I don’t think it matters, in the sense that people opposed to Trump and the GOP do notice this stuff, and people who support them only seem to care what they say, and never what they do. Point out that they do something shitty and harmful to the nation at large, and they either fail to acknowledge you said anything at all or they shift to making bullshit excuses that tend to fall in line with whatever the GOP talking point of the moment is. Even if that action flies directly in the face of the talking point.
2 Likes
even if true, you’d have to assign intent. there’s no reason, that in the face of a new virus of undetermined risk a government wouldn’t say: you know that stock pile of masks and ppe that’s getting low, let’s fix that just in case. whether it helps now or later, let’s get it done.
the intolerable point is that we sent them ppe, and didn’t bother ramping up production of new supplies - even when we knew that the coronavirus spreading
china’s supposed malfeasance doesn’t, in anyway that i can see, hold a candle to the trump administration’s actual malfeasance. one that continues even now day after day
9 Likes
Well, I think part of it is that the specifics of what he said become a detail in the Nth paragraph that most readers won’t get to. The headline, the discussion, are just about Trump saying things that aren’t true. But yeah, ignoring him is easier. I’m not sure which makes him more angry, though - he really doesn’t like it when reporters point out what he says isn’t true.
3 Likes
I agree. We can point fingers at China for their attempts to sweep it under the rug. But Trump IGNORED it for months. We had a head start, and did almost NOTHING.
I am glad to say that this has woken at least a couple Trump supporters I know up. They can not defend his total cluster fuck on this.
ETA - nice alt to your avatar… i think it will inspire me.
4 Likes
Deplatforming Trump in the mainstream media outlets isn’t going to stop him getting his message out. The “Fair and Balanced” propaganda arm of the Republican Party will see to that. My issue isn’t primarily with Trumps falsehoods, it’s with the distractions they create.
The news should be full of stories today about the firing of IG Linick and his investigation in to arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Instead, we’re all wondering if Trump is really stupid enough to take hydroxychloroquine as a preventative.
Especially reporters who are women named Yamiche Alcindor or Weijja Jiang.
2 Likes
ETA: Also, if there was mis-reporting in January, it’s likely because it was still unclear to people ON the ground what was going on with this disease. amazingly, when a new disease surfaces, it some times takes some figuring out about things like how it’s transmitted, who is vulnerable, what are the symptoms. We STILL don’t know anything about it, yet many states and local communities are opening up anyway… because, apparently fuck the vulnerable, fuck medical workers, fuck grocery store employees, hair stylists, etc, etc… Trump voting wypypo need a hair cut and to not be inconvenienced by the “oppression” of treating others like human beings…
14 Likes
I think that depends on where you live. I don’t live in the US so, whilst I can see the troubles folks there are having, were it the case that China delayed warnings either negligently, or worse to gain an advantage, that would be worse in my eyes. It’s not really a competition though- they can both be wrong.
1 Like
Again, in mid January, many things about this disease were NOT remotely clear, because new diseases don’t just appear and we have a perfect understanding of how they function. As new information emerged, the Chinese government DID cooperate with the WHO, locked down Wuhan and other hot-spots, etc.
You are holding the Chinese government to some higher standard of than the US government who when it hit here, knew much more than the Chinese government did in mid-Jan. The US government did nothing for nearly a month or more after the start of domestic spread, actively tried to prevent local and state governments from getting needed PPE for their frontline workers, actively disseminated false information, AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL, and is now encouraging states to open up when numbers are STILL rising in many places. Mini-Trumps are now taking the same tactic and firing people who are responsible for informing the public on the disease (de Santis, Kemp, Abbott). This puts not only ME, my family, friends, community, etc, at risk, it puts the world in just as much if not MORE risk than whatever the Chinese fucked up at the beginning.
No one thinks China is some paragon of perfect. No government is. But they are not the problem right now, and did a good deal to fix their fuck ups early on, cooperated with international bodies (including the WHO and CDC) and did what they could to stop the spread. If you think they should have had perfect knowledge of the disease, then you’re holding them to a different standard.
19 Likes
I’m really not holding the US government to any standard. They haven’t had any effect on me at all. This is exactly my point- people’s dislike of Trump, and his attempt to blame China for the results of his government’s actions shouldn’t be a pass that excludes legitimate scrutiny of China’s actions.
