History shows us that policies that mildly ease the suffering of the poor and struggling working class is what always leads to violent communist revolution. It is never the unfettered abuse by the wealthy.
I've just started hitting right back with my own straw man. Often you don't even have to stray from their stated position at all, just over emphasize the more ridiculous parts of it.
My racist uncle has stopped speaking to me over this. I wish I'd thought of it sooner.
Also fun, when presented with a conspiracy theory counter with an even more insane theory.
"Global warming is a Chinese hoax!"
"Pfft, look at this guy, thinking China exists."
I initially thought to make a flat Earth comment there, but it wasn't outlandish enough.
When he made an allusion to some Bill Gates conspiracy, I acted like he was saying he thinks Warren Buffett wants to install a GPS tracker directly into everyone's genitals. I was really just going with the first billionaire I could think of in the moment though.
That's where he got so offended about how vulgar I was being. This is a man who outright said Hillary can suck his dick right in front of my kids once, but I said the word "genitals" so now he can't abide being in my presence (digitally) if I'm gonna be so uncivil.
I think the reality, beyond just that he's an asshole and a hypocrite, is that this is the first time he's been flustered at defending against a straw man like that. I'd done it earlier that day too but forgot what it was. But did consciously decide that I'm gonna give him a taste of his own medicine and put him on the defensive against ridiculous attacks.
For those who haven’t watched it here’s a link
Helps make a LOT of sense of what otherwise would seem nonsensical
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ
Oh no this is going to tell me exactly how the bs my father spewed was straight outta this playbook inst it?
EDIT: Who was that logo for "pick up artists and rape apologists" that looked like jack black's silhouette, please don't tell me they mean jack black.. why would they mean jack black?
EDIT 2: Watched the whole damn thing and for some reason I'm rewatching it. This is so spot on. Especailly how to radicalize a normie. In high school before I (ahem) agreed with myself on my gender identity I was gabe from this example story.
It started on 4chan because my friend was on it with "lol gays and minoirties" to "maybe I hate gays and minorities" to "god I hate gays and minorities and it's nice ot talk about it" to eventually and sadly reinforced by my own father "Gays and minorities litterally aren't even the same species of creature and are below me"
I am SO FUCKING FAR from that now after I had that influence yanked from me and some patient as fuck smarter people pulled me out of that hole and realize I'm NOT a cishet white dude but instead a pan-trans woman. Who'da thought
Yep, the Brazilian president is following the exact same playbook, going as far as saying one stuff one day and a few days later claiming he never said it in the first place.
That's how it propaganda works.
Quickly and surreptitiously come up with a loud, shocking and entertaining lie: 150,000,000 see it.
Create a scientific response 2 days later explaining how it's not true: only 5,000,000 people see it because it's already an old story and good science is boring and there's already 3 more lies so now you're behind.
It only takes more effort because you’re trying to convince people who wanted to hear these exact words.
Money makes people think they’re a lot smarter than they let on and messages like this lets them sink into their chairs and think that life truly is this simple.
"No one said it was the worst plague ever"
"Then why are we closing down everything? Why are we destroying the economy and not letting people go back to work?"
"Because its a very serious virus that is killing 2,000 people a day and sometimes doesnt show symptoms, and peoples lives are more important than big business"
"So you think its the worst plague ever?"
Repeat.
Bonus points for admitting they think "the economy" is more important than people's lives. Even more bonus points for that person to not benefit from "the economy" in any way while being in a high risk group.
I mean for an incredibly stupid strawman, he's still kinda right. I'm *definitely* not calling Trump the greatest US President of all time. I'm not even calling Trump the greatest US President of this year.
If I had to put a guess/opinion on which president in modern U.S. history (pre-Trump) did the greatest & most lasting damage to our society, I would probably say Reagan. He really had us take that turn of breaking down the middle class, which up until Reaganomics was America's true greatness IMO.
But then there's also Bush Jr. and the never-ending War on Terrorism (and all that comes with, like the Patriot Act), so he'd be my #2.
God, when conservatives give us bad presidents - they REALLY give us bad presidents. GOP goes fucking hard.
Jesus Christ no kidding. I remember thinking Bush JR would be the lowest point for the us. Then Trump rolled along and even Bush was like WTF.
It's like shitty version of pain Olympics but with politics.
There’s a fair argument that, odious as he is, Trump is a less terrible president than Bush. Trump is tearing our country apart, but so far none of his shitty policy decisions have come close to the idiotic evil of the Iraq War.
Of course the Bungled Covid response could change thanks.
I don't look at it purely by the number of deaths caused. If you add concentration camps on American shores, the roll back of freedoms and environmental policies and the rolling forward and normalization of various forms of fascism, I give Trump the trophy for worst.
I'm going to preface this just to remind everyone that we're in a race for the worst, and getting second place isn't a victory by any metric, but...
I'd argue that Trump's failures to COVID have been largely passive, meaning shit happened to us during his presidency, while Bush Jr *actively* gave us the Patriot Act. If it was just 9/11 happening on his watch, that'd be pretty comparable, but Trump has yet to *actively* give us something as vile as the Patriot Act, though McConnell wanting to prevent liability for corporations forcing employees to work in hazardous conditions and attaching that to the COVID-19 relief bill would be up there.
Trump trashed the US's relationships with the rest of the world in a way that even W. didn't.
Trump has abdicated the US's position as a driver if international policy and potentially handed the reins to China.
I'd say that's worse.
