While it can be argued that the threat of COVID-19 is overstated, it presents a potential crisis for the United States. Such a crisis requires good leadership—something that is sorely lacking in President Trump. Trump’s record shows that his skill set consists mainly of lying, grifting and suing. None of these are useful in addressing the virus, for obvious reasons. Trump could, of course, actually act on what he often claims he will do: get the best people. Unfortunately, the administration undercut the United States ability to respond to a health crisis—cuts to the CDC being but one example of this. That said, Trump could certainly start getting the United States back on track towards an effective defense against health threats, and I would certainly praise his efforts were he to do so.
In addition to being ineffective as a leader, Trump presents an active danger to the American people. One obvious problem is that Trump seems to be aggressively ignorant—he does not know yet makes no real effort to be informed. His remarks about using flu shots to address COVID-19 was but one example of this. While it is worth considering if existing vaccines might provide some protection, seeing Trump bring it up in real time showed that he either had not gotten any information or had forgotten it. To steal from Socrates, while it is true that we are all ignorant, wisdom involves knowing when we do not know. A leader who seems intent on not knowing presents a clear danger—they are making decisions from ignorance. Trump has a moral obligation to either rectify his ignorance or put someone in charge of the situation who knows what they are doing.
A second obvious problem is that Trump is an unrelenting liar. In some cases, this might be to cover up his ignorance. He does not know but would rather just make things up rather than admit he does not know. In other cases, he might be lying because he thinks the truth might hurt his chances of re-election. For example, Trump has asserted that infections are going down and that tests are available to anyone—neither of which is true. These are dangerous claims because people are being misled about critical facts: cases are increasing and no, you probably cannot get tested now. It could be argued that Trump’s lies are motivated from a desire not to panic Americans, but his motivation was made clear in his remarks about the cruise ship: his biggest worry was that he would look bad if the number of cases in the United States went up because the passengers were allowed to disembark. Trump said this in front of the cameras, so to claim that the media is misrepresenting him would be a lie. Trump has a moral obligation to stop lying about the situation—his lies merely make it worse. While it might be too much to expect him to say true things, he would do America a great service by not saying anything.
A third problem with Trump is that he wrongly thinks he is a genius and places great confidence in his own judgments even when they contradict the facts. For example, he simply rejected the WHO’s numbers in favor of his own—on the basis of a hunch. He, on camera, essentially asserted that he knows things and is smart because his uncle was a professor at MIT. I should not have to say that is not how it works, but that is not how it works.
A fourth problem with Trump is that although he and his supporters delight in mocking people for being snowflakes (such as women who complain about being sexually harassed or assaulted), Trump is the king of the dainty snowflakes and expects obedience and praise (as the “dear leader”) from those around him. He is the sort of nightmare envisioned by Socrates: a tyrannical personality ruled by emotions and ignorance. This puts a great burden on the experts who must deal with him. When he makes false claims about the health situation, they cannot correct him without fear of his retaliation. To avoid getting fired so they can do their jobs, they have to remain silent in the face of his lies and false claims. This makes dealing with the crisis rather difficult. Trump, as noted above, has the moral obligation to stop lying so that these experts can go about doing their critical jobs without the need to take into account Trump’s fragile, yet huge, ego.
At this point, the best thing President Trump could do for the United States is to take another extended vacation and quietly play golf while the competent experts address a crisis that he is only making worse with his lies, ego and ignorance.
801 words, and none of them deal with anything Trump has actually done about COVID-19. You could just have pasted “Orange man bad” 267 times with equal effect and less effort.
with equal effect and less effort.
See my comment to Magus below. The effort is important. It’s a form of self-therapy via projection. Which makes about as much sense as any of the OP’s here. But there you go.
“A third problem with Trump is that he wrongly thinks he is a genius and places great confidence in his own judgments even when they contradict the facts. For example, he simply rejected the WHO’s numbers in favor of his own—on the basis of a hunch.”
Quite dishonest. First, reading the article which quotes Trump, he states:
“Well, I think the 3.4 percent is really a false number. Now, and this is just my hunch, and — but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this,” Trump said, going on to peg the real figure as “way under 1 percent.”
