1. Even dickheads love their dogs. Find a way to connect to those you disagree with. “The obvious mistakes of those who find themselves in opposition are to break off relations with those who disagree with you,” texts Vera Krichevskaya, the co-founder of TV Rain, Russia’s last independent TV station. “You cannot allow anger and narrow your circle.”

  2. Pay in cash. Ask yourself what an international drug trafficker would do, and do that.

He’s thinking about flying a SpaceX rocket to Mars and raping and pillaging its rare earth minerals before anyone else can get there. We need a 30-year road map out of this.

  1. Take the piss. Humour is a weapon. Any man who feels the need to build a rocket is not overconfident about his masculinity. Work with that.

A fundraising banner from The Guardian, an indepedent British newspaper. The centerpiece is a serif block "For f****s sake", with the letters after the f sprayed over with "act '"

  • shoulderoforion@fedia.io
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    1 month ago

    the last time trumps incompetence as president caused a million americans to die in the span of one year due to an inept and purposefully sandbagged federal global viral pandemic response. he’s going to beat that number this time.

    • zephorah@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      There’s a 3 part series on the Reveal podcast about how the numbers were tracked. It wasn’t the CDC. It wasn’t anything federal trump established. It was 2 guys at The Atlantic collating data of each state individually and putting it together. They had rotating volunteer helpers. That was it.

      And the federal government, and everyone else, received the data from them.

      • valtia@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        So you’re saying it was much, much worse than a million, and the federal government took it because it made them look better?

        • zephorah@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          Who knows? The larger takeaway is collating data on a pandemic isn’t even what the CDC does. It’s something left to the individual states, such that, without a body of data collectors there is NO national picture of the numbers.

          Two enterprising young men from the Atlantic made it happen, with a bunch of people like you and me who were committed to being the helpers Mr Rogers talked about, insofar as they were able.

          So for me, Trumps failure was

          1. not acting on this shit and getting experts + federal data access + federal money (this would be a worthy taxpayer dollar use for everyone)
          2. Not fully supporting healthcare workers and galvanizing his MAGAs to do the same
      • djsoren19@yiffit.net
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        1 month ago

        The United States was actually well set-up to defend against pandemics. After the ebola scare, the Obama administration created a task force to effectively respond to future infectious diseases, and a plan was written up to guide the U.S. through a potential pandemic crisis situation.

        Purely out of pride, Trump disbanded the task force and scrapped all of the planning that was done during the Obama era, and then 2 years later was hit by the exact kind of situation the U.S. had planned for.

        I can’t guarantee that the U.S. would have avoided lockdowns, and the exact number of Americans killed by Trump’s decision will always be nebulous, but it’s very clear that his decisions before and during the COVID pandemic were harmful.

        • TheFrirish@jlai.lu
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          1 month ago

          To defend the devil himself there would not have been much of a difference if it was the dems in charge since half the population is still brain dead anyway… They would have refused to vaccinate and spread conspiracy theories either way.

          Don’t get me wrong he is still guilty much more could have been done to prevent these deaths

          • stringere
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            1 month ago

            With ANYONE else in charge it would have been better because they would not have been actively undermining the medical and scientific communities by telling people to drink bleach or shine UV lamps up their asses.

      • MonkRome@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        We had the most severe rate of COVID deaths in the world outside of Eastern Europe. That shouldn’t happen in the most powerful country in the world. We failed to do the things we needed to early on and created a culture of misinformation because our president decided to play politics in a crisis.

        Had we reacted as well as New Zealand, largely considered to have one of the better responses, we theoretically could have had 280k deaths instead of 1.2 million. (If we matched their death rate) Obviously population density and our countries complex system account for some of the difference in death rate, but it doesn’t account for the enormous gulf between us and other wealthy countries. We are the only wealthy country in the world that had a death rate as high as ours. He bungled the response and likely got an extra half a million people killed. It’s amazing that this fact alone didn’t end his political career, but Americans suck at interpreting data.

        • Free_Opinions@feddit.uk
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          Sure, but the person I was replying to claimed that “Trump’s incompetence caused a million people to die,” and I was questioning whether all of that can really be blamed on him. Because I don’t think so. He was pro-vaccine from the beginning, and there were plenty of Democrat politicians saying they wouldn’t take “the Trump vaccine.”

