Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 288: Ventilators! Mount Up

(+) Yeah! (+)

red sox 777 posted...

As far as getting himself elected, yeah, he failed. But so has every far left politician in a First World country, ever. The problem is not with the candidate, it's with the ideas. People don't want socialism.

100% this. i'm sure there are things bernie could have done better but considering how incredibly fucking tough it is to sell socialism (particularly to americans, who don't have a long-time socialist tradition at all), i'd say he did pretty damn good.

the opposite applies to trump, btw. people really overestimate his persuasion skills and underestimate how much tons of people in the US just ate up the shit he was saying ("WE'RE GONNA BUILD THE WALL AND MAKE MEXICO PAY FOR IT").

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Mr Lasastryke posted...

100% this. i'm sure there are things bernie could have done better but considering how incredibly fucking tough it is to sell socialism (particularly to americans, who don't have a long-time socialist tradition at all), i'd say he did pretty damn good.

Bernie isn't actually selling socialism, though. He himself is a socialist but most of his policies are typical social welfare democratic shit that's part of non-socialist platforms of foreign parties. He TALKS a big game about socialism and revolution and all that but what he's really trying to do is reform our current system by working within it and winning elections. And for each young person inspired by his radical rhetoric there's an old or two that get turned off.

And his policies are still popular with people who aren't voting for him. Policy is not really the issue here.

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Inviso posted...

See, this is where I take issue. There's zero introspection. 2016, it was all about "the DNC rigged it against Bernie because it was HER turn". And now it's all the DNC's fault for being stupid and wanting to play "safe". There's no self-reflection about the possibility that Bernie specifically might be the problem.

Inviso posted...

It just seems to me that, while it might feel good to run a candidate who promises to destroy a broken system, that sort of mentality alienates a solid portion of the electorate and makes them feel less comfortable voting for someone whose ideas they might somewhat agree with. It also doesn't help when a lot of vocal supporters openly s*** on the demographics that turn out in larger numbers for Democrats.

It kills me that you would say both of these things when Donald friggin Trump is our President.

Also I dont know how you can claim Bernie is the problem when he consistently polls WAY WAY higher than Biden on likability and trust.

Biden is winning 100% because when Bernie was ahead, the media and Demcrat talking heads talked about how scared they were, while when Biden leads they just talk about how hes going to become President.

This is the reality. Democrats were sooooo sooo willing to blame the media for Trumps win, but somehow Biden is only winning because Bernie bad.


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Also @LordoftheMorons , you dont get to ignore the videos posted every single day of Joe not knowing whats going on and then call me a concern troll after you refused to accept three separate doctors reports on Bernies health.

As far as I know, Biden hasnt had a single cognitive function test. Ronald Reagan was called senile for the same things Joes doing, and he literally ended up having Alzheimers.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Bernie isn't actually selling socialism, though. He himself is a socialist but most of his policies are typical social welfare democratic shit that's part of non-socialist platforms of foreign parties. He TALKS a big game about socialism and revolution and all that but what he's really trying to do is reform our current system by working within it and winning elections. And for each young person inspired by his radical rhetoric there's an old or two that get turned off.

And his policies are still popular with people who aren't voting for him. Policy is not really the issue here.

the fact that he openly describes himself as a socialist already turns off 50% of people who otherwise may potentially have voted for him.

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I GET that the DNC fucked up and continue to fuck up, Tony. You think I'm HAPPY about Biden being the presumptive nominee? The guy was second-lowest out of like, 20 candidates when I took that "whose views do you share the most" test last year. But there has been this constant narrative (and you've been one of the loudest voices spouting it) since 2016 that the DNC did everything wrong and Hillary Clinton did everything wrong and everyone is blaming Bernie because they don't want to admit they did anything wrong, and you've essentially absolved yourself of ANY introspection as you the fact that maybe JUST maybe, the progressive side of the debate has had some faults that led us into our current situation as well.

You cite that Bernie is considered extremely likable and extremely trustworthy, but you know who else was extremely likable before they were in contention to be president? Hillary Clinton. Joe Biden. And you know what's interesting? How is it that, despite being SO likable and trustworthy, Bernie has been unable to get over the hump TWICE now? You say it's the media's fault, but the media was largely in the tank for Hillary and a vicious, bitter narcissist was able to beat her in 2016. And Obama was a junior senator with what, two years of Washington experience under his belt when he beat Hillary in 2008. At what point do you MAYBE consider that MAYBE there's some other reason as to why Bernie just can't seem to get it done, other than "EVERYONE IS AGAINST US AND THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS RIGGED AGAINST US".