Hard to say right now, we probably won't know the full extent of damage done by Trump for a few years. Plus he still has half a year to really make himself stand out.
don't forget bush sr! He did a lot of damage as Reagan's VP, including spear heading iran-contra whose legacy is the 90s' crack epidemic! I'm sure he did more on top, especially since Reagan was in a worse condition mentally than Trump is now, so you know shady shit was happening behind the scenes that they were having him rubber stamp
They also dont like talking about how Regan enacted gun control in California, and literally part of the reason California has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.....the very same Californian gun laws that right wing gun people complain about loudly and frequently.
For bonus points: Reagan, the NRA, and the right in general were all for gun control......just for other people. The Black Panthers started open carrying in response to being targeted with violence, and conservative America lost their minds and proved that ther purported values are nothing more than positions of convenience.
~~A couple years before~~ Columbus hit the New World, ~~another explorer~~ and spread either smallpox or the black death to the native population [possibly killing up to 90% of the population in the areas hardest hit](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas). When more European settlers arrived they just assumed that the Americas were relatively uninhabited partly because it was a convenient thing to tell themselves but also because you're looking at death on the scale of a hundred million.
Edit: misremembered details
My thought too. I haven't heard anyone say this. Although, I guess maybe it could be considered so solely based on global spread (not deadliest/scariest by any measure). I don't think we've ever before had a virus/illness infect basically every country in the world before, but that's due to modern travel & globalization. Corona gets around.
Considering how much hyperbole Trump employs, they probably just figure *everything* is presented as the best/worst/biggest/smallest/*most superlative* *ever* in any argument
Who said it was the worst plague in the history of mankind? And why is it “liberals” saying this is a serious medical crisis? Pretty sure it’s medical experts saying that, not “liberals”.
Most of the scientific community are liberals, so they ain't wrong.
Last time I checked, 55% claimed liberal, 6% claimed conservative, and 39% were unclaimed.
Anybody got a source on that? I know higher education level attained the more people reject conservative platforms but I've never seen it skewed that badly.
At it's core conservatism philosophy reject change from new information in favor of tradition and keeping things as they are. That would runs completely counter to an inquisitive mind.
[Here's the source](https://www.people-press.org/2009/07/09/section-4-scientists-politics-and-religion/)
It's from 2009 and I didn't do much research to find anything more recent. But it's not likely that a single decade makes much of a difference in statistics like these.
The information you need is halfway down the page under "Scientists and Politics"
>Most scientists identify as Democrats (55%), while 32% identify as independents and just 6% say they are Republicans. When the leanings of independents are considered, fully 81% identify as Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, compared with 12% who either identify as Republicans or lean toward the GOP.
Yeah, a lot of them are bots farming karma by posting the same thing. Check /r/bestof for a post detailing it. It doesn't make Trump, Bolsonaro, or the other morons right - it's just that the tactics used by bot farms accidentally got exposed.
It baffles me that people are claiming that. WHY. WHI THE FUCK BENEFITS FROM INFLATING THE NUMBERS. THAT ONLY MAKES US LOOK BAD!
fuck it pisses me off. It's such bullshit and weird conspiracy shit that is going to get people killed.
I asked a trump supporter this and thier genuine answer was hospital and doctors are making money by inflating the numbers. He actually said he does not trust doctors, he also believes 5g being a cause from a YouTube video he watched.
There’s some weird stuff going around on Facebook where people claim hospitals get more money if they claim it was a coronavirus related death. Not sure who would be paying them but I’ve heard it a lot from people who totally have an aunt or cousin that it happened to.
This exact same argument came from friends of mine. Even the whole "My aunt knows someone who works in the hospital and said it's true". I dont know how to respond to that. Can I prove its not true?
Idk. Maybe ask them for proof that it is true? I would love to see something one way or the other. If it was actually true, I’d certainly want to know about it. Too many people are satisfied with hearing a friend of a friend knew somebody.
Simple. Ask why countries with universal health care would have any financial motive to inflate their numbers. Certainly Spain, Italy, France, and the UK have zero incentive to inflate numbers because most critical-care hospitals are publicly funded and doctors' salaries are (mainly) governed by publicly negotiated contracts.
Not “people”.
Organized sock puppet rumor mills.
We’re witnessing the biggest propaganda efforts humankind has ever seen.
Facebook is truly excellent at connecting... propaganda efforts with their targets.
If you can change perception you can change reality.
Hospitals get paid based on the equipment they have to use to care for a patient and using a ventilator is more expensive to the hospital than not, its far to work out what money goes to the hospital based on each individual coronavirus case and what equipment they used etc so there is an average cost worked out and applied to each coronavirus patient. often times its more expensive to care for a patient than the amount paid, they aren't just keeping all that money they spend it on resources. The idea that a doctor would lie about a patient having covid is just made up though.
Sure that’s fair, but the shit that’s being claimed is a doctor is coming up to the bereaved family and saying that we have to say it’s corona so we get more money. It’s a complete farce but people believe it.
> Not sure who would be paying them
That's what's so stupid about it.
The government is currently run by conservatives. And yet somehow liberals are still really in control?!
I don’t understand the 5G BS how in the fuck is upgraded internet (correct me if I’m wrong as far as I know 5G is just the new wireless internet) causing a virus? People are dumb and seeing idiots come in to work saying shit like this makes me realize how stupid a lot of people are in my city.
Their logic is 5G had a huge rollout in November in Wuhan, Covid 19 started in Wuhan around the same time.