So, talking to experts and using common sense (many people will have the disease and never know it) he came to the conclusion that 3.4 percent is too high.
South Korea has conducted the most comprehensive testing. ROK has drive-through testing allowing many people to quickly be tested in just 10 minutes. Per Business Insider:
-“South Korea has tested more than 140,000 people for the new coronavirus and confirmed more than 6,000 cases. Its fatality rate is around 0.6%.”
-“This suggests that, as many health experts have predicted, the virus’ fatality rate seems to decrease as more cases are reported.”
Moreover, if you are under 40, you have a .2 percent chance of dying from COVID-19 if infected.
Trump is almost certainly correct: 3.4 is a false number and the likely chance of dying from COVID-19 is well under 1 percent.
The panic induced by yourself and others like you is damaging. For what good reason would grocery stores be completely out of toilet paper now? What is the source of the hysteria and panic? It’s coming from those, such as yourself, who hope beyond hope that Trump fails. Imagine being a leftist and waking up everyday hoping there was a school shooting, WW3 began with Iran, and coronavirus has wiped out millions, just so they can “own” Trump.
Sounds like the psycho-epistemological hell in which leftists live everyday. No wonder they consume so much Zoloft.
Well, lefties project. I really think that is the key to understanding them. Those of us who try to be honest with ourselves must admit that we are all flawed human beings. Maturity is acknowledging one’s own flaws, looking internally, and doing what one can to fix one’s self. Lefties, generally speaking and distinctly different from (classical) liberals, refuse to see these flaws in themselves. They so much want the see themselves as superior beings that they project their own fallacies and weaknesses onto others. They do this partly due to internal weaknesses and because they, consciously or subconsciously, think that by amplifying the attention to such flaws in others that we won’t see these flaws in the lefties themselves.
That said, I’m not sure I’m buying anyone’s statistics on this COVID-19 thing. Our sources of information, government, media, right, left whatever, are so vested in controlling their respective messages, and have been for decades now, that the trust is gone. What will begin to give an indication is that as more people get this, friends and people 2 -3 degrees of Kevin Bacon separation away from one’s friends, the better the perspective will be. This applies somewhat to celebrities and other well-known people. While I’ve been inclined to buy the circa 1% figure relative to the 3% figure, I have this nagging concern with how heavily this thing has hit the Iranian leadership. Yes it’s Iran and yes they are older people, if you consider mid-50’s old. As a guy in his mid/late 50’s, ummm…it’s a concern. When the normal flu hits, taking out tens of thousands per year, they’re generally not well to do people in their mid-50s. This is different. The problem is the statistics are given way too much credibility. Are people dying who never got tested? More likely, are there significant numbers of people who get this thing but don’t get counted? There is a lot neither we nor even those with the “best” information can possibly know. It’s definitely concerning.
As for my co-worker’s friend who has this. Yesterday’s update is that one of her 7 year old identical twin sons has now contracted it, but not the other son nor her husband. She did go to the ER yesterday for an MRI and it’s not clear what/if the results of that are, however she is now having difficulty doing normal household things like cooking or such and it’s approaching 2 weeks that she has had this.
The good thing is that children appear particularly resistant to fatality from COVID-19, unlike influenza. For instance, no children died of the coronavirus which caused SARS and many doctors are noting the same trend with kids with COVID-19.
If you want, pass this on if it’ll help them feel better:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/health/coronavirus-children.html
The Iranian leadership cases are interesting. It seems to me that smoking tobacco raises the risk significantly, so I would look to see if the leaders that have died in Iran were smokers. I would not doubt they were. Apparently 50% of the adult males in Wuhan are smokers, which exacerbated the problem there. Another thing I would consider looking at is if air pollution or sand makes this worse, as it can irritate and abrade lung linings, which could contribute to viral loads and severity. Iran and China have notoriously poor air quality.
I thought the same thing when it comes to famous people getting CV-19. I think when and if they survive, the mania will calm down. Although Tom Hanks is diabetic so he has not helped his case there.
