Originally Posted by
Bob21
Originally Posted by
redietz
If this does turn out to be the case, then the answer to "what have you got to lose?" becomes "your life." One of the suggestions has been to use the drug prophylactically, but if it suppresses immune systems, then you see the problems. A suppressed immune system would be the flip side of an increased virus dosage, which has been established as bad.
To clarify, when Trump said “what do you have to lose?”, he’s not talking about healthy people wanting to suppress the coronavirus. He’s talking about people on their deathbed. If they are on their way to death, then what do they have to lose by trying it? He’s just making it available; he’s not saying they have to use it. He said he would use it, if he was in that shape. I probably would too.
I mean if you’re going to die anyway, “what do you have to lose?” I think that’s a pretty good way of stating it.
That’s what you got to like about Trump. He says things that make commonsense, and the common folks understand. I get the elite liberal intellect crowd, which includes the mainstream media, have a hard time comprehending this.
I really like all Trump’s press conferences where he takes on the media and makes them look like idiots.
Bob21, I'm going to take issue with your clarification above. It's true that I personally interpreted what the president said the same way you did. Now I'll go back and check this again, but I listened to him saying this in two different presentations, and he does not make it clear that he's talking about "if you're in bad shape" or "if you look as if you're gonna die." He just does not say that. He says "What have you got to lose?" without qualifying remarks, which is a very dangerous thing to do. He also doesn't say anything like, "If you're healthy, don't take this prophylactically." He doesn't qualify what he's saying at all.
I thought it was very curious. He avoids explicitly stating "If you look as if you'll die," or "If you're on the ropes, you might consider this." The problems with not spelling that out are (1) literally a third to half of the country may become infected in the next year, so it's important to spell out "If you're in real bad shape," so the majority of people with minimal symptoms don't think they should be taking it, (2) if you don't spell it out, this is a drug that can be taken prophylactically, again this would be a problem, and (3) when he says "what have you got to lose?" it could be interpreted as "if you get this with symptoms, you're pretty much toast, so consider these drugs." But that is not the case.
I understand why he avoids explicitly saying, "If you are on track to die." It's a painful and not politically expedient thing to say. But he really needs to be explicit.
I tend to think that not much the president says in speeches is terribly accidental. I think that the avoidance of being explicit is in all likelihood very purposeful, especially since I think he used the same construction at least twice.
Now you and I interpreted it in the correct way. But really, if you go back and listen to what he said without our perspective, he's not being clear, and he needs to be, no matter that the words are painful.