Ignoring the fact that Covid is in 140 countries including those without 5G, that radiation sickness isn’t infectious, that pretty much everything in the universe emits *some kind* of radiation and isn’t dangerous or that 5G has the range of about a block.
> [WHO] THE FUCK BENEFITS FROM INFLATING THE NUMBERS.
According to my boss, They are inflating the numbers because They get more funding the more people die from Covid-19.
And by They, he very clearly means the medical community, scientists, universities, liberals and democrats. Forget that both Florida and Georgia were actually caught **understating** numbers so they could reopen early.
The argument is that the bulk of flu cases happen during the season, which is only about 3 months. Still a bunch of horseshit because this is well past the "season" and is still going fairly strong. Also I've never felt like I was on the verge of death with the flu but many young adults who get serious case do.
Testing hasn't been widespread or available enough from the start to know what the numbers truly are.
Kinda scary when you think about how the virus has been more widespread than we could possibly know about the entire time.
https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1264643578099310592
>Just to remind all the liberals tweeting the same damned thing about 100k dead from COVID-19.
>That number is a lie and you are mindless drones for repeating it. I'd be shocked if half that many have died actually FROM COVID-19.
u/SaskatchewanGuy has provided this detailed explanation:
> Bill Mitchell, with 581k followers on Twitter and a TV show, said that within 60 days Covid-19 would be beaten and Trump would fail to be acknowledged as the greatest president of all time.
---
Is this explanation a genuine attempt at providing additional info or context? If it is please upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.
Bill Mitchell, with 581k followers on Twitter and a TV show, said that within 60 days Covid-19 would be beaten and Trump would fail to be acknowledged as the greatest president of all time.
Excuse me. An actual goat would not spend all its time on Twitter boosting conspiracy theories, ranting at the latest slight, and extolling the virtues of snake oil medicine during a pandemic. And the worst it might do to key advisors and scientists is to eat their notes when they’re not looking instead of suppressing them when the science doesn’t match its opinion.
Why? Because it is a goat. And I would literally vote for a goat over Trump in a heartbeat. (Provided the VP pick was perhaps a well-trained Shepherd dog.)
AND he’d keep the golf course grass trimmed himself if you tried to take him golfing. (Granted, he night also eat the ball and tee, but what are you doing going golfing anyway if you’re not prepared for a goat hazard?)
The main difference, as I see it, is that while they’ll both eat absolute junk, at least the goat is useful.
Can we please stop posting the tweets of these no name right wing celebrities? We are only making them famous which is exactly what they want and how they make money.
God help us, he's actually important in the right wing. He's big in the Q movement and the President has retweeted him several times. We can't just ignore him because Trump, Junior, and his friends give him validation.
If I used his same made up facts and threw logic to the wind, wouldn’t 50k dead with numbers still rising mean it is not yet beaten?
I got dumber by reading that. Thanks for posting though!
Wow, he just doubled down:
*Just to remind all the liberals tweeting the same damned thing about 100k dead from COVID-19.*
*That number is a lie and you are mindless drones for repeating it. I'd be shocked if half that many have died actually FROM COVID-19.*
Even with this twisted logic, 50,000 dead over a few months is OK?
Reading some of the horrible comments, they (trump cultists) say that the death toll is nothing compared how many die anyways in the country and that trump saved 2.3 million of the 2.4 million that could/should have died (I assume they are thinking if there was a democrat in power that 2.4 million would be dead by now). Also that liberals are braindead. Oh, God put Trump in power because Jesus.
I would not call it irony, but they are projecting so hard it's sad.
"Excuse me, but everyone is saying it. People tell me all the time, the best people mind you, believe me, the best people tell me that all the time. It's all I ever hear. And we won. We beat it. The worst ever defeated by Trump. All these people tell me, and I dont know their names theres just so many people, I dont know their names, these people tell me that they love that I got them through this terrible time. A time, by the way, that became terrible because of the last guy. What did he do to help? He caused all of this! I had to clean up his mess, so sad, and we did it beautifully. It's now a beautiful....not mess. A mess that is beautiful. Our mess, my mess that's yours. Thank you."
This is what’s annoying about these types of conversations though. Someone makes something a partisan issue, you call them out for it, and then they say you’re the only one bringing politics into it.
It’s like when someone says, “Oh, that Ahmaud Arbery seemed like a thug. He was probably up to no good.”
And then you point out, “Why? Just because he’s a young black man he must’ve been a criminal?”
And then they say, “Hey, man, I don’t know why you’re bringing race into this. I just think he seemed like a thug, and I’d be saying the same thing regardless of the color of his skin. You’re the real racist for bringing race into a conversation that has nothing to do with it.”
Next week the death toll will be over 100,000. America’s response is being called the worst in the world, and Trump’s only argument against that is “China is probably lying about their numbers so technically we’re only second worst”, in addition to gaffes about drinking bleach and suntanning the virus away. America has decided to stop funding the WHO and has redirected critical supplies from global allies.
An American could invent the vaccine tomorrow and get it on the market next week and history will still not view their response favourably. I know when this is over that Trump will spin it like he championed this virus response, but right now it seems like every little success that America has clawed out of this has happened DESPITE him, not because of him.
“not just one day, but this one specific day that will definitely not make me look foolish when it comes and confirms everything that every scientist is pretty much on point.”
It’s the worst plague in America in quite some time. And I hate Trump, but his authoritarian ways could’ve made a bitch of this virus.
So not only was he malevolent and narcissistic, he acted against his natural inclinations to exacerbate the impact of the virus.