          And no, I don’t think the situation was handled optimally in the U.S. - but that was the case almost everywhere. Obviously, Trump isn’t without fault here, but placing all the blame on him feels disingenuous

          • Aatube@kbin.melroy.orgOP
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            1 month ago

            Democrat politicians saying they wouldn’t take “the Trump vaccine.”

            That sounds wild. Could you provide an example?

            • Free_Opinions@feddit.uk
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              1 month ago

              Well apparently they didn’t exactly say they’d refuse to take it but voiced their scepticism about it nevertheless.

              In September, Harris, then the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential candidate, hesitated when asked if she would take a vaccine that was approved before the election.

              “I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump,” Harris said, “and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he’s talking about. I will not take his word for it.”

              Cuomo went further, suggesting he mistrusted not just President Donald Trump, but also the Food and Drug Administration under Trump. Asked about his confidence in the FDA, Cuomo indicated he didn’t have much.

              “I’m not that confident,” Cuomo said, adding: “You’re going to say to the American people now, ‘Here’s a vaccine, it was new, it was done quickly, but trust this federal administration and their health administration that it’s safe? And we’re not 100 percent sure of the consequences.’ I think it’s going to be a very skeptical American public about taking the vaccine, and they should be.”

              Source

              • Aatube@kbin.melroy.orgOP
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                1 month ago

                Hmm. I will say I think the skepticism of the vaccine that came out too quick was bipartisan, though, if not more among Republicans.

                • Free_Opinions@feddit.uk
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                  1 month ago

                  I don’t think there’s inherently anything wrong about scepticism towards new things like that. It’s when the disnformation and conspiracies comes in that it turns kinda sinister.

                  Probably true that it’s more common on the right - in the U.S. atleast.

          • Zink@programming.dev
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            1 month ago

            What strange land do you live in? In my corner of the US, being both anti-mask and anti-vaccine is very solidly a trumper thing. That’s regardless of the confusion very early in the pandemic or what one politician on a given side might have said once.

            • Free_Opinions@feddit.uk
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              1 month ago

              Oh it’s definitely a right-wing thing but I wouldn’t exactly blame Trump for all of it. He even got booed at his own rally for telling people to get vaccinated.

              • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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                He literally mainstreamed anti-vax and anti-science and all you can say is no big deal. And oh look he said to get vaccinated one time so it’s okay.

                That is a lot of fucking apology with a big side of lies. Not to mentioned disingenuous as well. Have fun trying to gaslight more people.

              • Jayjader@jlai.lu
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                If I recall the order of events, that was after many months of peddling anti-vax ideas and getting anyone who would listen to him riled up at the prospect of there even being a pandemic. So I don’t think it’s much praise to note he tried, once, ineffectually, to push for people to get vaccinated, especially when he lets those booing him shut him down so easily.

                That clip of him getting booed at the rally in August 2021, to me, especially shows why Trump deserves so much of the criticism. As president of the USA he was probably the individual with the most power and resources at his disposal to keep people from dying, from getting sick, from transmitting the disease. Not only did he actively make things worse for the first entire year of the pandemic being declared in the USA, when he finally does start telling people to get vaccinated it’s once he’s no longer in charge. On top of that, when he does it in the place with the lowest rate of vaccination in the entire country (according to this article published at the time: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-booed-alabama-rally-after-telling-supporters-get-vaccinated-n1277404) he lets himself get booed into a soft, non-committal “I recommend you take it, but still you need to preserve your personal freedoms, also I took it so haha guys if it doesn’t work you’ll be the first to know!”.

                Trump definitely deserves the most blame for repeatedly stoking the fire of an already bad situation. So much so that there are articles that exist titled “a timeline of how Trump failed to respond to the coronavirus” (https://www.vox.com/2020/6/8/21242003/trump-failed-coronavirus-response). Sure, if you want to be a bit pedantic, he’s not responsible for “all of it”. I don’t think anyone here is exactly claiming that either.

                • Free_Opinions@feddit.uk
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                  1 month ago

                  He definitely downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic in the beginning. No disagreement there.

                  However I still don’t quite agree with the suggestion that he’s anti-vaxx. Operation warp speed was his pet-project after all. He has made some vaccine critical comments in the past but personally I never got that impression of him during the pandemic.

          • zephorah@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            I’m in healthcare and I didn’t hear anyone reference the vaccine as “the Trump vaccine”.

            What I did see, what was part of the impetus that kept visitors banned for so long, even now, is the violence, treatment interference, and disruptions from people in full Trump regalia.