Biden is winning because the VAST majority of this country is conservative (I'm including both the Republicans and the moderate wing of the Democratic Party), and he appeals to those sensibilities with boring rational issues, whereas Bernie does not, and has made no effort to really appeal to the center (who are the majority of voters in the Democratic primary). The reason Bernie dominated early on? Two extremely WHITE primaries in a row, while the moderate wing of the part was still fielding like, half a dozen candidates. Then once a moderate (Biden) had an exceptional showing, that wing coalesced into the singular majority they always were.

Again, your attitude throughout this whole process has been extremely frustrating to deal with. Because you're ALWAYS right and you're ALWAYS morally superior and your side could not POSSIBLY have done anything wrong to lose two primaries, and one (possibly two) presidential elections.

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Honestly, if you want to talk about Socialism (not the economic system, just the American government does things definition), theres really never been a better time for it.

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Inviso posted...

You cite that Bernie is considered extremely likable and extremely trustworthy, but you know who else was extremely likable before they were in contention to be president? Hillary Clinton. Joe Biden. And you know what's interesting? How is it that, despite being SO likable and trustworthy, Bernie has been unable to get over the hump TWICE now? You say it's the media's fault, but the media was largely in the tank for Hillary and a vicious, bitter narcissist was able to beat her in 2016. And Obama was a junior senator with what, two years of Washington experience under his belt when he beat Hillary in 2008. At what point do you MAYBE consider that MAYBE there's some other reason as to why Bernie just can't seem to get it done, other than "EVERYONE IS AGAINST US AND THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS RIGGED AGAINST US".

Its clearly both, dude.

I literally have never said Bernie ran a perfect campaign, and I feel like Im constantly repeating myself saying this.

Inviso posted...

Biden is winning because the VAST majority of this country is conservative (I'm including both the Republicans and the moderate wing of the Democratic Party), and he appeals to those sensibilities with boring rational issues, whereas Bernie does not, and has made no effort to really appeal to the center (who are the majority of voters in the Democratic primary). The reason Bernie dominated early on? Two extremely WHITE primaries in a row, while the moderate wing of the part was still fielding like, half a dozen candidates. Then once a moderate (Biden) had an exceptional showing, that wing coalesced into the singular majority they always were.

Youre undercutting your argument here. If the majority of the Democratic Party is moderate conservative, literally nothing Bernie or any Progressive could ever do would be enough.

Youre saying that the way Bernie could have run a winning campaign is to literally not do what gets Bernie his rock-solid base?

Hillary had the media love, but so did Trump. He dominated (and frankly, still dominates) the media coverage.

Its why his approval is going up during this pandemic, because hes constantly on TV while Joe leaves his hyperbaric chamber for like an hour a day.

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"Poor me. Nothing we ever do will ever be good enough, so I'll just whine and complain about how unfair everything is. Wah."

If the majority of the party is conservative, then you need to find a way to fucking appeal to them as progressives. You can't just complain about how old people are stupid and hate the young and dig your heels in with a candidate who refuses to play nice with his fellow politicians or make any sort of compromise whatsoever. Why should a conservative voter ever want to support a progressive candidate when that candidate makes zero effort to appeal to them personally? We've seen polling where Bernie's IDEAS are super popular, yet when it comes time to vote, he LOSES. So MAYBE JUST FUCKING MAYBE there's SOMETHING SPECIFIC about Bernie that, if you would be even REMOTELY interested in actually winning and election and pushing the ideals you claim to give a shit about, you could examine in order to find a way to FIX IT.

Meanwhile, the CONSTANT shitting on Biden when he's the presumptive nominee? Yeah, that's really fucking helpful. EITHER you think Bernie's goose is cooked, in which case you are actively trying to sabotage the progressive agenda by attacking the only one of the two presidential candidates who might ACTUALLY implement some of that agenda under his presidency. OR you think Bernie can in, in which case I find it odd how often you say 'We all know Trump sucks! Being 'not Trump' isn't a winning strategy! You have to inspire the people!' Only to spend so much effort posting every instance you can find of Biden being old and senile, and only occasionally mentioning that Bernie does livestreams (which again, not exactly the way to appeal to older voters).

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Inviso posted...