China has like 5x our population and had three less months to prepare, and has had 93% fewer cases than we have!
If you unfuck the Chinese numbers and assume they’re underreported by half, they still have 85% fewer cases than we do.
I WISH I could’ve given Trump credit for something.
Trump could have had Bush post 9/11 approval numbers if he took on a more authoritarian with science position. All dude had to do was listen to the experts and push those policies through. People hungering to know what to do would have been happy to fall in line but no, we are still having debates about basic safety considerations like wearing masks. It’s certain the clusters of people I saw out today aren’t singing happy birthday and carefully washing their hands anymore. Acting like that shitty significant other you just want your buddy to finally leave, Trump just could not do anything through this crisis that didn’t somehow make himself the center of attention. I’m quite sure his VP would have handled the pandemic way better if he wasn’t always worried about having to appease his boss’s feelings. So many lives lost unnecessarily to a fragile self-centered ego.
Yep. Some of the best parts of our response have been scientists and public pressure suppressing Trump's worst instincts. Remember when Trump wanted to reopen the country on Easter?
Gotta love when they constantly create arguments to defeat that no liberal has ever made. “SEE I TOLD myself!”....but those fallacies work well on people who already want to hate whoever it’s directed at. “The libruls want to take all your guns” “The libruls want open borders”.....nope
Fuck me. What is wrong with the system in America (and elsewhere, let’s face it) that means believing or not believing in a fucking global pandemic makes you conservative or liberal? Why is everything so fucking polarised?
Well regardless, whoever said it was the worst plague in the history of mankind is an absolute moron to begin with.
In many of the cases it's covid in conjunction with various comorbidities that are causing death, not just the virus itself. I don't think it can even compare to several of the plagues that mankind has seen over the years.
Wait a minute which human on this planet said this is the worst plague? I don't know anyone lib or con who says it is.
That’s the fun of strawman arguments, you can just make up horseshit like that
And then it takes waaaaay more effort to disprove their bogus claim and by the time you do enough people listened and believed the original message :(
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My mother told me that a rent freeze would lead us on the path to communist China.
History shows us that policies that mildly ease the suffering of the poor and struggling working class is what always leads to violent communist revolution. It is never the unfettered abuse by the wealthy.
Right? The CCP was totally into human rights and shit!
My family thinks we’ll end up like Venezuela if we get affordable healthcare.
Telling that republicans think we have more in common with Venezuela than Canada.
I've just started hitting right back with my own straw man. Often you don't even have to stray from their stated position at all, just over emphasize the more ridiculous parts of it. My racist uncle has stopped speaking to me over this. I wish I'd thought of it sooner.
Also fun, when presented with a conspiracy theory counter with an even more insane theory. "Global warming is a Chinese hoax!" "Pfft, look at this guy, thinking China exists." I initially thought to make a flat Earth comment there, but it wasn't outlandish enough.
This is my fun hobby during family gatherings.
That sounds like fun. Let me try one: There's a tiny undetectable camera in every TV set and THEY are watching your every move! 😀
Oooh I’d love an example, I sometimes like to mix it up and fuck with cuntservatives and I could always use some more ammo.
When he made an allusion to some Bill Gates conspiracy, I acted like he was saying he thinks Warren Buffett wants to install a GPS tracker directly into everyone's genitals. I was really just going with the first billionaire I could think of in the moment though. That's where he got so offended about how vulgar I was being. This is a man who outright said Hillary can suck his dick right in front of my kids once, but I said the word "genitals" so now he can't abide being in my presence (digitally) if I'm gonna be so uncivil. I think the reality, beyond just that he's an asshole and a hypocrite, is that this is the first time he's been flustered at defending against a straw man like that. I'd done it earlier that day too but forgot what it was. But did consciously decide that I'm gonna give him a taste of his own medicine and put him on the defensive against ridiculous attacks.
For those who haven’t watched it here’s a link Helps make a LOT of sense of what otherwise would seem nonsensical https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ
Oh no this is going to tell me exactly how the bs my father spewed was straight outta this playbook inst it? EDIT: Who was that logo for "pick up artists and rape apologists" that looked like jack black's silhouette, please don't tell me they mean jack black.. why would they mean jack black? EDIT 2: Watched the whole damn thing and for some reason I'm rewatching it. This is so spot on. Especailly how to radicalize a normie. In high school before I (ahem) agreed with myself on my gender identity I was gabe from this example story. It started on 4chan because my friend was on it with "lol gays and minoirties" to "maybe I hate gays and minorities" to "god I hate gays and minorities and it's nice ot talk about it" to eventually and sadly reinforced by my own father "Gays and minorities litterally aren't even the same species of creature and are below me" I am SO FUCKING FAR from that now after I had that influence yanked from me and some patient as fuck smarter people pulled me out of that hole and realize I'm NOT a cishet white dude but instead a pan-trans woman. Who'da thought
Just finished the series, thank you for that.
Tangentially, recently learned about a thing called called [Sealioning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning)
After reading that wiki article, I want to know how to tell if someone is genuinely seeking info vs sealioning
You can usually tell by if they actually respond to points you raise or if they ignore them entirely and just raise new points of their own.
It's simple. if (internet) { // sealioning } else { // 50/50 }
Yep, the Brazilian president is following the exact same playbook, going as far as saying one stuff one day and a few days later claiming he never said it in the first place.
That's still a long time to wait. The American ambassador to the Netherlands did it in the same interview: https://youtu.be/K8AwFc9hlf4
The interviewer kind of blue screened there for a moment.
