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And that was due to the wisdom of operation warpspeed. Trump is under credited for this (whether his idea or not, he could claim it as such). What’s shocking to

And that was due to the wisdom of operation warpspeed. Trump is under credited for this (whether his idea or not, he could claim it as such). What’s shocking to me is that he hasn’t been more pro-vax given we have the vaccines we do because of his administration.

Qub3d 5y ago
Operation Warp Speed is, to me, an indication of the power of government "intertia". Trump changed a lot of things, and while an uncomfortable amount of the U.S. government seems to run on "tradition" that isn't actually law, after 4 years of unchecked assault it was only at the very end that it really got crazy. Warp speed is the work of career guys. Not even Fauchi -- he was important, but these ideas are put together, presented, and executed by the unknown 9-to-5ers.
- Redoubts 5y ago
  > Operation Warp Speed is, to me, an indication of the power of government "intertia". We call this the Deep State
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > We call this the Deep State If by “we” you mean fans of the arbitrary, irresponsible, corrupt patronage-based governance of the spoils system who use the term to denigrate the idea of a professional civil service with loyalty that extends beyond the person of the current chief executive on whom their tenure depends, then, sure, “we” do.
  - azinman2 5y ago
    I find this whole deep state thing very strange. It's meant to sound ominous, but really it's just a bunch of career diplomates that have worked over many administrations who are the ones that make anything that works, work. We should be doing our best to preserve their knowledge and capability.
    - ummwhat 5y ago
      It's not meant to sound ominous. It's a phrase that's been coopted.
  - oblio 5y ago
    No need to use a conspiracy theory name for it. The truth is that any government needs a ton of people to operate properly and you can't change all of them upon election. Actually, scratch that, you can sort of do that every election/change of government. Do you know where they do that? Failed states. Failed states change most if not all the government employees upon regime change, to put people from the new regime in their place. It's an unmitigated disaster, because you also need people other than politicians to do the heavy lifting. And those skills can't always be built up over just 4 years, you need more than that. It's dumb to throw them away. Let alone the fact that changing them with the regime means that it's super unlikely you keep the competent people, you just get new loyal folks.
    - lliamander 5y ago
      It's not really a conspiracy theory though, it's just the reality that much/most of the power of the government is in the hands of unelected bureaucrats. That doesn't imply the bureaucrats are conspiring. And that's not necessarily a bad thing (for the reasons you describe) but there's a fundamental deceit going on if the president can't actually control that bureaucracy (because people assume that he can).
  - distances 5y ago
    Stable Western nations have career bureaucrats that continue working their office regardless of which political party is at helm. This brings expertise and continuity and has nothing to do with deep state. A new minister will assign new goals but retain the old team that has the best understanding available in their specific field.
krapp 5y ago
>What’s shocking to me is that he hasn’t been more pro-vax given we have the vaccines we do because of his administration. He made vaccinations a partisan wedge issue to such a degree that he can't afford to walk back from it if he wants to run again in 2024, similar to the Republicans' former position on Obamacare.
- 0x7E3 5y ago
  That seems a bit revisionist. To my knowledge, Donald Trump was always a vocal supporter of the Covid vaccine. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden were the ones sowing doubt about it - right up until they won the election. Harris, in particular, described Trump as irresponsible for advocating for Project Warpspeed and suggesting that people should take a Covid vaccine before it had gone through the full approval process. I think you may be getting their personal stances confused with the partisan arguments about vaccine mandates that have evolved in the year since.
  - voltaireodactyl 5y ago
    Trump didn’t make the vaccine a wedge issue, he made COVID a wedge issue by repeatedly calling it a political lie (which resulted in vaccines becoming a wedge issue). I suspect the confusion between your perspective and that of the previous commenter is a result of the difficulty Trump experienced in trying to promote a vaccine for an illness he was himself at the same time claiming does not exist.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - j2bax 5y ago
      He also clung to and promoted a bunch of other unproven treatments leading up to the vaccine… why should anyone have trusted him by this point in the pandemic?
felistoria 5y ago
I think he was recently boo'd at a rally because he told people to get vaccinated.
addicted 5y ago
Warp Speed had nothing to do with this. Pfizer/BioNTech weren’t part of Warp Speed. And the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines were ready and had begun trials before they were part of Warp speed. The only vaccine it might have had an impact on was potentially Moderna. But even Moderna had the vaccine ready well before the Trump administration even believed that the virus did not only affect Chinese people. Finally, Warp Speed was not a brilliant new idea they came up with. It was part of the pandemic response plan the Obama administration had prepared many years ago. The difference is that if they had actually followed the plan warp speed would have been activated well before. Pretty much the only thing that the Trump administration can be uniquely credited for is picking the name. Which, as we can see from the fact that the majority of current vaccine skeptics are worried about the speed at which the vaccines were created, was a terrible choice for a name.