Several issues are key here for me. While I am concerned about the possibility of an apocalyptic disease, I am mostly concerned (at this point) with the intelligentsia’s continued shredding of our social cohesion and trust. The intelligentsia cannot be trusted. They should be questioned at every turn, because they have proven themselves to be even more biased that say, the car mechanic down the street who spends very little time in a rationalized reality. For him, empiricism rules, as well as basic instincts, both of which, though fallible, are far superior to ideological and morally charged musings. To say nothing of the media’s click bait culture and own Trump agenda, which is not only biased, but intentionally deceitful. I can stand bias ( I have no choice), but hiding facts which don’t support an agenda is evil, particularly when the media’s sole social function is to do otherwise. That’s why I say if we refused to watch the news, we may become smarter, given that we will start to believe our own eyes again. Instead of banding together, the usual suspects begin screeching and placing blame.
A lot of my interest in this area comes from the nature of my work. As for Trump’s hunch, I really don’t see that the experts are presenting us with any real predictive analysis. I see almost no real analysis actually. For instance, even showing the public historic trend lines for pandemics and when this is likely to abate would be helpful. As you point out, every expert is basically saying something different. I think it’s difficult for many Westerners to understand just how tightly-packed people are in Asian countries. This is a huge factor (to say nothing of bat soup…). Italy remains a bit of a mystery. But there are many countries in Asia which are not having much of a problem. Maybe we’re already on the downslope of this thing. Schools have closed, sports arenas are shut down, travel is restricted. There’s not much more that can be done.
Through 9 years in the military, I was generally pissed off at the system the whole time. But at least one of the things I took away from it, is that when times are difficult, it’s time to stop whining and work together. The time for placing blame is not while being shot at. As such, the intelligentsia fails me time and again.
The intelligentsia cannot be trusted. They should be questioned at every turn
They should also be held accountable for how often they cry “wolf”. How long has the Doomsday Clock been set to just minutes before midnight? Now it’s supposedly at 100 seconds. You’d think they would have at least given up at the end of the Cold War.
Italy remains a bit of a mystery.
Somewhat, but they have a significantly aged population relative to other countries. From Daily Wire:
Combine that with heavy smoking culture, especially among the elderly, and it’s not much of a surprise. The Italians have always been something of a joke organizationally. They’re still bugging me for a driving (toll booth thing) ticket I got over there 5 years ago and paid 4 years ago.
Mike, Magus is (was?) even a good friend of yours. Have you engaged in honest debate with him on the issues he raised here? Or are you too busy crying “ad homenim attack! Ad hominem attack!” at me to be bothered with such.
Magus, regarding Iran and now Italy, don’t know if you saw this about China’s One Belt One Road initiative that both of those countries participated in. Seems kinda unlikely to me though that out of the billion people in China, just a few who were sent to these two countries or those few from those countries happened to have or bump into those who have Wuhan presence or connections.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/17/iran-and-italy-are-paying-a-hefty-price-for-close-ties-with-communist-china/
Trump, as you note, said: ““Well, I think the 3.4 percent is really a false number. Now, and this is just my hunch, and — but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this,” Trump said, going on to peg the real figure as “way under 1 percent.”
But:
1. He leads with the claim that it is just a hunch.
2. He does add that he has had “a lot of conversations with a lot of people” but he never identifies who these people are (so, an empty appeal to expertise) and there seem to be no experts that agree with Trump. So it is unclear who he spoke to. The best explanation is that Trump did what he usually does: make something up, then falsely claim that lots of people or experts agree with him.
3. Yes, if you repackage Trump’s general claim about the average reported death rate at the time as being about specific death rates for specific strata, then the claim is true of at least some groups. But that is not what Trump said. It would be like if he said that, on a hunch and after talking to people, he thinks that 25% of people are women, then you went looking to find a fact that would back him up, such as 25% of the senate being women.
4. Why work so hard to make Trump’s untruths appear true?
There is a disconnect here.
Trump talks apparently wildly. (I think it is not as wild as it looks, but I don’t insist on that.) I once worked for someone rather like that – a super-salesman type who, interestingly enough, was two degrees of Trump in the Kevin Bacon sense, though both links cordially detested one another. He had a similar process, so I am somewhat inured to it. He is entirely immune to disapproval and rejection, and so he finds his way by sending out many signals, often conflicting, and observing the reactions.