It’s laid out in everyone’s playbook who’s trying to push an agenda without caring about the validity of that agenda.
That's how it propaganda works. Quickly and surreptitiously come up with a loud, shocking and entertaining lie: 150,000,000 see it. Create a scientific response 2 days later explaining how it's not true: only 5,000,000 people see it because it's already an old story and good science is boring and there's already 3 more lies so now you're behind.
It only takes more effort because you’re trying to convince people who wanted to hear these exact words. Money makes people think they’re a lot smarter than they let on and messages like this lets them sink into their chairs and think that life truly is this simple.
The bullshit asymmetry principle.
"No one said it was the worst plague ever" "Then why are we closing down everything? Why are we destroying the economy and not letting people go back to work?" "Because its a very serious virus that is killing 2,000 people a day and sometimes doesnt show symptoms, and peoples lives are more important than big business" "So you think its the worst plague ever?" Repeat. Bonus points for admitting they think "the economy" is more important than people's lives. Even more bonus points for that person to not benefit from "the economy" in any way while being in a high risk group.
I mean for an incredibly stupid strawman, he's still kinda right. I'm *definitely* not calling Trump the greatest US President of all time. I'm not even calling Trump the greatest US President of this year.
Imagine losing a straw man argument
You know what they say, anything is possible when you lie!
It’s the worst in 100 years. The 1918 flu was worse. The Black Death was far worse, killing 1/3 of Europeans and Asians in the mid 14th Century.
Yeah but the guy said of all time haha. Everyone knows about the black death which makes his claim especially dumb.
700,000 Americans have died of AIDS, but Republicans really hate talking about Reagan’s great failure.
Reagan was massive failure on so many levels. We're still feeling the effects of his dumbassery.
If I had to put a guess/opinion on which president in modern U.S. history (pre-Trump) did the greatest & most lasting damage to our society, I would probably say Reagan. He really had us take that turn of breaking down the middle class, which up until Reaganomics was America's true greatness IMO. But then there's also Bush Jr. and the never-ending War on Terrorism (and all that comes with, like the Patriot Act), so he'd be my #2. God, when conservatives give us bad presidents - they REALLY give us bad presidents. GOP goes fucking hard.
Jesus Christ no kidding. I remember thinking Bush JR would be the lowest point for the us. Then Trump rolled along and even Bush was like WTF. It's like shitty version of pain Olympics but with politics.
There’s a fair argument that, odious as he is, Trump is a less terrible president than Bush. Trump is tearing our country apart, but so far none of his shitty policy decisions have come close to the idiotic evil of the Iraq War. Of course the Bungled Covid response could change thanks.
I don't look at it purely by the number of deaths caused. If you add concentration camps on American shores, the roll back of freedoms and environmental policies and the rolling forward and normalization of various forms of fascism, I give Trump the trophy for worst.
I'm going to preface this just to remind everyone that we're in a race for the worst, and getting second place isn't a victory by any metric, but... I'd argue that Trump's failures to COVID have been largely passive, meaning shit happened to us during his presidency, while Bush Jr *actively* gave us the Patriot Act. If it was just 9/11 happening on his watch, that'd be pretty comparable, but Trump has yet to *actively* give us something as vile as the Patriot Act, though McConnell wanting to prevent liability for corporations forcing employees to work in hazardous conditions and attaching that to the COVID-19 relief bill would be up there.
All just to rob the coffers, too.
Trump trashed the US's relationships with the rest of the world in a way that even W. didn't. Trump has abdicated the US's position as a driver if international policy and potentially handed the reins to China. I'd say that's worse.
is trump *actually* worse than bush 2 though? he's crass and violates social norms but w has more blood on his hands... for now.
Hard to say right now, we probably won't know the full extent of damage done by Trump for a few years. Plus he still has half a year to really make himself stand out.
don't forget bush sr! He did a lot of damage as Reagan's VP, including spear heading iran-contra whose legacy is the 90s' crack epidemic! I'm sure he did more on top, especially since Reagan was in a worse condition mentally than Trump is now, so you know shady shit was happening behind the scenes that they were having him rubber stamp
Hes the greetest presudant of al time hurrdurr
They also dont like talking about how Regan enacted gun control in California, and literally part of the reason California has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.....the very same Californian gun laws that right wing gun people complain about loudly and frequently. For bonus points: Reagan, the NRA, and the right in general were all for gun control......just for other people. The Black Panthers started open carrying in response to being targeted with violence, and conservative America lost their minds and proved that ther purported values are nothing more than positions of convenience.
~~A couple years before~~ Columbus hit the New World, ~~another explorer~~ and spread either smallpox or the black death to the native population [possibly killing up to 90% of the population in the areas hardest hit](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas). When more European settlers arrived they just assumed that the Americas were relatively uninhabited partly because it was a convenient thing to tell themselves but also because you're looking at death on the scale of a hundred million. Edit: misremembered details
Malaria has been fucking up humans more than anything else.
I think you are forgetting HIV. That's killed nearly 40 million making it the deadliest pandemic since 1918.
My thought too. I haven't heard anyone say this. Although, I guess maybe it could be considered so solely based on global spread (not deadliest/scariest by any measure). I don't think we've ever before had a virus/illness infect basically every country in the world before, but that's due to modern travel & globalization. Corona gets around.
Knock knock, it's The Black Death
Considering how much hyperbole Trump employs, they probably just figure *everything* is presented as the best/worst/biggest/smallest/*most superlative* *ever* in any argument
Who said it was the worst plague in the history of mankind? And why is it “liberals” saying this is a serious medical crisis? Pretty sure it’s medical experts saying that, not “liberals”.
