Versatile_Hunter

Yes, that’s exactly where you got lost. I didn’t mumble something about his base. I replied that Trump’s base needs to hear a consistent message on masks. It’s really not that complicated.

Shit, now I'm confused. I can't tell if you're just really bad at arguing or if this is actually what you think I said. Here, I'll try one last time using your style: "Many stupid people won't wear masks if the president doesn't tell them to. For this reason, the president should tell them to wear masks."

Not to be cliche, but you are not entitled to your own facts. That's not how this works. I see that you edited out what you typed about it being a different virus. That was a good move.

Confusion is often the first step in learning something new. You shouldn’t feel so threatened or attacked by it. The president, in this case the self-appointed face of the Covid response, needed to maintain a steady and consistent messaging on masks. Yes. I don’t know how else to be any more clear on this.

I don't see how "no, not me. his base" confuses you. I can try again. Whatever is left of the Trump electorate is clearly comprised of folks smitten by his cult of personality. So, yes, having a clear and consistent message on masks from the president is important in convincing this demographic to do a simple and very effective thing. This is just 1 example of his many failures in managing the Covid pandemic.

This, again, is where facts matter. NYC hasn't allowed indoor dining/drinking since March. Homeless people have been removed from crowded indoor spaces. Demonstrations take place outdoors and there is a hell of a lot more mask wearing than you'll see at a Trump rally. Back to the basics: Covid spreads most readily in indoor spaces. You've had 5 months to learn this.

No, not me. His base. I mean c'mon, I'm not nitpicking here. Was it yesterday that the US president re-tweeted QAnon on Covid?

Yes, we weren’t prepared for the corpses because Covid is a new virus with high transmissibility and because we lack population-level immunity or a vaccine (of course, our delay in acknowledging and responding to the virus and a lack of a cohesive national strategy and messaging have only made things much worse). I don’t think the problem is that we didn’t have enough space in the morgue for the bodies, it’s that people are dying at high rates. The solution here should be to prevent deaths not simply to expand our morgues. It’s remarkable to see how high our numbers got despite a total shut down and a near economic halt.

If you’re suggesting that we should’ve been wearing masks during the flu season pre-covid, you may be onto something. The etiology of influenza is actually quite different from SARS-CoV-2, but I don’t think that’s what you’re asking. As I said above, Covid is more infectious and because it’s a new virus, we lack immunity as a population. Most people who die from influenza don’t have a flu shot. The facts are clear and we should be debating (as a society) how to proceed given what we know. Unfortunately, politicization and conspiracy theories are much more interesting to many.

If you're physically healthy odds are you'll be more likely to recover from most physical ailments. That's not what we're talking about here. The flu was here before Covid and we didn't have refrigerated trucks parked outside of hospitals to accommodate the bodies piling up in the morgue. Accepting that Covid has a high transmissibility and that we lack general population-level immunity does not mean that you have to cower in a dark corner of your house. It means that you take simple precautions like social distancing and wearing masks when you can't… not because you’re weak but to prevent picking up the virus and transmitting it to someone who may not be as strong or healthy you.

C'mon, it's been 5 months now. We're not still comparing Covid to the flu, are we?

Who’s Melanie? ...she sounds hot Glad you’re ok chef. I’ll confess, I’ve never worn a harness on a tree stand. I’ll fix that.

Nothing surprising or shocking about this. Close to half of all American are obese. People can live with obesity, diabetes, and even cancer for many decades. In the case you note, Covid is what killed them. here’s a link to full reporting on this very unsurprising claim: https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/30/politics/twitter-coronavirus-deaths-false-claim-qanon-trump/index.html

Lord, forgive wolc123, for he knows not what he says

I chose factcheck because it’s analysis is balanced and I hoped it wouldn’t trigger too much defensiveness in you. ...Surely God will choose Biden, a man of faith

You don't have to be on a trust fund or on welfare to be logical...