He simply doesn’t regard the accuracy of conversational remarks as relevant. At all. Even when President and talking to the media.
You don’t like that. I don’t like that. And you can keep bashing Trump for it, but I’m over it, and people who are over it are going to keep looking at you blankly or disapprovingly every time you do it.
I know, it feels unnatural that the president should not be criticised for spouting bullshit. Nevertheless, that criticism does no practical good, and leads people who have adapted to it think less of your own credibility.
Feel free to opine that it is a coincidence, but he was also probably right in this case. I was reading experts suggesting that 3.4% was high since the start. Now we’re seeing papers starting to appear with IFRs like 1%, and concentrated in the 70+ and 80+ age brackets, for example https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.05.20031773v2.full.pdf from the Diamond Princess, with poor distancing conditions, and an older average population.
You nailed it in this post.
“and so he finds his way by sending out many signals, often conflicting, and observing the reactions.”
Exactly right. As Peter Thiel noted, people take Trump too literally, but not seriously, which is exactly wrong.
Thank you very much for that link, CT. Took some digestion in so far as figuring out the difference twixt CFR and IFR. CFR was readily defined in wiki but IFR had to hunt around with some help from a commenter on another blog. In case people don’t know, an IFR (infection fatality rate) is the fatality rate for people confirmed to have been infected by the virus or disease or whatever. The CSR (case fatality rate) is the fatality rate for people admitted into a hospital or clinic for intense/formal treatment.
Also, in my hunting around, I found this far more layman friendly article about that study from ScienceNews, which I’ve found to be a pretty good source for boiling down science information without doing significant damage to the facts. I recommend it for passing on to others less math/science oriented.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-outbreak-diamond-princess-cruise-ship-death-rate
Yes, we’re beginning to see more reliable patterns emerge now, This virus is unusual for a public health issue, in that over half of all infectees barely notice any difference, and half of the rest don’t feel bad enough to see a doctor anyway. This inflated the initial lethality estimates. We’re starting to see figures like 0.8%, 0.66% and 0.5% from more comprehensive studies, and I’m guessing that’s the kind of space where it will settle down.
This will be further mitigated by herd immunity, when enough people have recovered, and by the results of early trials of existing drugs that might find a new use to interrupt the normal course of the virus, like remdesivir and chloroquine.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339021704_Remdesivir_and_chloroquine_effectively_inhibit_the_recently_emerged_novel_coronavirus_2019-nCoV_in_vitro
I hope this will give physicians some treatment options that should cut the suffering of those last few percent who would otherwise become critical cases.
It’s still bad, but not as bad as the catastrophists are shouting.
People getting over Trump’s lies is a problem. To use an analogy that others have used, it is like having a dog that constantly poops all over your house and you just say “I don’t like living in shit, but there is no way to stop it. He just shits no matter what anyone does and saying anything about it just makes little Billy mad because he likes the dog and thinks it shits chocolate pudding. When I say it is shit, he says it is pudding and eats some of it. So I just stopped saying anything and just live in shit now. With my shit eating kid.”
So just like one of your posts but you’re also little Billy? Makes sense.
About the kind discourse I’ve come to expect from a college professor. At least as a taxpayer I can see how well our money is spent.
Do you have any debate tools other than the ad hominem? Asking for a friend.
Back at you. My debate tools are numerous and used here regularly with honest people willing to debate. Do you have anything to say to those who engage with you in earnest? Asking for everyone here who has made an honest and serious effort to discuss and debate these issues.
I have tried to think of a form of words that will be effective here. I’m not convinced any of them will work.
So I’ll just settle on this very crude attempt.
You liken Trump to spewing shit. Do you really think that spewing more shit is the best possible response?
If you do, you are in “good”(?) company. In an article in Bloomberg by Michael Lewis under the title “Has Anyone Seen the President?” Steve Bannon is qioted:
‘“The Democrats don’t matter,” he had said to me over our lunch. “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”’
I suspect the Counterspew Doctrine is not working well, at least for true statements and reason. I see it all over US media. It’s a BONANZA for the ad-sellers, sore, but not great for politics or people.
Mike, please explain how Trump can cut the budget of the CDC. Did you miss the lecture in U.S. Government 101 in which you were supposed to learn that in the U.S. system the Congress controls the budget?
