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I think generally US has carried that role in past until 2016. Either by partnerships or by holding a gun to other people’s head, US has exercised a self preser

I think generally US has carried that role in past until 2016. Either by partnerships or by holding a gun to other people’s head, US has exercised a self preservation strategy which had some effect on remaining world. For eg. Obama admin had narrowed down Ebola and contained it[1]. That indirectly was beneficial for rest of the world. Unfortunately the last administration deserted from these responsibilities thereby creating a sudden void and hence chaos. [1]https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/ebola-response https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/ebola-response

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- redis_mlc 5y ago
  > We also basically abandoned the EU to deal with the migrant crisis we caused. How did the US cause economic migration from Africa to the EU? Why should the US do anything about that? Supposedly 1/3 of Africans hope to migrate to the EU to take advantage of generous welfare programs there.
Ericson2314 5y ago
I think this is bit charitable, to say the least. Long before Obama the "US-led international order" was also screwing up on Global Warming. Only Hitler could unite most the rest of the world, and only then because that was near the peak of colonialism so world power had never been so concentrated.
- lostcolony 5y ago
  Just because the US' leadership is absent in one area does not preclude it from being present and effective somewhere else. Similarly, just because the US' leadership is both absent and therefore ineffective in an area does not imply that were the US' leadership present, it would still be ineffective. Certainly, per the parent comment, we have examples of the US' past leadership in this context leading to a very different outcome. We know that leadership was abdicated (and in fact, actively eviscerated) during the prior presidency.
  - bourgwaletariat 5y ago
    It wasn't the leaders it was the followers. Or rather, those who refused to follow. No one followed up on the US leader's claim that it came from a lab. No, they said, "He said it so it's a lie!" And they continue to say that. This isn't on Trump.
    - loopz 5y ago
      Your post is without any substance in it.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    So first of all, I think the US-lead world order is much overhyped. Second, yes Trump accelerated some things, but deep changes that caused Trump more than they were caused by Trump have been having more effect on international relations far long. Don't forget all the same complaints about not funding the state department were made in the Bush years. Trump is a bad, don't get me wrong, but this seems like trite hawk Democrat thinking to me. It's precisely the nature of the US-led order in recent years that free trade agreements, IP laws, etc. etc. were more easily done than tackling issues of high global importance like global warming and Covid.
    - lostcolony 5y ago
      I was not saying the US-lead world order isn't overhyped. I was also not saying that Trump was a solitary problem. I was not even judging Trump in my post, or making any partisan claims. I was pointing out that you're attacking a strawman in your original post (as well as the one above). The original claim was simply "US policy in the past helped prevent pandemics. Under the prior administration, that policy changed, and we got a pandemic". In response, you talked about global warming and Hitler. So I tried to explain why the logical leaps you took did not make sense.
- nemothekid 5y ago
  Personally I don’t think the missing global leadership was with the president - it’s with Congress. The president gives us a nice “name” to blame but it’s clear that since around 2007 Congress has largely abdicated their role in US politics leaving open a huge power vacuum. Even if a president wanted to tackle climate change, a border wall or a Babylon tower they would be unable to get anything done before their term is up. I’m not old enough to know how things felt before Bush, but it seems like Congress used to actually exercise its power in the past
