obviously inappropriate to any functional human being.
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So tired of winning…
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30 minutes ago I witnessed a young maskless woman cut in front of the line at Safeway. When chastised - she turned to the nearest elderly lady in line and said ‘I hope you get Covid’. I told her to reassess her life choices.
This was in Canada.
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The reporting here is refreshing:
The reporter dutifully reports Trumps statements, as they should. However they then immediately notes that the statement is wrong or misleading, and why it’s wrong or misleading. The net result is to leave the (accurate) impression of a president woefully out of his depth, rather than only telling half the story and leaving the impression of a leader in command of the situation.
More of this please.
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Absolutely. The US press has a lot to answer for in this administration. The amount of column inches they have spent reporting uncritically on Trump as though he’s acting as a normal good-faith President is appalling. Way too little of what Trump says is being called out in print as the obvious demonstrable lies that they are. Instead the press still uses softened, charitable language like “the veracity of this claim is unclear” or whatever. That serves to legitimize Trump little by little. When the press act like he’s normal, it normalizes him.
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I think you mistyped ‘now’
I stand corrected: apparently comparing deaths per capita isn’t allowed:
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Oh, but the large number of US cases is only because we’re testing more.
If we wouldn’t have tested as much, we could have vastly reduced the number of fatalities.
What’s worse to me is they do this with someone who attacks them every chance he gets.
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