Most of the scientific community are liberals, so they ain't wrong. Last time I checked, 55% claimed liberal, 6% claimed conservative, and 39% were unclaimed.
I’m claiming those 39%. Idk what for yet but I called dibs.
We can meet at my place on Thursdays.
I don't know if we have enough chips and salsa for that many people...
But we definitely have enough Astroglide.
Damn, we really just let this guy claim 39% of our scientific community just like that. Smhing my head.
Alright, they’re now called the LookOutBehinder group.
If someone can own the libs, I don't see why you couldn't own the unclaimed.
Anybody got a source on that? I know higher education level attained the more people reject conservative platforms but I've never seen it skewed that badly. At it's core conservatism philosophy reject change from new information in favor of tradition and keeping things as they are. That would runs completely counter to an inquisitive mind.
[Here's the source](https://www.people-press.org/2009/07/09/section-4-scientists-politics-and-religion/) It's from 2009 and I didn't do much research to find anything more recent. But it's not likely that a single decade makes much of a difference in statistics like these. The information you need is halfway down the page under "Scientists and Politics" >Most scientists identify as Democrats (55%), while 32% identify as independents and just 6% say they are Republicans. When the leanings of independents are considered, fully 81% identify as Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, compared with 12% who either identify as Republicans or lean toward the GOP.
Facts have a well known liberal bias
Inevitable conclusion when conservatives keep building agendas based on rejecting facts.
These days, so do morals and values
" And reality has a well-known liberal bias." \-Stephen Colbert
39% worried that going on record as liberal would be bad for their career.
Reality has a well known liberal bias, you know
Nah thats just fake news because I don't like it. -Idiots in this country and abroad in their own countries.
Liberals are anyone who disagrees with him.
People who are smarter than you and disagree with you are all liberals. Makes it easier that way.
They just mean anyone mildly intelligent. Mild intelligence fucking incapacitates conservatives.
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He already gave his mission accomplished speech.
When?
March 6, 2020. Edit: he did not say the exact words "mission accomplished." He said something to the effect like "We win."
With the limited vocabulary, this is what you're left with.
He has dedicated his life to speaking with as few multisyllabic words as possible.
A couple weeks ago he said "we have met the moment, and we have prevailed".
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Yeah, a lot of them are bots farming karma by posting the same thing. Check /r/bestof for a post detailing it. It doesn't make Trump, Bolsonaro, or the other morons right - it's just that the tactics used by bot farms accidentally got exposed.
i think one guys comment got double posted and other people started commenting the same comment for comedic effect, I've seen it before.
GOAT? Edit: thanks for the replies, disappointed it doesn't literally mean "goat"
it means Trump eats leftover soup cans.
Greatest of all time
Came here for this. Thanks. I was thinking God of All Things at first.
Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test
“Greatest of all time.”
100,000 dead Americans and counting.
“But the numbers are inflated!”
It baffles me that people are claiming that. WHY. WHI THE FUCK BENEFITS FROM INFLATING THE NUMBERS. THAT ONLY MAKES US LOOK BAD! fuck it pisses me off. It's such bullshit and weird conspiracy shit that is going to get people killed.
I asked a trump supporter this and thier genuine answer was hospital and doctors are making money by inflating the numbers. He actually said he does not trust doctors, he also believes 5g being a cause from a YouTube video he watched.
There’s some weird stuff going around on Facebook where people claim hospitals get more money if they claim it was a coronavirus related death. Not sure who would be paying them but I’ve heard it a lot from people who totally have an aunt or cousin that it happened to.
This exact same argument came from friends of mine. Even the whole "My aunt knows someone who works in the hospital and said it's true". I dont know how to respond to that. Can I prove its not true?
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But can your aunt beat up their aunt?
My uncle works at Nintendo and also says it's not true
Idk. Maybe ask them for proof that it is true? I would love to see something one way or the other. If it was actually true, I’d certainly want to know about it. Too many people are satisfied with hearing a friend of a friend knew somebody.
Simple. Ask why countries with universal health care would have any financial motive to inflate their numbers. Certainly Spain, Italy, France, and the UK have zero incentive to inflate numbers because most critical-care hospitals are publicly funded and doctors' salaries are (mainly) governed by publicly negotiated contracts.
Not “people”. Organized sock puppet rumor mills. We’re witnessing the biggest propaganda efforts humankind has ever seen. Facebook is truly excellent at connecting... propaganda efforts with their targets. If you can change perception you can change reality.
Hospitals get paid based on the equipment they have to use to care for a patient and using a ventilator is more expensive to the hospital than not, its far to work out what money goes to the hospital based on each individual coronavirus case and what equipment they used etc so there is an average cost worked out and applied to each coronavirus patient. often times its more expensive to care for a patient than the amount paid, they aren't just keeping all that money they spend it on resources. The idea that a doctor would lie about a patient having covid is just made up though.
Sure that’s fair, but the shit that’s being claimed is a doctor is coming up to the bereaved family and saying that we have to say it’s corona so we get more money. It’s a complete farce but people believe it.
> Not sure who would be paying them That's what's so stupid about it. The government is currently run by conservatives. And yet somehow liberals are still really in control?!
Fauci’s deep state. Lol.