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    By "Obama" I'm referring to the era. I agree the focus on presidents is silly; GP was contrasting Trump on Covid-19 vs Obama on Ebola and I think that's a silly comparison. Trump is terrible of course, but that is not really the relevant story here.
redis_mlc 5y ago
Currently, there is an arms race in the Indo-Pacific region because of Obama's abandonment of defense treaties in the South China Sea, starting with the Philippines Scarborough Shoals. This week, a CCP official threatened to launch ballistic missiles at Australia. Trump was the first leader to stop air travel in 2020, and denounced as a racist for it by US Dem/Marxist leaders. Of course, not it's standard practise to restrict air travel. Trump funded the vaccines in 2020 that we're using in 2021. If you want to criticize the CDC and NIH, great. But don't lie about "the previous administration."
deleted 5y ago
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jbandela1 5y ago
> For eg. Obama admin had narrowed down Ebola and contained it[1]. It was great that they contained Ebola. But, containing a disease that makes you literally bleed from your eyes and requires bodily fluid contact and has an outbreak that starts in a low-density area of Africa, is much different than containing a disease where people who have the disease may only have a fever, and has airborne transmission, and the outbreak starts in a heavily populated city in China.
- Fomite 5y ago
  It should be noted that Ebola presents in many patients as a febrile illness, not the "Hotzone" image of Ebola - a presentation that is extremely common in that part of Africa.
cudgy 5y ago
So, Trump (or any American president) was supposed to dictate the response to Covid for the entire world? I recall many “powerful” people and news orgs ridiculing Trump’s actions early in the pandemic even so far as claiming in some cases to never even use a vaccine created under his administration. A vaccine that the same people now herald as a savior once the current administration took charge. Is that the leadership that you are talking about?
- lostcolony 5y ago
  No, but there had been a lot of wargaming for pandemics ( https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02277-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02277-6 ), preparation for pandemics ( https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/17/the-art-of-the-pandemic-how-donald-trump-walked-the-u-s-into-the-covid-19-era/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/17/the-art-of-the-pandemic-... ), stark warnings that we were ripe for one from experts and notables ( https://www.businessinsider.com/people-who-seemingly-predicted-the-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/people-who-seemingly-predict... ), and we even had CDC members inside and working with China in case of novel infectious agents appearing there ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-cdc-exclusiv/exclusive-u-s-slashed-cdc-staff-inside-china-prior-to-coronavirus-outbreak-idUSKBN21C3N5 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-... ) The prior administration actively ignored and undermined all of that (as referenced in some of those prior links, and https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-national-security-council-149285 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-n... ). The concern with a vaccine at the time was that it was going to be a mickey mouse one designed to show a win, rather than be effective, similar to Trump's claims about hydroxychloroquine and injecting disinfectants. But as people saw Moderna and Pfizer go through proper clinical trials, and be proved effective, even at the accelerated rate, and to be recommended by actual trusted medical professionals, they came on board. Well, obviously not everyone; now that it's been tested and shown to be safe it's Bill Gates' 5G mind control shot, despite Trump having received one.

