American Politics Discussion

[Harry]

Saturday Night Live had its season opener yesterday. 

The season cold opens with a reenactmentnt of the first debate. Debuting Jim Carrey in the role of Biden and Maya Angelou as Kamala Harris.

[Harry]

[Azeem]

Someone gave him the wrong injection 

[RandoEFC+]

I'm actually on board with the conspiracy theorists now. The story is all over the place, they can't make their minds up when he was diagnosed, if he needed oxygen, anything.

It's so easy to believe that this was a publicity stunt and they've abandoned it having failed to see a boost in his polling numbers. He's had an absolute meltdown on Twitter today and now he's already getting discharged mere days after apparently needing emergency treatment.

I'm sorry, the whole thing stinks. Trump and his team's heads have absolutely gone. Can't get their story straight. If it wasn't for all of the other senators and White House staff testing positive I'd be completely convinced the whole thing was a hoax.

[Harry]

Wow. Covid is no big deal. Stop letting it control your lives. Get back to work.

[Tommy]

6 hours ago, Harry said:

Wow. Covid is no big deal. Stop letting it control your lives. Get back to work.

Everyone just knew he was going to say that after "beating" the virus. Really makes me think that he never really had it and it's all just propaganda. 

[Harry]

54 minutes ago, Tommy said:

Everyone just knew he was going to say that after "beating" the virus. Really makes me think that he never really had it and it's all just propaganda. 

I've never been less sure.

At this point I think there's

a 33% chance he's faked the whole thing.

A 33% chance he's still sick as fuck and back in hospital by next week.

Probably a 33% that he had COVID for about a week longer than was said and told noone, until it became clear he needed hospital at which time he acted like he just caught it.

And  0.001% chance he's r caught Covid on Thursday and got better by Monday, basically faster than any person ever, with Kim Jung UN like perfection. This is currently what we're being asked to swallow as the truth, which is fucking bizarre.

[Stan]

5 minutes ago, Tommy said:

Everyone just knew he was going to say that after "beating" the virus. Really makes me think that he never really had it and it's all just propaganda. 

Same. 

Failing that, it is real, and he has benefitted from the immediacy of the best medical care someone could get in that situation. So no wonder he's recovered so quickly. I mean, why can't everyone else just jump on a helicopter and go to the best medical centre around at the drop of a hat? No wonder he's so boastful (unsurprisingly) at 'beating' it. 

If he truly does have it, we'll see how he is in the next few days when apparently the virus would have actually incubated within him and the initial cocktail of medication and steroids and pills wear off. 

 

What shocked me the other day is when the doctor doing the press conference outside the hospital couldn't say how much supplemental oxygen he was given. He's the doctor ffs. Surely it's something you'd know, how much treatment your patient, let alone the president (!), has been given in the past 12-24 hours. Otherwise how can a rational decision be made about what future medicine/treatment is to be given later that day for example?! 

[Harry]

If he follows through with that rant into the election he will be doing so much damage. Literally that will basically guarantee way more preventable deaths.

 

[Stan]

1 minute ago, Harry said:

If he follows through with that rant into the election he will be doing so much damage. Literally that will basically guarantee way more preventable deaths.

 

It is one of the most dangerous games he's playing right now. Scarily so. Already 200k+ deaths and his actions could pave the way for so many more... 

[The Artful Dodger]

Whilst we shouldn't play down the risks of catching it neither should we sensationalise the risk. It's not a death sentence for anyone, even old fat men like Trump are far more likely to fully recover quickly than die or suffer badly.

Having said that, it's hard to be sure with Trump and he is irresponsible already parading around without a mask. Surely he can't be posting negative tests already, he's had it less than a week hasn't he? The only thing I'd say against it being made up is that what benefit does it bring him? Apart from avoiding another debate? I hardly think people are going to feel sorry for him being ill and vote for him.

[Harry]

4 hours ago, The Artful Dodger said:

Whilst we shouldn't play down the risks of catching it neither should we sensationalise the risk. It's not a death sentence for anyone, even old fat men like Trump are far more likely to fully recover quickly than die or suffer badly.

Having said that, it's hard to be sure with Trump and he is irresponsible already parading around without a mask. Surely he can't be posting negative tests already, he's had it less than a week hasn't he? The only thing I'd say against it being made up is that what benefit does it bring him? Apart from avoiding another debate? I hardly think people are going to feel sorry for him being ill and vote for him.

Well in the 4 days before this story:

His tax returns had leaked, showing him to be in 400m debt and having paid no tax almost at all in a 15 year period (except one big return which he is still in court trying to get back)

His campaign manager jumped ship with 25m in funds and was arrested

Tapes leak on Melania portraying her as heartless and unsympathetic

He put in a debate performance derided as the worst in the history of the American presidency.

He told the proud boys to stand by.

All of this has stopped being talked about, with him engineering an issue which has his 40% base hailing him as a Messiah, has 40% dem base absolutely livid, and a biggish chunk of people that hated the thought of their president dying, are probably glad that no longer seems likely, and aren't quite sure what to make about the two other camps and how it's all happened.

[Stan]

33 minutes ago, The Artful Dodger said:

Whilst we shouldn't play down the risks of catching it neither should we sensationalise the risk. It's not a death sentence for anyone, even old fat men like Trump are far more likely to fully recover quickly than die or suffer badly.

Having said that, it's hard to be sure with Trump and he is irresponsible already parading around without a mask. Surely he can't be posting negative tests already, he's had it less than a week hasn't he? The only thing I'd say against it being made up is that what benefit does it bring him? Apart from avoiding another debate? I hardly think people are going to feel sorry for him being ill and vote for him.