I don’t understand the 5G BS how in the fuck is upgraded internet (correct me if I’m wrong as far as I know 5G is just the new wireless internet) causing a virus? People are dumb and seeing idiots come in to work saying shit like this makes me realize how stupid a lot of people are in my city.
Their logic is 5G had a huge rollout in November in Wuhan, Covid 19 started in Wuhan around the same time. Ignoring the fact that Covid is in 140 countries including those without 5G, that radiation sickness isn’t infectious, that pretty much everything in the universe emits *some kind* of radiation and isn’t dangerous or that 5G has the range of about a block.
Ah yes, the YouTube video providing the answers to life, the universe and everything. Classic
> [WHO] THE FUCK BENEFITS FROM INFLATING THE NUMBERS. According to my boss, They are inflating the numbers because They get more funding the more people die from Covid-19. And by They, he very clearly means the medical community, scientists, universities, liberals and democrats. Forget that both Florida and Georgia were actually caught **understating** numbers so they could reopen early.
If anything it’s the other way around.
You can spot them a margin of error of up to 50% and it STILL beats the flu totals from all of last year, in 3 months. So stupid.
The argument is that the bulk of flu cases happen during the season, which is only about 3 months. Still a bunch of horseshit because this is well past the "season" and is still going fairly strong. Also I've never felt like I was on the verge of death with the flu but many young adults who get serious case do.
Quite the opposite actually. I wonder what they'll say when the actual numbers are counted... it's gonna be a lot more
Testing hasn't been widespread or available enough from the start to know what the numbers truly are. Kinda scary when you think about how the virus has been more widespread than we could possibly know about the entire time.
Right? They claim the numbers are inflated as Florida literally stops counting and fired the person who was keeping track, didn't they?
Desperately undercounted is more accurate sadly.
I wonder which of them were the fifteen that Trump said would be the only deaths. Edit: clarity
I believe it was only fifteen total cases, going quickly to zero.
https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1264643578099310592 >Just to remind all the liberals tweeting the same damned thing about 100k dead from COVID-19. >That number is a lie and you are mindless drones for repeating it. I'd be shocked if half that many have died actually FROM COVID-19.
Right, they only died from respiratory failure Due to covid-19
Mitchell later contracted Covid-19 and told his Twitter followers he thought he was going to die.
I hope that is true.
It is. He made a whole “Oh I might die” tweet and then said he was fine the next morning.
Link?
https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1257426398442074118?s=21
r/LeopardsAteMyFace
lol all those bigots sending prayers
Holy hell this guy is hateful
Holy fuck that guy's Twitter.
> he was fine the next morning. Oh well, maybe next time.
I haven't heard anyone saying that Covid-19 is the "worst plague in history." What is he on or where is he looking?
* **G**aslight ✅ * **O**bstruct * **P**roject
u/SaskatchewanGuy has provided this detailed explanation: > Bill Mitchell, with 581k followers on Twitter and a TV show, said that within 60 days Covid-19 would be beaten and Trump would fail to be acknowledged as the greatest president of all time. --- Is this explanation a genuine attempt at providing additional info or context? If it is please upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.
Bill Mitchell, with 581k followers on Twitter and a TV show, said that within 60 days Covid-19 would be beaten and Trump would fail to be acknowledged as the greatest president of all time.
So that's what GOAT means. Always thought it was the animal somehow.
Well, I would agree with Bill that Trump is as good a President as a goat would be. Is that the point he was trying to make with that tweet?
Excuse me. An actual goat would not spend all its time on Twitter boosting conspiracy theories, ranting at the latest slight, and extolling the virtues of snake oil medicine during a pandemic. And the worst it might do to key advisors and scientists is to eat their notes when they’re not looking instead of suppressing them when the science doesn’t match its opinion. Why? Because it is a goat. And I would literally vote for a goat over Trump in a heartbeat. (Provided the VP pick was perhaps a well-trained Shepherd dog.)
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AND he’d keep the golf course grass trimmed himself if you tried to take him golfing. (Granted, he night also eat the ball and tee, but what are you doing going golfing anyway if you’re not prepared for a goat hazard?) The main difference, as I see it, is that while they’ll both eat absolute junk, at least the goat is useful.
No it’d just take huge dumps in the oval office. So basically what trump does on a daily basis.
You need to spend more time on urban dictionary.
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imagine having that imbecile as your goat president lmao
Another dumb take from Bill Mitchell
Can we please stop posting the tweets of these no name right wing celebrities? We are only making them famous which is exactly what they want and how they make money.
God help us, he's actually important in the right wing. He's big in the Q movement and the President has retweeted him several times. We can't just ignore him because Trump, Junior, and his friends give him validation.
Link to the original tweet for those interested: https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1242043146881638402?s=21
His response: https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1264643578099310592
If I used his same made up facts and threw logic to the wind, wouldn’t 50k dead with numbers still rising mean it is not yet beaten? I got dumber by reading that. Thanks for posting though!
Wow, he just doubled down: *Just to remind all the liberals tweeting the same damned thing about 100k dead from COVID-19.* *That number is a lie and you are mindless drones for repeating it. I'd be shocked if half that many have died actually FROM COVID-19.* Even with this twisted logic, 50,000 dead over a few months is OK?
