Not to alarm anyone too much... but just returned from the store and toilet paper stock looked alarmingly low once again, so if you don't want to lick yourself clean like a cat better go grab some.
And Trump's just announced that he's tested positive, as has his wife. Tweet— Twitter API (@user) date Wonder if he passed it to Biden during the debate - wouldn't it be peak 2020 if both presidential candidates dropped dead before the election? I mean, assuming it's true... Tweet— Twitter API (@user) date
If it's fake, it seems.. A risky gamble. To play up a virus/pandemic that you've so thoroughly mismanaged for sympathy and to avoid debates, I mean. If it's real, I wonder how that bloated wotsit is going to cope. I wonder how ****ed Melania is if Trump cops it, what with the recent audio leaks of one of her calls/conversations. If he does go, though, I'm not sure President Pence is a prospect worth entertaining as 'better', especially if you're not a straight white man or woman.
If its real, he has the best healthcare on the planet, just for him. It isn't real though. People have been specualting about this as a likely strategy for months, and it comes right after his piss-poor showing at the first debate? Yeah, it's BS and entirely in keeping with the **** he'd pull to gain an edge.
I feel like him saying he has it when he doesn't puts too many other things in motion to lie, they scrambled two airborne command posts: Tweet— Twitter API (@user) date Chances are that he will survive but it is a good example of how a policy of shielding the elderly and susceptible would fail, even a man who you need to test negative to enter the same room as got it.
My instant reaction on reading only the first part of Gareth's post was that this was some form of stunt to show how a great man can defeat the virus and is thus able to lead his country through these difficult times by sheer force of will and a superior immune system. Corona? Pfft. Nothing to worry about whatsoever. We'll see (although I'll admit that nuclear bombers are a bit of literal overkill). What's his missus been up to on the blower then? Haven't heard that one.
That's the audio. Mostly self centred whining, a bit of '**** christmas' and a bit of 'cba to do **** about the separated kids'. Compared to what Trump says, it's not that bad, but if that leaked from any other first lady (Such as Michelle Obama), she'd be raked over the coals for the rest of time I reckon.
I mean, we're talking about a guy with a history of getting doctors to lie about both his height and his weight, so getting one to lie about a positive COVID test shouldn't be hard. The question is: is he, or his group of advisors, actually smart enough to both attempt the fraud and to pull it off? Or is it genuine, and it's simply testament to his loose association with the truth that my immediate reaction was "bollocks?"
Counter argument: Trump getting sick undermines his "healthiest president ever!" image (BS, of course, but that's by the by) and also undermines his argument that Coronavirus is a hoax or isn't widespread (again BS, etc). It also stops him from active campaigning at a time when we're into the closing stages of the election race and Trump is manifestly behind. Fun fact: four years ago to this day, Hilary Clinton came down with pneumonia. Trump was very sympathetic.
my first response to the news was, boy it sure is good timing now with how bad the debate went... so are we thinking Fake to prove to his country he can beat covid no problem due to his superior immune system ? Fake to avoid having to do More Debates / Spend money on more campaigning ? or just another cog in his 'the election will be a fraud' setup ? with the 'not fair i couldn't campaign / debate due to covid spin ?
I was discussing that on IRC: it only undermines the argument if he is actually sick. If he isn't actually sick, and just goes for a spa for 14 days, it reinforces it: look how healthy the president is, he got the virus and survived with zero ill effects! Overblown! Fake news! Those 200,000+ Americans who have died of it so far just weren't healthy or smart or rich enough. That's true, tho'. (That it undermines his position, not that it is a hoax or not widespread - had to come back and add this as an edit, 'cos that was unclear!) Except this kind of approach is a well-known campaigning strategy - so well known, it has its own name and Wikipedia page: October surprise. "In American political jargon, an October surprise is a news event deliberately created or timed to influence the outcome of an election, particularly one for the U.S. presidency, or sometimes an event occurring spontaneously that has the same effect. Because the date for national elections (as well as many state and local elections) is in early November, events that take place in October have greater potential to influence the decisions of prospective voters. Thus these relatively last-minute news stories could either completely change the entire course of an election or strongly reinforce the inevitable." For the next 14 days, Trump will dominate the media - Biden's not going to get a look in, it's going to be 24/7 Trump Quarantine Watch. It comes, remember, right after Trump flubbed the first debate - so it shifts attention away from that, gives him an excuse to skip the next debate, and pushes Biden out of the media entirely for the next couple of weeks. It's win-win-win for Trump, especially if he comes through it with no more than a case of the sniffles (which, if he does, I basically believe proves the conspiracy theory - there's no way that bloated orange sack is healthy enough to avoid emergency hospitalisation.)
It could also provide an excuse to hand over to Pence for "health reasons" just before the election to avoid taking a big fat L.
I guess it cuts both ways. He gets sick and recovers, in which case yay for getting better because he's such a healthy specimen, but boo for getting sick in the first place. And getting the virus definitely undermines the whole argument that it's "fake news". The flaw here is that Biden is winning. Biden just has to stay out of the way and keep his head down: if he doesn't make a horlicks of things in the next four weeks, he has a very good chance (80% per current polling) of winning the election. Trump getting the lion's share of the media attention isn't new, although these events will definitely ramp things up, but that hasn't helped him to boost his numbers beyond his base of about 40%. Sure, there might be some sympathy votes, but equally, having traded on his health being superior to "Sleepy Joe", getting sick could count against him as much as it helps him.
That's what they said about Clinton in 2016, tho'. (And, technically, she did win: 65,844,610 votes to 62,979,636. The US ended up with President Angry Orange anyway.)