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[deleted]

redis_mlc 5y ago
> We also basically abandoned the EU to deal with the migrant crisis we caused. How did the US cause economic migration from Africa to the EU? Why should the US do anything about that? Supposedly 1/3 of Africans hope to migrate to the EU to take advantage of generous welfare programs there.

Ericson2314 5y ago

I think this is bit charitable, to say the least. Long before Obama the "US-led international order" was also screwing up on Global Warming. Only Hitler could unite most the rest of the world, and only then because that was near the peak of colonialism so world power had never been so concentrated.

lostcolony 5y ago
Just because the US' leadership is absent in one area does not preclude it from being present and effective somewhere else. Similarly, just because the US' leadership is both absent and therefore ineffective in an area does not imply that were the US' leadership present, it would still be ineffective. Certainly, per the parent comment, we have examples of the US' past leadership in this context leading to a very different outcome. We know that leadership was abdicated (and in fact, actively eviscerated) during the prior presidency.
- bourgwaletariat 5y ago
  It wasn't the leaders it was the followers. Or rather, those who refused to follow. No one followed up on the US leader's claim that it came from a lab. No, they said, "He said it so it's a lie!" And they continue to say that. This isn't on Trump.
  - loopz 5y ago
    Your post is without any substance in it.
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  So first of all, I think the US-lead world order is much overhyped. Second, yes Trump accelerated some things, but deep changes that caused Trump more than they were caused by Trump have been having more effect on international relations far long. Don't forget all the same complaints about not funding the state department were made in the Bush years. Trump is a bad, don't get me wrong, but this seems like trite hawk Democrat thinking to me. It's precisely the nature of the US-led order in recent years that free trade agreements, IP laws, etc. etc. were more easily done than tackling issues of high global importance like global warming and Covid.
  - lostcolony 5y ago
    I was not saying the US-lead world order isn't overhyped. I was also not saying that Trump was a solitary problem. I was not even judging Trump in my post, or making any partisan claims. I was pointing out that you're attacking a strawman in your original post (as well as the one above). The original claim was simply "US policy in the past helped prevent pandemics. Under the prior administration, that policy changed, and we got a pandemic". In response, you talked about global warming and Hitler. So I tried to explain why the logical leaps you took did not make sense.
nemothekid 5y ago
Personally I don’t think the missing global leadership was with the president - it’s with Congress. The president gives us a nice “name” to blame but it’s clear that since around 2007 Congress has largely abdicated their role in US politics leaving open a huge power vacuum. Even if a president wanted to tackle climate change, a border wall or a Babylon tower they would be unable to get anything done before their term is up. I’m not old enough to know how things felt before Bush, but it seems like Congress used to actually exercise its power in the past
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  By "Obama" I'm referring to the era. I agree the focus on presidents is silly; GP was contrasting Trump on Covid-19 vs Obama on Ebola and I think that's a silly comparison. Trump is terrible of course, but that is not really the relevant story here.

redis_mlc 5y ago

Currently, there is an arms race in the Indo-Pacific region because of Obama's abandonment of defense treaties in the South China Sea, starting with the Philippines Scarborough Shoals. This week, a CCP official threatened to launch ballistic missiles at Australia. Trump was the first leader to stop air travel in 2020, and denounced as a racist for it by US Dem/Marxist leaders. Of course, not it's standard practise to restrict air travel. Trump funded the vaccines in 2020 that we're using in 2021. If you want to criticize the CDC and NIH, great. But don't lie about "the previous administration."

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jbandela1 5y ago

> For eg. Obama admin had narrowed down Ebola and contained it[1]. It was great that they contained Ebola. But, containing a disease that makes you literally bleed from your eyes and requires bodily fluid contact and has an outbreak that starts in a low-density area of Africa, is much different than containing a disease where people who have the disease may only have a fever, and has airborne transmission, and the outbreak starts in a heavily populated city in China.

Fomite 5y ago
It should be noted that Ebola presents in many patients as a febrile illness, not the "Hotzone" image of Ebola - a presentation that is extremely common in that part of Africa.

cudgy 5y ago

So, Trump (or any American president) was supposed to dictate the response to Covid for the entire world? I recall many “powerful” people and news orgs ridiculing Trump’s actions early in the pandemic even so far as claiming in some cases to never even use a vaccine created under his administration. A vaccine that the same people now herald as a savior once the current administration took charge. Is that the leadership that you are talking about?

lostcolony 5y ago
No, but there had been a lot of wargaming for pandemics ( https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02277-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02277-6 ), preparation for pandemics ( https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/17/the-art-of-the-pandemic-how-donald-trump-walked-the-u-s-into-the-covid-19-era/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/17/the-art-of-the-pandemic-... ), stark warnings that we were ripe for one from experts and notables ( https://www.businessinsider.com/people-who-seemingly-predicted-the-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/people-who-seemingly-predict... ), and we even had CDC members inside and working with China in case of novel infectious agents appearing there ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-cdc-exclusiv/exclusive-u-s-slashed-cdc-staff-inside-china-prior-to-coronavirus-outbreak-idUSKBN21C3N5 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-... ) The prior administration actively ignored and undermined all of that (as referenced in some of those prior links, and https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-national-security-council-149285 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-n... ). The concern with a vaccine at the time was that it was going to be a mickey mouse one designed to show a win, rather than be effective, similar to Trump's claims about hydroxychloroquine and injecting disinfectants. But as people saw Moderna and Pfizer go through proper clinical trials, and be proved effective, even at the accelerated rate, and to be recommended by actual trusted medical professionals, they came on board. Well, obviously not everyone; now that it's been tested and shown to be safe it's Bill Gates' 5G mind control shot, despite Trump having received one.