            It is, in part, why so many visitor restrictions are still in play. Very few of us had encountered such and incredible level of spite, derision, and interruption of care from visitors, well, ever. There are still individuals who refuse transfusions because it might be vaccinated blood.

            Doubt and such expressed by leadership encourages this bad behavior. Support expressed by leadership, especially by Trump to his MAGAs, would’ve helped quell it.

          • MonkRome@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Sorry you’re getting down votes. I think you’re giving your honest perspective and that doesn’t deserve the dismissiveness. I do think you undersell how much Trump specifically had to do with misinformation though. I do really believe the culture around Trump really follows his lead, so when he was selling misinformation, you saw his followers parroting his misinformation which I do think was likely responsible for a lot of death.

          • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk. ‘The buck stops here.’ That meant he knew that he couldn’t ‘pass the buck’ and say he wasn’t responsible.

            To put it another way. When Ebola was a threat, Trump said that Obama should resign if one American died of it. By Trump’s own logic he’s unfit to be President.

      • GeorgimusPrime@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        He deliberately downplayed the infectiousness of the virus very early stages, and then spread anti-vaccine misinformation afterwards. As the US is a major air transport hub for, this also led to casualties in countries where it would have been a non-event. Early restrictions and screening on flights from China, then subsequent following of Fauci’s recommendations would have made a huge difference.

      • nomous@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        He didn’t do shit except tell people not to wear a mask and to shine a light up their asses.

        Do you actually not remember 2020?

        • Glytch@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Don’t forget, he also told people to inject bleach and take dangerous doses of horse dewormer.

          • Free_Opinions@feddit.uk
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            1 month ago

            Except that he did not tell people to inject bleach. That’s misinformation.

            Also, calling ivermectin a “horse dewormer” is disingenuous and saying he has made claims about dosages is a lie. Yes, it was originally intented for veterinary use but it was approved for human use too in 1987. People used to buy the paste meant for animals to treat a skin condition because at the time that was the only way to get ivermectin without a perscription which doctors would refuse to write them. That’s where the horse dewormer narrative originates from. However, it’s a legitimate drug (though ineffective against COVID) and to claim otherwise is just partisan thinking not based in reality.

            • gens@programming.dev
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              If it doesn’t work on what you presribe it for, then it’s not a drug for that. There is no partisaning in it. The Orange was president of one of the richest countries on this planet and he, full of confidence, said such stupidity that it hurts ( and whoever belived him did hurt, especially the dead ones ). He had an army of doctors at his disposal, including Army doctors, and he claimed things a homless guy down the street could tell you are fucking stupid. He’s a great leader, that one.

              • Free_Opinions@feddit.uk
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                How is this relevant? This isn’t about wether ivermectin is a treament for COVID or not. It’s about wether Trump has told people to take dangerous doses of it for which I can’t find any evidence for.

                • gens@programming.dev
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                  If you had a vaginal yeast infection and the doctor told you “take an aspirine and you’l be fine”, that doctor would be fucked. You can say “oh, but Orange is obviously not a doctor”. But, again, he was in a position of authority, with enough resources easily at his diposal to know better. He is objectively so stupid that he is objectively harmful when put in a position of authority. And he proved it in a crysis when he said that a placebo is a cure and that doctors idk some stupid conspiracy or whatever. Do you understand ?

                  • Free_Opinions@feddit.uk
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                    he also told people to inject bleach and take dangerous doses of horse dewormer.

                    I’m not defending everything Trump has said about ivermectin. My argument is that this specific claim about telling people to take dangerous doses of it is incorrect. If you think I’m mistaken, then please provide me with the quote where he says this because I can’t find it myself.

                    There was plenty false information about covid and the cures/treatments back then. “Masks don’t protect you from the virus” “The vaccine gives you immunity” “Lab leak theory is conspiracy and xenophobic” etc. It was a moving target. We dealt with the information we had. Some of it turned out to be wrong, some right. I can’t blame people for looking alternative treatments especially when for the longest time vaccines weren’t even available.

            • RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world
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              He never explicity instructed people to inject bleach, no. But he went on TV and suggested, as President during a press conference with doctors, that disinfectants might be helpful for internal infections. Snopes is being overly pedantic here. He fucking told people to inject bleach and we all watched it happen with our own eyes and ears. You are the one gaslighting here.

      • Scubus
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        Well, he certainly didnt make it go away by easter, so thats a start.