Quote:
Originally Posted by
mickeycrimm
All things considered I think Trump is doing an outstanding job. Trump uses rhetoric to keep the people calm and the left says he's underestimating the virus. The very first case in U.S. was Jan 21. Ten days later Trump banned flights from China. Left says he is a racist, zenophobe for doing it. If he hadn't put on the travel ban they would have said he was harming Americans. Just this one move saved thousands of American lives.
Trump was leading on the coronavirus long before the breakout. He's cut more red tape at the FDA than any President is history. Experts are saying its had a big effect on working towards a cure.
That's just a couple things off the top of my head.
The problem with "rhetoric to keep the people calm" is that the consequences of that have probably been a huge negative, because it means more public contact, more going out, more disease spread. It kept the supply chains intact for maybe a week -- that's the positive accomplishment. But that doesn't make up for people thinking this was not a big deal. As of four days ago, only 40% of Republicans thought it was a big deal. The president's rhetoric had a lot to do with that.
And now it's March 19, and people aren't calm anymore. So what was the point of mischaracterizing reality in the service of "keeping people calm?"
It bought the supply chains a week, and cost a week in more disease spread than necessary. It bought the stock market a few days, but the 1% crowd isn't stupid and has an international perspective on this, so the stock market was going to crash. If I were a cynic, I'd suggest that "keeping people calm" when they should not have been calm bought folks in the know some days to get out of the market.