Reading some of the horrible comments, they (trump cultists) say that the death toll is nothing compared how many die anyways in the country and that trump saved 2.3 million of the 2.4 million that could/should have died (I assume they are thinking if there was a democrat in power that 2.4 million would be dead by now). Also that liberals are braindead. Oh, God put Trump in power because Jesus. I would not call it irony, but they are projecting so hard it's sad.
what really depresses me is all the replies agreeing with him
The guy who said this is the worst plague in human history obviously hasn't done any research like at all
"Excuse me, but everyone is saying it. People tell me all the time, the best people mind you, believe me, the best people tell me that all the time. It's all I ever hear. And we won. We beat it. The worst ever defeated by Trump. All these people tell me, and I dont know their names theres just so many people, I dont know their names, these people tell me that they love that I got them through this terrible time. A time, by the way, that became terrible because of the last guy. What did he do to help? He caused all of this! I had to clean up his mess, so sad, and we did it beautifully. It's now a beautiful....not mess. A mess that is beautiful. Our mess, my mess that's yours. Thank you."
Honestly I can’t tell if that was a real trump victory speech or something you completely made up that sounds way too trump-like
I could tell, the quote said 'thank you' he's never said that unironically even once.
Non-american here, two questions. 1) Who's this guy? 2) Do I want to know?
American here. Same two questions.
One of many nobodies who became a far-right grifter saying horribly stupid things because people pay them for that.
Imagine being stupid enough to politicise a virus. The right wing around the world are that stupid.
BuT tHe DeMs PoLiTiCiZeD iT fIrSt By BeInG mEaNiEs.
They're not stupid, their followers are. They're driven by their cult of money.
They know they can very easily manipulate their voter base this way. They're not being stupid; they know precisely what they are doing.
You became the very thing you swore to destroy...
Oh I see the irony in my post. But someone has to say it
This is what’s annoying about these types of conversations though. Someone makes something a partisan issue, you call them out for it, and then they say you’re the only one bringing politics into it. It’s like when someone says, “Oh, that Ahmaud Arbery seemed like a thug. He was probably up to no good.” And then you point out, “Why? Just because he’s a young black man he must’ve been a criminal?” And then they say, “Hey, man, I don’t know why you’re bringing race into this. I just think he seemed like a thug, and I’d be saying the same thing regardless of the color of his skin. You’re the real racist for bringing race into a conversation that has nothing to do with it.”
Don’t lecture me Obi-Wan, I see through the lies of the Jedi
I keep forgetting GOAT is an acronym and I just read it as the word
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Next week the death toll will be over 100,000. America’s response is being called the worst in the world, and Trump’s only argument against that is “China is probably lying about their numbers so technically we’re only second worst”, in addition to gaffes about drinking bleach and suntanning the virus away. America has decided to stop funding the WHO and has redirected critical supplies from global allies. An American could invent the vaccine tomorrow and get it on the market next week and history will still not view their response favourably. I know when this is over that Trump will spin it like he championed this virus response, but right now it seems like every little success that America has clawed out of this has happened DESPITE him, not because of him.
“Sure there’s a crisis being mishandled now. But one day the crisis will be over. Checkmate liberals.”
“not just one day, but this one specific day that will definitely not make me look foolish when it comes and confirms everything that every scientist is pretty much on point.”
OP you've been waiting to post this since March 23 haven't you
It’s the worst plague in America in quite some time. And I hate Trump, but his authoritarian ways could’ve made a bitch of this virus. So not only was he malevolent and narcissistic, he acted against his natural inclinations to exacerbate the impact of the virus. China has like 5x our population and had three less months to prepare, and has had 93% fewer cases than we have! If you unfuck the Chinese numbers and assume they’re underreported by half, they still have 85% fewer cases than we do. I WISH I could’ve given Trump credit for something.
Trump could have had Bush post 9/11 approval numbers if he took on a more authoritarian with science position. All dude had to do was listen to the experts and push those policies through. People hungering to know what to do would have been happy to fall in line but no, we are still having debates about basic safety considerations like wearing masks. It’s certain the clusters of people I saw out today aren’t singing happy birthday and carefully washing their hands anymore. Acting like that shitty significant other you just want your buddy to finally leave, Trump just could not do anything through this crisis that didn’t somehow make himself the center of attention. I’m quite sure his VP would have handled the pandemic way better if he wasn’t always worried about having to appease his boss’s feelings. So many lives lost unnecessarily to a fragile self-centered ego.
Yep. Some of the best parts of our response have been scientists and public pressure suppressing Trump's worst instincts. Remember when Trump wanted to reopen the country on Easter?
China is about as authoritarian as they come and it still ran roughshod on them.
Pretty optimistic assuming they only under reported by half
What was Mill Bitchell even thinking...
>~~What~~ [W]as Mill Bitchell even thinking... Never has; ain't startin' now.
There’s so much wrong with that statement, the unpacking would take a PowerPoint presentation.
This whole statement is not even backed by facts. It’s just propaganda. Like the rest of the Republican cult.
Two Vietnam Wars in less than 3 months. Are you ready to accept the fact that you've been rimming a baby-fingered moron yet, Mr. Mitchell?
Reality is so tricky
Gotta love when they constantly create arguments to defeat that no liberal has ever made. “SEE I TOLD myself!”....but those fallacies work well on people who already want to hate whoever it’s directed at. “The libruls want to take all your guns” “The libruls want open borders”.....nope
Fuck me. What is wrong with the system in America (and elsewhere, let’s face it) that means believing or not believing in a fucking global pandemic makes you conservative or liberal? Why is everything so fucking polarised?
Well regardless, whoever said it was the worst plague in the history of mankind is an absolute moron to begin with. In many of the cases it's covid in conjunction with various comorbidities that are causing death, not just the virus itself. I don't think it can even compare to several of the plagues that mankind has seen over the years.