It is true that Trump proposed budget cuts, but proposing budget cuts and actually cutting the budget are not the same. You are simply repeating false claims without bothering to get you facts straight.
Fair point, congress does have a role: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-cut-cdc-budget/
But Trump pushed hard to cut the CDC budget: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-defends-cuts-cdc-budget-federal-government-hire-doctors-coronavirus-2020-2-1028946602
The CDC has seriously dropped the ball. They have only performed 77 coronavirus tests this past week.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8106011/CDC-admits-completed-77-coronavirus-tests-WEEK.html
The CDC has only one job — controlling the spread of infectious diseases — but they are more interested in progressive causes like gun violence than they are in actually doing their *one* job.
This story itself has been dismissed as misleading. I have no idea who to trust on much of this information but I do know that test kits have been widely distributed. They may only be testing extreme cases? Agree on the corruption of their mission in general though.
And as I’ve been telling you for over a decade now, Mike has no idea what he’s talking about the vast majority of the time. Yet, Groundhog Day.
1. There are few test kits available. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/03/11/coronavirus-covid-19-response-hurt-by-shortage-testing-components/5013586002/
2. Saying I have no idea what I am talking about is just an ad hominem.
I just called bs on your claim that Trump cut the CDC budget.
Mike, TJ called you out here. Did you answer him?
The limitation on testing was due partly to original test having problems but mostly due to an obvious spike in demand. I said the information was misleading I did not say that there weren’t, especially early on, problems in getting them distributed from the CDC. I have neither the time nor the inclination to educate you on things that you, with just an ounce of intellectual curiosity, you could pursue yourself we you remotely interested in understanding the numerous subjects that you pop off about whilst mired in SIGNIFICANT ignorance to so much readily available information. But time after time after time over years and years and years you simply REFUSE to even try to get a clue. Thus you (generally speaking) have no idea what you are talking about. It’s not an ad hominem, something itself despite being a supposed, credentialed “expert:” on such things, you also fail to understand. It’s an observation of your intrinsic nature being demonstrated yet again.
I swear to God, this shit is so astoundingly stupid. You, of all people, want to cry ad hominem whenever YOU face a little criticism, but ad hominem attacks on others, most especially as demonstrated repeatedly on this site in regards to Trump, not to mention your schoolyard sing-song sarcasm about “the fine folks at Fox”, no self-reflection on that, eh?
Lastly, I will ask what TJ asked you years ago that you have refused to answer honestly in all this time…”Hands up, don’t shoot”, fact or fiction Mike? Fact or fiction? No obfuscation or other rhetoric regarding “but…but…but…Uncle Tom’s Cabin“, just a simple one word answer. Was the accusations that Michael Brown was in the act of surrendering as “witnesses” stated, saying “Don’t shoot” while putting his hands up or was that a lie used to persecute proper and justified action by that police officer that day?
Just for once on this blog can you answer just ONE DAMN QUESTION in a clear and definitive manner? Then maybe, get around to answering the many, many other questions that DH and Coffee Time have posed to you over the years that you blithely ignored. Then maybe, maaaaybe I’ll reconsider whether your knowing what you’re talking about is an ad hominem or not.
“The debate over the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus (COVID-19) is remarkably devoid of hard data comparisons.”
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnrlottjr/2020/03/12/quantifying-how-well-the-trump-administration-is-doing-on-coronavirus-n2564867
My starting point now is that the media has it wrong and that I have to do my own research. On everything.
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1238506473224896514?s=20
You’re only just starting to conclude that? 😛
It occurs to me that Trump has done almost everything his experts have told him to do, militarily and in regards to CV19. He handled Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan by doing exactly what his generals told him to do while adhering to his policy of general withdrawal.
Same with CV19. Meanwhile Justin Trudeau is still along Canadians to travel to China. Because China owns Canada.
Mike says the opposite.
Gee, wonder what ever happened to DH…
As to why Iranian leadership got hit hard by the virus:
https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/17/iran-and-italy-are-paying-a-hefty-price-for-close-ties-with-communist-china/
Yes, that was my comment to you at March 18, 2020 at 10:01 pm