Qub3d 5y ago

Operation Warp Speed is, to me, an indication of the power of government "intertia". Trump changed a lot of things, and while an uncomfortable amount of the U.S. government seems to run on "tradition" that isn't actually law, after 4 years of unchecked assault it was only at the very end that it really got crazy. Warp speed is the work of career guys. Not even Fauchi -- he was important, but these ideas are put together, presented, and executed by the unknown 9-to-5ers.

Redoubts 5y ago
> Operation Warp Speed is, to me, an indication of the power of government "intertia". We call this the Deep State
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > We call this the Deep State If by “we” you mean fans of the arbitrary, irresponsible, corrupt patronage-based governance of the spoils system who use the term to denigrate the idea of a professional civil service with loyalty that extends beyond the person of the current chief executive on whom their tenure depends, then, sure, “we” do.
- azinman2 5y ago
  I find this whole deep state thing very strange. It's meant to sound ominous, but really it's just a bunch of career diplomates that have worked over many administrations who are the ones that make anything that works, work. We should be doing our best to preserve their knowledge and capability.
  - ummwhat 5y ago
    It's not meant to sound ominous. It's a phrase that's been coopted.
- oblio 5y ago
  No need to use a conspiracy theory name for it. The truth is that any government needs a ton of people to operate properly and you can't change all of them upon election. Actually, scratch that, you can sort of do that every election/change of government. Do you know where they do that? Failed states. Failed states change most if not all the government employees upon regime change, to put people from the new regime in their place. It's an unmitigated disaster, because you also need people other than politicians to do the heavy lifting. And those skills can't always be built up over just 4 years, you need more than that. It's dumb to throw them away. Let alone the fact that changing them with the regime means that it's super unlikely you keep the competent people, you just get new loyal folks.
  - lliamander 5y ago
    It's not really a conspiracy theory though, it's just the reality that much/most of the power of the government is in the hands of unelected bureaucrats. That doesn't imply the bureaucrats are conspiring. And that's not necessarily a bad thing (for the reasons you describe) but there's a fundamental deceit going on if the president can't actually control that bureaucracy (because people assume that he can).
- distances 5y ago
  Stable Western nations have career bureaucrats that continue working their office regardless of which political party is at helm. This brings expertise and continuity and has nothing to do with deep state. A new minister will assign new goals but retain the old team that has the best understanding available in their specific field.

krapp 5y ago

>What’s shocking to me is that he hasn’t been more pro-vax given we have the vaccines we do because of his administration. He made vaccinations a partisan wedge issue to such a degree that he can't afford to walk back from it if he wants to run again in 2024, similar to the Republicans' former position on Obamacare.

0x7E3 5y ago
That seems a bit revisionist. To my knowledge, Donald Trump was always a vocal supporter of the Covid vaccine. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden were the ones sowing doubt about it - right up until they won the election. Harris, in particular, described Trump as irresponsible for advocating for Project Warpspeed and suggesting that people should take a Covid vaccine before it had gone through the full approval process. I think you may be getting their personal stances confused with the partisan arguments about vaccine mandates that have evolved in the year since.
- voltaireodactyl 5y ago
  Trump didn’t make the vaccine a wedge issue, he made COVID a wedge issue by repeatedly calling it a political lie (which resulted in vaccines becoming a wedge issue). I suspect the confusion between your perspective and that of the previous commenter is a result of the difficulty Trump experienced in trying to promote a vaccine for an illness he was himself at the same time claiming does not exist.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - j2bax 5y ago
    He also clung to and promoted a bunch of other unproven treatments leading up to the vaccine… why should anyone have trusted him by this point in the pandemic?

felistoria 5y ago

I think he was recently boo'd at a rally because he told people to get vaccinated.

addicted 5y ago

Warp Speed had nothing to do with this. Pfizer/BioNTech weren’t part of Warp Speed. And the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines were ready and had begun trials before they were part of Warp speed. The only vaccine it might have had an impact on was potentially Moderna. But even Moderna had the vaccine ready well before the Trump administration even believed that the virus did not only affect Chinese people. Finally, Warp Speed was not a brilliant new idea they came up with. It was part of the pandemic response plan the Obama administration had prepared many years ago. The difference is that if they had actually followed the plan warp speed would have been activated well before. Pretty much the only thing that the Trump administration can be uniquely credited for is picking the name. Which, as we can see from the fact that the majority of current vaccine skeptics are worried about the speed at which the vaccines were created, was a terrible choice for a name.