Much as I'd like to blame Trump for everything bad that happened during his term, the pandemic and surrounding craziness caused a spike in crime, and Trump did not cause the pandemic.
Biden did not end the pandemic or its social impacts. I'd argue the pandemic isn't really over, but most of its social impacts are.
I would say Trump might deserve some of the blame for the pandemic because he cut the CDC's pandemic response funding in the 1st or 2nd year of his term.
Hey, be fair. He actively worked to make it worse and committed literal acts of piracy, stealing PPE intended for blue states and giving them to his son-in-law to resell. Remember when Boston had to borrow the Pats private jet to prevent the PPE that the city bought from being stolen? You bet your ass Pepperidge Farm fucking remembers.
I have worked hard to remind some of the Trump-voting Massholes I have the pleasure of interacting with on a regular basis of this. I think I've made inroads with at least one of them. I also make sure to bring this up:
"The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy."
Trump committed negligent homicide in blue states for political gain.
The person you responded to has not one iota of good faith. I've seen them in dozens of threads pushing accelerationist lies. They want this country to burn.
The vaccine was finished in Trump's lame duck period, Biden had to finish Trump's job because he's a psychopath and didn't feel like doing anything if he wasn't president anymore.
But vaccines are not the end of the pandemic. Biden just used them to trick everyone into thinking it's over.
Also, China showed that we could have at least had lockdowns until everyone was vaccinated. Instead we let er rip and more people died from COVID under Biden than under Trump.
Smallpox is a disease where vaccination once protects you for life.
The current round of vaccines for COVID protect you for several months.
There's a difference in outcomes because of that. I'll also note that a big chunk of China didn't get vaccinated either, and that we have a really active anti-vax contingent in the US with the support of Trump and the other Republicans.
We could have kept masking and kept working from home while pumping billions more into vaccines until we could achieve eradication. We chose to let people die instead.
Also I'll note, again, that a big portion of anti-vaxx sentiment in Asia was spread by the US to undermine China. Disgusting.
The Pentagon was actively spreading anti-vaxx misinformation in Asia. Claiming that the Chinese vaccine had pork (so Muslims wouldn't use it), that vaccines weren't effective, etc.
It was an attempt to destabilize Asia. There's a Reuters article released a couple weeks ago on it. Happened summer 2020 -> summer 2021. So roughly half under Trump, half under Biden.
Although it wasn't exactly a "Trump policy" or a "Biden policy"
Obviously they ultimately hold responsibility for what the Pentagon does because they are commander in chief, but the military did act very sketchy in this case. They essentially used loopholes by considering the "Asian cyperspace" an "active warzone" which allowed them to do certain things without authorization from the state department.
Do you think there is a president that wouldn't distribute vaccines? Trump only sabotaged the distribution on his way out because he's a massive sore loser who wanted to make things more difficult for his opponent.
Yes actually — he started sabotaging pandemic response as soon as it became known that in the absence of vaccines, the disease would disproportionately harm minority communities which have less access to care.
But trump sabotaged the pandemic response for everyone, it wasn't isolated to minorities. Had trump won, he wouldn't have sabotaged the distribution of vaccines since it'd only be harming his own presidency.
What is this toxic bullshit? You've been pretending everything is fine and gaslighting the fuck out of people like the person you're responding to, and somehow Biden showing how fucked up he is last night is her fault? Look at how you've treated people on your own side when Trump wins.
I think it's funny, but I'm still voting Dem downticket myself because I don't want Trump to have support from Congress.
Democrats should embrace it. I bet Jamal Bowman wouldn't have lost if he withdrew his support for Biden, and all the other progressives at least should do the same. Just make the election about the House and Senate and state level races.
Why do you paper all of lemmy with anti-biden sentiment if you care about preventing trump's influence? I do not buy it. I've seen this behavior from you repeatedly.
"Bad faith is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another. It is associated with hypocrisy, breach of contract, affectation, and lip service. It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self-deception. "
You can't pretend american politics into being viable for third parties. Until something majorly changes to make third parties have a shred of a chance, pretending they are is destructive and it's definitely often done so on purpose. That's what I'm accusing you of, since over the course of months you given zero reasons to think otherwise and 200 reasons to think so.
I'm not? I think we should focus entirely on electing Democrats down ballot and abandon Biden. Let Trump fail with a Democratically controlled House and Senate.
He didn't do nothing, though. He polarized masks, and the disease itself, killing hundreds of thousands of people.
Edit: I have multiple family members that actually have become fully anti-vax since his presidency. They were NEVER anti-vax before Trump. So he's likely killed millions of people from the way he handled things.
Yes, 100% agree with you. I should have said he did nothing to address the situation, and definitely made it worse, particularly with his remarks.
In 2021 I had to take a Lyft ride in LA for work, and my driver spent the whole ride telling me about his bleach spray that he would spray up with nose and into his throat to prevent COVID smh.
Trump and the Republicans extended the pandemic in the US and made it far worse with their policies that turned many of their voters into anti-vaxx and anti-mask lunatics.
It is exhausting to hear people talk about "The Crime Wave!" every time any crime metric ticks up by even the smallest margin. We haven't had "high crime" in the US since the early 90s, but we get media coverage of crime like every major city is an active war zone.
Every four years, we have a President waltz in - point at a blip downward - and say he "Solved Crime!" by throwing an extra ten billion at domestic security budgets. Then a new contender shows up and insists we still need even more cops, because a different stat blipped upwards.
I’d argue the pandemic isn’t really over, but most of its social impacts are.
You're going to get a lot of very angry people posting at you for suggesting COVID continues to plague the country (particularly service sector workers and people working in meat packing plants, where the disease still runs rampant).
Yeah, I am in my 40s and when people significantly older than me talk about how crime is worse than it has ever been I am always like "I guess you don't remember 1970-2000".
Yes. Let's blame everyone rather than those that committed the crime. I love when critical thinking is ignored. It's so invigorating to hear mindless dribble instead of concise analysis.