If the majority of the party is conservative, then you need to find a way to fucking appeal to them as progressives. You can't just complain about how old people are stupid and hate the young and dig your heels in with a candidate who refuses to play nice with his fellow politicians or make any sort of compromise whatsoever. Why should a conservative voter ever want to support a progressive candidate when that candidate makes zero effort to appeal to them personally?

ok so you want bernie to be tulsi?

spoilers: that doesn't work either.

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Mr Lasastryke posted...

ok so you want bernie to be tulsi?

spoilers: that doesn't work either.

Tulsi was never a progressive. She just tricked progressives into thinking she was with them by endorsing Bernie over Hillary in 2016 and acting like being anti-war was some weird, rebel stance among the Democratic Party.

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tulsi is in favor of UBI. you can't get too much more progressive than that!

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Inviso posted...

Why should a conservative voter ever want to support a progressive candidate when that candidate makes zero effort to appeal to them personally? We've seen polling where Bernie's IDEAS are super popular, yet when it comes time to vote, he LOSES. So MAYBE JUST f***ING MAYBE there's SOMETHING SPECIFIC about Bernie that, if you would be even REMOTELY interested in actually winning and election and pushing the ideals you claim to give a s*** about, you could examine in order to find a way to FIX IT.

Take this exact argument and apply it to the < 40 voters that Biden loses overwhelmingly. I hope theres enough old people to overcome it this time!

This has always been the entire problem, the Moderate base demands Progressives come to them, meanwhile the Republican Party fell in line with Trumps extremism and fucking won the election.

But seriously, why do you keep implying I think Bernies campaign has been perfect? My god, how many times do I have to say it?

I wish Bernie would have started counter-punching as soon as he started getting attacked.

I think he left too much ambiguity with the Warren no woman can win thing.

I wish he would have stopped saying his opponents were electable, because they havent done the same for him.

I wish that he was able to get more indignant when Dems attack him in unwoke ways (I think all the attacks about him being an angry white man could easily have been called out as anti-semetic.

I wish he didnt just drop into his stump speech so often and would start throwing some more emotional anecdotes in.

I wish he responded with more hard numbers when people lied that hes bad for women or LGBT people (even though hes winning those demographicsthe Biden base somehow thinks it!)

Plenty more, but this list is getting long.

Inviso posted...

Tulsi was never a progressive. She just tricked progressives into thinking she was with them by endorsing Bernie over Hillary in 2016 and acting like being anti-war was some weird, rebel stance among the Democratic Party.

I mean...it really is.

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https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-trump-says-he-might-help-millions-of-uninsured-americans-2020-4

If he does this, Joe Biden is done before hes even begun.

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i'm also skeptical of the "well bernie's ideas were popular in polls so that must mean americans really like them!" reasoning tbqh. it's easy enough to say "oh sure i agree with this" in a poll - in a poll you can say whatever you want and it doesn't mean anything. voting actually has real life consequences.

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lmao you think Mitch is gonna let him do that

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LordoftheMorons posted...

lmao you think Mitch is gonna let him do that

If Mitch wants to win every election on the ballot in 2020, sure.

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https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1245828122022469633

Contrast to how war criminal Eddie Gallagher was treated

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-trump-says-he-might-help-millions-of-uninsured-americans-2020-4

If he does this, Joe Biden is done before hes even begun.

That is where he shotgunned Pence in the back. Then he made that reporter look silly when she asked if he was committing to that. Lol

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I wish Bernie would have started counter-punching as soon as he started getting attacked.

I think he left too much ambiguity with the Warren no woman can win thing.

I wish he would have stopped saying his opponents were electable, because they havent done the same for him.

I wish that he was able to get more indignant when Dems attack him in unwoke ways (I think all the attacks about him being an angry white man could easily have been called out as anti-semetic.

I wish he didnt just drop into his stump speech so often and would start throwing some more emotional anecdotes in.

I wish he responded with more hard numbers when people lied that hes bad for women or LGBT people (even though hes winning those demographicsthe Biden base somehow thinks it!)

Plenty more, but this list is getting long.

I agree with some of these but aside from the stump speech and maybe more hard numbers I don't think any of it actually gets him votes with people he needs to get votes from, and that's kind of the problem.

Also I feel obligated to point out that being an old white dude and being Jewish is not mutually exclusive just like how you can be black and Jewish. And Bernie refers to himself as an old white dude so I really don't think that was ever a battle he had any interest in fighting.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

lmao you think Mitch is gonna let him do that

You underestimate the power of the Dark Side.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1245828122022469633

Contrast to how war criminal Eddie Gallagher was treated

I mean, you don't know the details for why he was fired.