Didn’t realize you were the only one who mattered here. I’m sure that YOU being safe from the absolutely mishandling of this pandemic by the Trump administration will ease the minds of those who lost members of their families and their friends. It sure is a load off my mind. maybe Trump is doing the right thing after all, since you’re safe and sound. /s
Trump’s actions are a direct and immediate threat right this second to the lives of millions of people. No one said shit about ignoring China, but how about we deal with the immediate gun to the head of people right now before we do a round of up how this whole thing got fucked in the first place. 
10 Likes
There would be a more legitimate complaint about the WHO being slow to publicise risks about human transmission if countries acted right away after China said there was human transmission on Jan 20, instead of waiting until there were hundreds of cases and clear community transmission outside of China before acting. Any inquiry into a failure to act must surely focus on that, instead of delays in reporting by a few days of details that didn’t spur any action after it was announced.
4 Likes
I don’t want to prolong this unduly - precisely my point is that Trump being good or bad, bears no relation to whether China behaved well or appallingly. I am explicitly not seeking, in any way, to defend Trump, only seeking to make sure that, just because lots of people, rightly or wrongly absolutely hate Trump, that shouldn’t, at a later date, stop proper scrutiny of China’s actions. You may think China has behaved entirely reasonably - perhaps they have - others, including Australia, have concerns. Whether they are legitimate or not is in no way linked to what Trump has to say. I hope that the US, like everywhere else, sorts this problem out as quickly as possible.
Proper scrutiny is tautologically proper. But actually proper scrutiny also requires the proper context.
2 Likes
I’m concerned with living through these next through months, with my family and friends living through these next few months, with billions of other human beings who you explicity don’t care about living through these next few months. You’ve told me where your concern lies and it’s not with my or any one’s survival but your own.
We’re not. That’s the point. We’re fucked.
And for the record, I never said that china was some paragon of virtue, but given when they got NEW and BETTER information, they took it seriously and shut the country down speaks volumes to the fact that they actually live in reality and were proactive when the reality of the virus became more clear. No one thinks that the Chinese government isn’t deeply problematic. But laying the continued spread HERE or in other countries on China is revision of the highest order.
15 Likes
China might have equivocated for a week or two in the beginning, but they made the situation known worldwide at the beginning of January. The current Republican administration in the U.S. chose to ignore the warnings until well into March, and even then did not embark upon a sound and well-executable plan, which is why we’ve been quarantined for two months and still don’t even have readily available mass testing yet, and basically no workable version of contact tracing, so we can’t safely open up yet.
So, are you equally concerned about the fact that the U.S. delayed warnings either negligently or to gain an advantage, causing over 90,000 deaths in such a short time? Or is there something special about China?
12 Likes
Whether the US’ actions are good or bad has no bearing on whether China’s actions are. Nations like Australia are currently facing sanctions for suggesting China’s actions should be scrutinised, and that scrutiny is right, in my view, given it was the only place the virus could have been stopped globally, and given serious allegations that the Chinese state repressed whistleblowing doctors.
2 Likes
You are not being coherent here. If you argue that the WHO’s failure is the “delay in publicising the risks of Covid” then the effect of such a delay is only exhibited once covid has spread internationally, at a point where you claim there is no longer any hope that “the virus could have been stopped globally”.
If you argue that within China is the only place the virus could have been stopped globally, then what the WHO should have done differently would be much more limited, and if anything would have related to diverting more international resources to China, prior to the point where there was a firm evidential basis. Hence your early claim that “China buying masks and medical supplies” early on is “intolerable” is actually the opposite of true, when in fact more supplies and assistance should have been sent?
In any case, the overall issue here is that people don’t understand the WHO’s role with respect to China. The WHO’s role is not to be a Judge of China or any other country, it’s not meant to give countries a rating for political point scoring. The key role of the WHO is to coordinate and facilitate the flow of the information. In this role, the cooperation of China is essential, as the country that for the longest time has the most cases and most clinical experience. If the WHO had alienated China, we would know almost nothing about the virus. We wouldn’t know the incubation time. We wouldn’t know the 2m distance. We wouldn’t have tests. We wouldn’t whether it was connected to a fever. We wouldn’t know basic transmission dynamics… This sort of stuff is the WHO’s core mission.
13 Likes
And the fact that they generally do this explains why Trump is cutting funding in the midst of a pandemic, because he can’t stand any one to contradict him. The danger to global public health right now is Trump and his ego, not whatever failures China had at the beginning of this.
5 Likes