 

14 minutes ago, Harry said:

Well in the 4 days before this story:

His tax returns had leaked, showing him to be in 400m debt and having paid no tax almost at all in a 15 year period (except one big return which he is still in court trying to get back)

His campaign manager jumped ship with 25m in funds and was arrested

Tapes leak on Melania portraying her as heartless and unsympathetic

He put in a debate performance derided as the worst in the history of the American presidency.

All of this has stopped being talked about, with him engineering an issue which has his 40% base hailing him as a Messiah, has 30% dem base absolutely livid, and a biggish chunk of people that had been concerned at the thought of their president dying, are probably glad that no longer seems likely, and aren't quite sure what to make about the two other camps.

With it being all about power for Trump, it shows him in a light that he can overcome a virus that has killed 1m+ people so far. 

[RandoEFC+]

He'll be gone in a month. Biden is polling up to 10 points ahead of him nationwide. 

[Harry]

27 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

He'll be gone in a month. Biden is polling up to 10 points ahead of him nationwide. 

Hillary was up by a similarly large albeit lesser margin.

But this time trump is president. He's a narcissist who cannot accept defeat and has no shame. A fuck ton of people are voting by mail, which won't be counted on the night, and he'll be sitting on a 6-3 Supreme Court majority there to decide any contested election result. 

[RandoEFC+]

2 hours ago, Harry said:

Hillary was up by a similarly large albeit lesser margin.

But this time trump is president. He's a narcissist who cannot accept defeat and has no shame. A fuck ton of people are voting by mail, which won't be counted on the night, and he'll be sitting on a 6-3 Supreme Court majority there to decide any contested election result. 

As much as he'll do anything to win, this still isn't China or North Korea we're talking about. Trump may trump loyalists in key positions but he doesn't directly control them and there will come a point where they choose to preserve themselves instead of going down with his ship and end up in jail like so many of his previous advisers and cronies. He's lost too much support and he's losing more. The gap is growing in every poll, he's making no progress and he only really has his extremists left.

Some people are determined to believe that he's going to find a way to win dirty in the face of all actual evidence. He will try, I'm sure, but he doesn't have the national support to cling on, it simply isn't tight enough.

He's not going to close the gap either. All he has in his locker is what he's been doing for the past 5 years and it's turned too many people away from him. If he had an ace in the hole, he would have played it already.

[The Artful Dodger]

I'm not going to get carried away with polls, until he's kicked out I won't believe it.

[Burning Gold]

7 hours ago, Harry said:

I've never been less sure.

At this point I think there's

a 33% chance he's faked the whole thing.

A 33% chance he's still sick as fuck and back in hospital by next week.

Probably a 33% that he had COVID for about a week longer than was said and told noone, until it became clear he needed hospital at which time he acted like he just caught it.

And  0.001% chance he's r caught Covid on Thursday and got better by Monday, basically faster than any person ever, with Kim Jung UN like perfection. This is currently what we're being asked to swallow as the truth, which is fucking bizarre.

Broadly agree, although I don't think he's that sick at the moment; he looks fine and I don't think he'd risk a live appearance if he was liable to collapse or have a coughing fit at a moment's notice. To go from positive test to hospital to fine within about 3 days is extremely fucking suspect

Do we know what brought on the test? Was it symptoms or just part of a routine testing regime?

[RandoEFC+]

In theory, I'd love to sit and puzzle it out but I get as far as "something is suspect about this" and then decide that I owe it to myself to go about my day instead of worrying about this moron for a second longer than what's necessary, because that's what he wants to get out of this. Another argument where his opponents and anyone with any critical thinking skills can question the inconsistencies in his story while his window-licking supporters can scream back 'fake news'. It seems to drum up more support for him but for me, yawn.

[Harry]

6 hours ago, Burning Gold said:

Broadly agree, although I don't think he's that sick at the moment; he looks fine and I don't think he'd risk a live appearance if he was liable to collapse or have a coughing fit at a moment's notice. To go from positive test to hospital to fine within about 3 days is extremely fucking suspect

Do we know what brought on the test? Was it symptoms or just part of a routine testing regime?

The official story is he got tested after he learned hope Hicks tested positive. However unofficially he felt symptomatic before Hicks.

What's weird is that lots of information had been disclosed, but what they are refusing to say is quite telling.

Doctors will not reveal the date of his last negative test before the positive one. (He's supposed to be tested daily). Also they won't reveal what "expected findings"they saw on his chest scan. I think that means he either tested positive earlier than revealed, or that he wasn't testing daily as he was supposed to be. The scans I think reveal that he has Covid pneumonia which is the main expected finding you would get from a scan like that on a COVID patient.

[Harry]

So Trump's favourite musical is Evita. And alot of people have noted the similarity of yesterday's balcony moment with the scene from that movie. The lincoln project took the trolling up a notch with a great rendition of the power ballad. They have been useful for the Biden campaign as they are willing to go where Biden's own advertising could not.

 

[Harry]

 

[Azeem]

 

[Eco]

VP debate tonight. Pence vs Harris. 

I really hope people, especially those who are undecided, tune in tonight. 

I fully expect Harris to come off as much more likable, relatable, and human than Pence. I don't personally dislike Pence and in some ways like him, but think he comes off as just another 'politician' who keeps with his parties views, whereas Harris certainly portrays herself as an overall bad-ass, intelligent, American woman. 

[Stan]

9 hours ago, Eco said:

VP debate tonight. Pence vs Harris. 

I really hope people, especially those who are undecided, tune in tonight. 

I fully expect Harris to come off as much more likable, relatable, and human than Pence. I don't personally dislike Pence and in some ways like him, but think he comes off as just another 'politician' who keeps with his parties views, whereas Harris certainly portrays herself as an overall bad-ass, intelligent, American woman. 

Did anyone come flying out of the blocks last night?

I'd have love to be a fly on the wall to hear what was said after the debate.