For all you know, he was fired for breaking protocols which led to the virus turning up on the ship.

Jump to conclusions mat is probably really popular where you reside eh?

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Corrik7 posted...

I mean, you don't know the details for why he was fired.

For all you know, he was fired for breaking protocols which led to the virus turning up on the ship.

Jump to conclusions mat is probably really popular where you reside eh?

No, it sounds like it was because he let the story get out:
https://twitter.com/SeanDNaylor/status/1245829249686069248

Given how the Trump admin has been handling the crisis, the story getting out probably saved the lives of some of his men.

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Trump and Pence said they are looking at all Coronavirus billing from uninsured being billed to the white house to be paid.

I don't think they know how astronomical an amount of money that would be. Lol.

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Corrik7 posted...

Trump and Pence said they are looking at all Coronavirus billing from uninsured being billed to the white house to be paid.

I don't think they know how astronomical an amount of money that would be. Lol.

Congress can throw around $2 trillion like it's nothing, so I think that's fine. As a rough estimate, I figured 2 million people are hospitalized for an average of 10 days at a cost of $20k per day - that comes out to $400 billion.

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https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1245852517474295809
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1245847307234525185

The buck has been shot into the sun

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red sox 777 posted...

Congress can throw around $2 trillion like it's nothing, so I think that's fine. As a rough estimate, I figured 2 million people are hospitalized for an average of 10 days at a cost of $20k per day - that comes out to $400 billion.

I think they said they were gonna take it out of the 100 billion for hospitals funding as of now.

At least that was the plan as of now.

But, um, ICU care for up to 4 weeks has to be almost 200-500k a pop.

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Corrik7 posted...

I think they said they were gonna take it out of the 100 billion for hospitals funding as of now.

At least that was the plan as of now.

But, um, ICU care for up to 4 weeks has to be almost 200-500k a pop.

There are probably economies of scale here. As in, how much does it cost to put the 10th person in ICU on a ventilator? The overhead is very high but the per person treatment cost on the hospital side is not going to be very high when the treatment is mostly stuff that doesn't need to be performed by doctors and isn't labor intensive.

If the hospitals insist on charging their regular rates, which would give them a windfall, Trump just won't pay. I mean his normal business practice is already to not pay, and here he'll get away with it because of scale. It's not in any hospital's interests to refuse the country's business, even without any political or humanitarian considerations.

And this also why we should strongly consider single payer.

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Take credit for the good, deflect and blame for the bad. A tale as old as time.

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https://twitter.com/anacabrera/status/1245688101390954498?s=21

SephG please stop
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LordoftheMorons posted...

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1245852517474295809
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1245847307234525185

The buck has been shot into the sun

If the Federal Stockpile isn't supposed to go to states, who IS it supposed to go to? Who's left?

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

If the Federal Stockpile isn't supposed to go to states, who IS it supposed to go to? Who's left?

I think I know what he means, but he said it badly.

The federal stockpile is generally for federal use (military, wars, crisis, etc).

Now, I get you are going to say if this isn't a crisis what is. And, sure, it is.

However, what he seems to be saying is... States shouldn't be skimping on their own stockpiles because they can just rely on the federal stockpile to skimp on costs within their state. Some states shouldn't be spending whatever amount of money on a stockpile while your state skates by and just uses the federal stockpile as if it is their own.

Now, it's bad messaging and a bit silly right now, though probably right at the heart of it.

We don't have say Minnesota not stockpiling salt for winter while every other state does because they say "fuck it. We will save money and use the federal stockpile".

That's what he means. But, it's bad messaging and dumb because nobody could have thought to stockpile as much as this requires. Which is the same reason people expecting the federal stockpile to magically snap it's fingers and have all the stuff is silly as well.

The same shortage federally is kind of expected state by state. They should have been relating their shortages at the state level to theirs at the federal level as a sad reality. Instead, they failed to make the connection


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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

If the Federal Stockpile isn't supposed to go to states, who IS it supposed to go to? Who's left?

Obviously DC and Puerto Rico should get all of it. There has to be some kind of upside to non-statehood, right?
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It's right that the federal stockpile is not meant to provide all of the PPE we need to get through a crisis of this magnitude, but it does need to be used to get the states through this period until production can be ramped up. And it is absolutely the federal government's role to be ensuring that PPE is being made in sufficient quantities now and to handle procurement and distribution so that 50 states aren't getting into a bidding war over the same masks and ventilators (and to ensure that there aren't millions of masks sitting in a closet in one city while doctors are reusing a single mask for a week in another).

