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>Trump new about the severity of covid and downplayed it for quite some time Trump neither tried to hide the existence of COVID from the public nor thought it

>Trump new about the severity of covid and downplayed it for quite some time Trump neither tried to hide the existence of COVID from the public nor thought it would topple civilization and kill him personally. He downplayed it and the risk it posed, but that is a different order of lying. Trump said exactly as much as he thought he could get away with, and no more. >There absolutely can be some fanatical base that will construct shared delusional propaganda to avoid the realization that they've been conned. Sure, but COVID-deniers are a fringe and any political calculus that depends on denying COVID is therefore bound to fail. It is equally clear that denying the existence of an earth-shattering asteroid makes no political sense.

chrsig 5y ago
You're right, it doesn't make sense. People do things that don't make sense. The president in Don't Look Up didn't think it would topple civilization and kill her personally. They thought the plan to break it up and mine it would work. They took a greedy gamble on the fate of the world and lost. In so doing, they took for granted all of the amazing technology that we have and disregarded expert opinions. Likewise with trump, who had worked to dismantle the existing pandemic playbook[0] took for granted how well our medical response would be. He regularly disregarded expert opinions, or simply did not speak with them[1]. He even worked to make it difficult for states to get help, because he lost the vote there[2]. In my opinion, these actions do not make sense, yet they were taken by an actual POTUS. With that in mind, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that a POTUS would try to leverage the event for political gain, and use it opportunity for personal profit, and that a sizable amount of the population would support it. And you're right. It makes no sense. It's mind mindbogglingly dumb. Still plausible. [0] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/obama-team-left-pandemic-playbook-for-trump-administration-officials-confirm https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/obama-team-left-pandemic... [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/23/fauci-says-trump-hasnt-attended-white-house-coronavirus-task-force-meeting-in-several-months.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/23/fauci-says-trump-hasnt-atten... [2] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/494807-trump-asks-why-taxpayers-should-help-bail-out-democrat-run-states https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/494807-trump-ask...
- nickpp 5y ago
  Looks to me like Hollywood's obsession with Trump is never ending. Makes sense - they pretty much created him.
- Emma_Goldman 5y ago
  I think this is a bit of a straw man. Yes, people sometimes do things that aren't in their rational self-interest, even capaciously understood. But we are talking about a specific scenario. The question is: would the President, told of an imminent asteroid collision large enough to destroy human civilization, and knowing this information would leak if she did not announce it, elect to hide this information for a month until after the midterms for no particular reason? You say "They thought the plan to break it up and mine it would work." At the time of the decision of whether to announce the existence of the asteroid, and create a plan, there obviously was no plan. So no, she didn't think that. >"Likewise with trump, who had worked to dismantle the existing pandemic playbook[0] took for granted how well our medical response would be. He regularly disregarded expert opinions, or simply did not speak with them[1]. He even worked to make it difficult for states to get help, because he lost the vote there[2]." Again, this isn't the point. Even Trump never tried to deny the existence of COVID. Clearly that would not have worked and would have exploded in his face.

chrsig 5y ago

You're right, it doesn't make sense. People do things that don't make sense. The president in Don't Look Up didn't think it would topple civilization and kill her personally. They thought the plan to break it up and mine it would work. They took a greedy gamble on the fate of the world and lost. In so doing, they took for granted all of the amazing technology that we have and disregarded expert opinions. Likewise with trump, who had worked to dismantle the existing pandemic playbook[0] took for granted how well our medical response would be. He regularly disregarded expert opinions, or simply did not speak with them[1]. He even worked to make it difficult for states to get help, because he lost the vote there[2]. In my opinion, these actions do not make sense, yet they were taken by an actual POTUS. With that in mind, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that a POTUS would try to leverage the event for political gain, and use it opportunity for personal profit, and that a sizable amount of the population would support it. And you're right. It makes no sense. It's mind mindbogglingly dumb. Still plausible. [0] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/obama-team-left-pandemic-playbook-for-trump-administration-officials-confirm https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/obama-team-left-pandemic... [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/23/fauci-says-trump-hasnt-attended-white-house-coronavirus-task-force-meeting-in-several-months.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/23/fauci-says-trump-hasnt-atten... [2] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/494807-trump-asks-why-taxpayers-should-help-bail-out-democrat-run-states https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/494807-trump-ask...

nickpp 5y ago
Looks to me like Hollywood's obsession with Trump is never ending. Makes sense - they pretty much created him.
Emma_Goldman 5y ago
I think this is a bit of a straw man. Yes, people sometimes do things that aren't in their rational self-interest, even capaciously understood. But we are talking about a specific scenario. The question is: would the President, told of an imminent asteroid collision large enough to destroy human civilization, and knowing this information would leak if she did not announce it, elect to hide this information for a month until after the midterms for no particular reason? You say "They thought the plan to break it up and mine it would work." At the time of the decision of whether to announce the existence of the asteroid, and create a plan, there obviously was no plan. So no, she didn't think that. >"Likewise with trump, who had worked to dismantle the existing pandemic playbook[0] took for granted how well our medical response would be. He regularly disregarded expert opinions, or simply did not speak with them[1]. He even worked to make it difficult for states to get help, because he lost the vote there[2]." Again, this isn't the point. Even Trump never tried to deny the existence of COVID. Clearly that would not have worked and would have exploded in his face.