Obama didn’t make many friends on the left by starting the drone program and racking up quite the body count. Yes, Obama/Biden foreign policy and use of military was exponentially better than Trump/Pence. Just listen to the military leadership. Foreign leaders are on record with our Republican leadership voicing reluctance to engage with Trump because of his instability and incompetence. He has repeatedly leaked sensitive information on Twitter and during his meandering rants. Trump has publically rejected intelligence findings and supported our geopolitical rivals. If Fox New doesn’t cover this, just look at the record number of US generals and military leaders (many of whom have a lifelong conservative track record) that have publically endorsed the Democratic candidate. This is a big deal. I will say, Trump is a master marketer. He coins a concise soundbite and bombards us with it. Somehow folks are still talking about hydroxychloroquine when all the scientific evidence points to its ineffectiveness and associated risks. It’s the same story with ISIS – Trump continues to repeat that we were losing against ISIS and because of him we are now winning. This is a fantasy, but just as he can’t talk about COVID without mention hydroxycholorquine, he can’t bring up foreign affairs without saying that he has beaten ISIS. If you hear something often enough, it becomes easy to believe. To be clear, our economy was booming and had been on a steady rising phase under Obama and ISIS territory had been steadily reduced during his administration. Trump came in and, as the brilliant (and deceptive) marketer that he is, he’s convinced too many people that the Obama economy was in recession and that ISIS strongholds were vast. Both of these are fiction. https://www.factcheck.org/2019/11/trumps-isis-claim-goes-to-the-dogs/

That’s another caricature that you need to examine. We all fall victim to the fundamental attribution error at times, it’s human nature. You may want a more limited government role (except in policing women’s bodies) but this isn’t an ideological foundation that guides Trump and it’s exactly why so much of the Republican Party has rejected him.

The Democratic Party, imperfect as it is, is on a totally different league than this fascist and incompetent leftover version of the Republican Party. Fear of socialism/anarchy is a lame talking point that simply does not hold water. I don’t expect you to embrace the Democratic platform but there are simply too many conservative outlets disavowing Trump and his party to ignore if you consider yourself a true conservative.

You wouldn’t be the only conservative who can’t bring himself to vote for Trump again: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/jeff-flake-joe-biden-more-conservative-than-trump-on-core-issues https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/politics/john-mccain-biden-trump.html

Mine does that too sometimes. When he was a pup I wouldn’t discourage it as I feared it would mess with his retrieve drive. It doesn’t, they’re smart. When he’s gotten into something that he shouldn’t have and I catch him, rather than running off he promptly runs to me with the item and delivers it perfectly. I find that this ‘misbehavior’ only happens when he hasn’t blown off steam outdoors. A tired dog is a happy dog.

If that doesn’t work, try running.

It’s an old playbook. Convince people that’s there’s impending doom, be it a caravan of immigrant invaders or that cities are burning down and now they’re coming for your suburbs. It’s visceral, that’s why people fall for it. Funny thing is that this message tends to be more effective when you’re not the incumbent president. Weird how selectively we apply the blinders. In the meantime, we’re seeing economic collapse, loss of jobs and, of course, unnecessarily high loss of lives due to a mismanagement of the Covid response. While the world was responding, trump was denying. Then he was undermining the experts. But nevermind this. It’s the China virus and they’re coming for your suburbs next. There’s an intelligent conservative position that’s worth having at the table. This isn’t it. https://apnews.com/2b6d1118e69841ebdfd722fbd99e21e0

That’s great Andrew - It’s good to identify where exactly viewpoints diverge. I think we’ve just about gotten there, minus the tenuous inseminator quips you keep insisting on. Perhaps even more important is that we’ve showcased the diversity of opinions and viewpoints within the NY hunting community. Good hunting, VH

Of course, the guy calling for Lee is uptight about not being called Andrew. Yes, if the man and woman decide to go through term with the pregnancy, and she gives up all parental rights to the father, then who’s arguing that you shouldn’t be legally allowed to do that? (No one is, btw). That’s different than the man legally mandating that she go through with the pregnancy so that he can have the baby. At that point the woman would be nothing more than a walking incubator. Fortunately, the law doesn’t allow for that. Man, this thread has gotten warped... And damnit! I was excited to learn about your encouragement for a 2 family household. You would’ve been breaking new ground here!