Re: Discussion of the 2020 American Federal Election
@UltimateBlade
I like your analysis of the situation. I don't fully agree with it but you definitely bring up some important things.
1. Accusations that Trump's travel ban was motivated by racism.
I agree for the most part about this, it was irresponsible for people like Biden to capitalize on the situation for political points and try to spin this into a race thing.
Especially when you consider that three major U.S airlines had separately pledged to suspend flights between the two countries on the same day just before the travel ban was announced. And while foreign nationals who had been in China within the last two weeks weren't allowed, immediate family members of U.S citizens and permanent residence were.
This seems to simply be a standard way of stemming the tide by stopping tourism and business trips, while retrieving citizens stuck in China. None of this seems racist or unreasonable to me...
However, Trump's hardline stance on China before this started, and his insistence on calling the virus "the China virus" or the "Kung Flu", , while even going so far as to participate in conspiracy theories about the virus being a bio weapon did make it seem like he was using this as an opportunity to smear them even more.
At the same time, the WHO was also recommending against a travel ban at that time, often specifically sighting cultural bias as a side effect of doing so too early.
And it's important to realize that in both the Tweet Biden made on Feb 1 (the day after the ban) and in that audio clip, he never specifically mentioned the travel ban or said it was wrong.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2 … xenophobi/
As far as I'm concerned, it was still not a good time to be saying things like that, but at the same time, it's dishonest to put words in people's mouths.
2. Accusations that the Trump administration haven't done enough for their citizens during this outbreak.
You said that you find actions more important than words (which I generally agree with) so I will focus on actions/inactions, though I do believe that when you are a president, your words can have allot of impact since so many people look to you for advice, and the data backs this up. This is particularly true when you say one thing but the reality is very different, or when you praise people for not following the rules put in place, which happened many times during the first few months especially,.
A. This article explains how the U.S government waited too long to start buying new masks and ventilators, despite seeing how bad the situation was getting and despite prier warnings from health officials.
https://apnews.com/article/090600c299a8 … 92534856bc
B. According to a widely sighted study, up to 90% of the deaths in the first wave of the virus in the U.S could have been prevented if social distancing was implemented 2 weeks earlier, and up to approximately 60% if just one week earlier.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/opin … ncing.html
C. 6 CDC staff interviewed by CNN explain that they believe the Whitehouse has sidelined their organization for political reasons.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/politics … index.html
D. The Whitehouse rejected the guidelines for churches, schools, businesses, and government which were proposed by the CDC on May 1st, calling them too restrictive.
https://www.npr.org/2020/05/07/85209026 … businesses
E. Staff within the HHS and CDC accused Trump appointed officials of delaying and changing vital scientific reports about the virus published by the CDC, because they didn't align with Whitehouse claims.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/1 … -19-412809
F. The CDC website suddenly changes it's guidelines on contact testing with no explanation to ones that alarm several doctors, retracting them 3 weeks later. A health official says that the change was ordered by the Whitehouse, but Fauci claims that he was left out of the decision.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/26/health/c … index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/26/politics … index.html
G. Christi Grimm, deputy inspector general of the HHS, was removed from office after a report she wrote describing PPE shortages for hospitals contradicted the Whitehouse's claims.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra … or-general
H. Rick Bright, a high ranking scientist in the HHS in charge of vaccine research, says that he was transferred to a less useful position in the NIH as retaliation for advocating against using unproven drugs to treat Covid 19 patients.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronaviru … -complaint
I definitely agree that democrats have caused problems in this as well, you already gave some good examples with the protesters and hospital ship, but I'll also mention the phase 4 relief bill proposed by Nancy Pelosi which contained unrelated measures and prompted in allot of infighting which means it won't be considered again until after the election now. Still, this is about how well the current administration did...
And honestly, I can agree that Trump could have done worse. When things actually started rolling, he signed almost all of the proposed orders rather than dragging his feet on them, and if he had decided to cause more problems than things could be even worse right now.
Still, he and his people didn't act fast enough in some important ways, tried to manipulate the science multiple times, and gave incredibly mixed messages to the public.
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