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On the upside, the “Emperor has no Clothes” governments will be shown for the propagandists they are when COVID rips through the country. It will be remarkably

On the upside, the “Emperor has no Clothes” governments will be shown for the propagandists they are when COVID rips through the country. It will be remarkably little comfort at the time. Thankfully Trump changed his message after Wall Street and Fox News personality Tucker Carlson called out his political spin. In the end, I fear the virus will community spread everywhere unless the _entire world_ takes it seriously _at the same time_, but I don’t foresee that happening.

joshstrange 7y ago
> Thankfully Trump changed his message after Wall Street and Fox News personality Tucker Carlson called out his political spin. Are we watching the same thing? I've watched almost every single press conference and Trump has not "changed his tune" rather he is than continuing to lie, write history, and downplay the virus. Just watch, when his eyes are down he is reading off prepared notes, then he looks up and starts riffing (lying and downplaying). He may be taking it semi-seriously but he is dog-whistling to his base constantly about how it's not his fault and it's not a big deal.
jariel 7y ago
No, it doesn't matter because the moment Trump 'changed his tune' all of his followers erased in their minds the history of him denying reality. To them, he was always acting with foresight. You cannot discredit someone who robbed a bank and literally denies it the next day, along with millions of followers who also deny it even having seen the robbery first hand. Your assumption of 'credit' implies some kind of rationality, there isn't. It's just a big personality fight. Whatever Trump does or says is right, by virtue of the fact he said it. FYI - the same could apply to popular characters of other kinds, this not just Trump, he's just a good example. Edit: I should add, I feel this way specifically because I enjoy reading comments from various news sources as a measure of certain kinds of populism, and about 2/3 of the commenters currently on FoxNews are very pro Trump, often hailing is 'early action' etc. on the issue, completely disregarding the fact that only days ago, he was dismissing the issue as a hoax, literally indicating 'we only have a few cases, it will be zero soon' - all the while Wuhan and other places blow out of control. This should be enough to destroy any leaders' credibility. And of course, this is not a left/right/up/down thing, there are leaders of all political stripes who either do such ridiculous things or, who are credible - but still have followers who'll believe their statements over any kind of reality. I think this is more common than not: we believe personalities more than we believe facts.
tzs 7y ago
> Trump changed his message after Wall Street and Fox News personality Tucker Carlson called out his political spin. And he changed it again yesterday, when some other Fox commentators said that more people would die to a bad economy than would to the virus if people stay at home more than a couple of weeks if we keep up the measures being put in place to limit its spread. So now the message is that in 15 days they will consider greatly easing those measures.
- TomMckenny 7y ago
  It was just a mater of time until that group decided stock values exceeded the value of life and epidemic mitigation. Note also the assumption in "unemployment = death": there will be no social safety net to prevent it.

joshstrange 7y ago

> Thankfully Trump changed his message after Wall Street and Fox News personality Tucker Carlson called out his political spin. Are we watching the same thing? I've watched almost every single press conference and Trump has not "changed his tune" rather he is than continuing to lie, write history, and downplay the virus. Just watch, when his eyes are down he is reading off prepared notes, then he looks up and starts riffing (lying and downplaying). He may be taking it semi-seriously but he is dog-whistling to his base constantly about how it's not his fault and it's not a big deal.

jariel 7y ago

No, it doesn't matter because the moment Trump 'changed his tune' all of his followers erased in their minds the history of him denying reality. To them, he was always acting with foresight. You cannot discredit someone who robbed a bank and literally denies it the next day, along with millions of followers who also deny it even having seen the robbery first hand. Your assumption of 'credit' implies some kind of rationality, there isn't. It's just a big personality fight. Whatever Trump does or says is right, by virtue of the fact he said it. FYI - the same could apply to popular characters of other kinds, this not just Trump, he's just a good example. Edit: I should add, I feel this way specifically because I enjoy reading comments from various news sources as a measure of certain kinds of populism, and about 2/3 of the commenters currently on FoxNews are very pro Trump, often hailing is 'early action' etc. on the issue, completely disregarding the fact that only days ago, he was dismissing the issue as a hoax, literally indicating 'we only have a few cases, it will be zero soon' - all the while Wuhan and other places blow out of control. This should be enough to destroy any leaders' credibility. And of course, this is not a left/right/up/down thing, there are leaders of all political stripes who either do such ridiculous things or, who are credible - but still have followers who'll believe their statements over any kind of reality. I think this is more common than not: we believe personalities more than we believe facts.

tzs 7y ago

> Trump changed his message after Wall Street and Fox News personality Tucker Carlson called out his political spin. And he changed it again yesterday, when some other Fox commentators said that more people would die to a bad economy than would to the virus if people stay at home more than a couple of weeks if we keep up the measures being put in place to limit its spread. So now the message is that in 15 days they will consider greatly easing those measures.

TomMckenny 7y ago
It was just a mater of time until that group decided stock values exceeded the value of life and epidemic mitigation. Note also the assumption in "unemployment = death": there will be no social safety net to prevent it.