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I trust Trump is doing as good a job as could be realistically done here. We need someone with vision and out of the box thinking at a time like this. Hillary would focus on not making "mistakes" that could been seen as such and would miss decisive but creative actions that were needed.

For instance Hillary wouldn't suggest single payer healthcare as a solution. She wouldn't have closed the border early. It would have been a disaster.

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And Biden would be doing nothing at all. Biden of 10 years ago would have probably acted similar to how Hillary would - no vision, no strategy - but Biden of today would not be able to do much of anything.

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red sox 777 posted...

I trust Trump is doing as good a job as could be realistically done here. We need someone with vision and out of the box thinking at a time like this. Hillary would focus on not making "mistakes" that could been seen as such and would miss decisive but creative actions that were needed.

For instance Hillary wouldn't suggest single payer healthcare as a solution. She wouldn't have closed the border early. It would have been a disaster.

Hillary wouldn't have fucked up the testing or PPE situations.

red sox 777 posted...

And Biden would be doing nothing at all. Biden of 10 years ago would have probably acted similar to how Hillary would - no vision, no strategy - but Biden of today would not be able to do much of anything.

Biden was calling for action back in January:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/01/27/coronavirus-donald-trump-made-us-less-prepared-joe-biden-column/4581710002/

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https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/1245855323966980096

I don't think this is the criteria by which Trump should be hoping he's being evaluated!

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Hillary screwed up Benghazi, Iraq, Iran, HillaryCare, and setting up an email server. What makes you think her response would be the least bit effective here?

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From the Biden opinion piece:

He called President Barack Obama a dope and incompetent and railed against the evidence-based response our administration put in place which quelled the crisis and saved hundreds of thousands of lives in favor of reactionary travel bans that would only have made things worse.

So Biden would not have put in a travel ban in January. We would have been utterly overwhelmed as our hospitals hit maximum capacity before we could blink, even while the arguments about the thing being a hoax were still going. Trump has probably saved tens of thousands of lives.

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Trump did basically nothing with that time he bought. Had he not put in place the travel restrictions it would have just shifted what were currently experiencing forward a bit without much of a change in outcome. It could have been helpful, but not on its own.

i.e. buying time is only useful if you actually do something with it.

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And can you imagine if a Democrat had ordered everyone to stay at home? We would had mass protests in the streets the next day. Like Mardi Gras, but repeated across every city in the country. And then, the deluge of virus cases.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Trump did basically nothing with that time he bought. Had he not put in place the travel restrictions it would have just shifted what were currently experiencing forward a bit without much of a change in outcome. It could have been helpful, but not on its own.

i.e. buying time is only useful if you actually do something with it.

What the time bought us was that we got to see what happened in Italy. California and Washington, for instance, saw what was happening in Italy and were able to take precautions early enough to flatten the curve a lot. New York and New Jersey are about half the cases in the country and less than 10% of the population.

Without those 6 weeks we get socked much worse and more of the country hits the peak at the same time causing us to run out of resources.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Hillary wouldn't have fucked up the testing or PPE situations.

Damn, Hillary wouldn't have used the CDC? That's a bold as fuck claim there!

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Corrik7 posted...

Damn, Hillary wouldn't have used the CDC? That's a bold as fuck claim there!

Political appointments at the CDC and FDA would have been more competent, and vitally Hillary (or Obama, or Romney, or *insert normal president here*) would have been constantly on the CDC about the testing situation and approval of privately developed tests instead of sending signals that this was a political problem and that the numbers should be low.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Political appointments at the CDC and FDA would have been more competent, and vitally Hillary (or Obama, or Romney, or *insert normal president here*) would have been constantly on the CDC about the testing situation and approval of privately developed tests instead of sending signals that this was a political problem and that the numbers should be low.

Obama maybe. Trump is very motivated to do a good job because he believes that his reelection depends on it. I don't think Hillary even believes that voters evaluate presidential job performance, she thinks voters are basically all manipulable bots who can be bought with lots of money to run ads and a ground game. So I doubt it.

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Anyone know what this refers to?

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-usa-3m-idUSW1N2B903Y

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Corrik7 posted...

Anyone know what this refers to?

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-usa-3m-idUSW1N2B903Y

Going to guess they were price gouging with their masks.

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Apparently selling to foreign governments.

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