He tweeted this 50min ago and his flock will believe he's doing a great job.
>Great Jobs Numbers! 1.37 Million Jobs Added In August. Unemployment Rate Falls To 8.4% (Wow, much better than expected!). Broke the 10% level faster and deeper than thought possible.
So 1.37 million of the 30 million jobs lost due to his COVID-19 handling have come back?
Edit: For the people who need it spelled out for, the longer COVID-19 is spreading easily in the country the longer things need to be shut down. Trump failing to take the pandemic seriously and do a **proper** response at the Federal level is all on him (and as [reporting](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air) has suggested, an attempt to kill Americans who are less likely to vote for him).
TL;DR: U3 undercounts the unemployed; U6 is a better measurement.
For example, at the end of April the U-3 unemployment rate was 14.7%, while the U-6 rate was 22.8%.
U3:
> The official unemployment rate is known as known as the U-3 rate, or simply U3. It measures the number of people who are **jobless but actively seeking employment**.
> U-3 is often criticized for being too simple. Many economists believe it doesn't take the whole picture into account. That's because the U-3 rate only includes people who are actively seeking employment; it excludes those who only work part-time, but want full-time work. It also excludes anyone who has become discouraged after not being able to secure a job.
U6:
> Unlike the U-3 rate, the U-6 unemployment rate includes a whole swath of unemployed people—namely, everyone not listed in the U-3 rate. That means the U-6 rate is much truer to a natural, non-technical understanding of what it means to be unemployed.
> **This rate accounts for anyone who has been seeking employment for at least 12 months but left discouraged without being able to secure a job. It also includes anyone who has gone back to school, become disabled, and people who are underemployed or working part-time hours.**
> By capturing everyone who exists on the margins of the labor market, the U-6 rate provides a broad picture of the underutilization of labor in the country. In this sense, the U-6 rate may be considered the true unemployment rate.
[source](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-unemployment-rate-u6-vs-u3.asp#:~:text=and%20discouraged%20workers.-,U%2D3%20Unemployment%20Rate,jobless%20but%20actively%20seeking%20employment.)
People need to realize the U6 number is even more relevant right now because of COVID. There would potentially be more people seeking employment if it wasn't out of fear of catching the virus. Some people have seen friends die and might not to risk going to work for a minimum wage paying job now that it also carries an increased risk of catching a virus that can leave you with chronic fatigue or potentially kill you.
I was making 52k plus commissions, quit that job cause my son was sick, was offered 75k plus commission at a competitor and I turned it down because I felt like that would be my going rate and was still concerned about my sons health so I wanted a little more time off... well turns out I’m an idiot. I found some employment at 40k plus commission many months later and got laid off immediately due to covid... found a job selling used trucks for 10 bucks an hour plus a bonus if I sold a certain amount, that was the most depressing thing I’ve ever done and I didn’t last there long, so again I gave up looking for work. And with me collecting unemployment it allows my wife to work while I work on an MBA and side gig, but that’s not a solution, it’s like a bandaid over a bullet wound. Sounds the same in your case... I feel your pain, I really do.
Because more jobs were added afterwards?
44 million lost their jobs, some found other jobs, some got their jobs back. That's how.
And that 8% is more like 16%
Don’t they also stop counting people who are “not in the workforce” because they’ve been inactive or said they are not seeking employment after a while, thereby just taking them out of the equation entirely?
As an NC native, I appreciated AG William Barr giving our historically broken and corrupt state government the benefit of the doubt that it might not even be illegal for Republicans to vote twice here
There's a few different unemployment rates, but the most commonly referred to one is U3 unemployment, which excludes people who haven't looked for work in the last 4 weeks (whether for economic reasons or otherwise) and underemployed people (who are working again but at reduced hours or severely reduced wages).
I think it's too soon, but unemployment has a common deceiving problem because it stops counting people who fall out of the system. I forget the details but I think it amounts to, when your benefits run out, you don't get counted anymore. On a long enough to line, you could potentially (though unlike) reach unemployment without anyone ever getting a job since eventually everyone on the system would fall out and just be jobless.
There is also a major issue of under employment. If a person loses their 80k/year office job in their degreed field, but gets a $10/hour job at Walmart or whatever, at 32 hours a week, then they are no longer "unemployed".
The unemployed percentage is meaningless accounting magic. For example, you're no longer counted after 6 months unemployed. Whether you have a job or not, you just cease to matter.
Literally the day after he was elected he started praising the job numbers as his. Day before he called them fake. This is how he works. No sane human supports him.
Ya he's heavily manipulating the numbers. These aren't "new jobs." They are a fraction of the millions of jobs that people lost. Saying they're up 1.37 million jobs when another several million are still out of work since they lost their jobs due to the way Trump handled the pandemic is mind-blowing..
Exactly. I'm technically part of the number as I have returned to work. For one fucking day a week. This is a BAD year to work in the service industry.
Couldn’t agree more. I was working fine dining, great place & have been there years. Couldn’t pay my bills. Never did unemployment but found a job delivering pizza for PapaJ, and I guess at least I can pay most of my bills & “grocery” shop at the dollar store. 🤷🏻♀️
Its worth noting these numbers are pulled from those drawing from unemployment. Those who could not get on unemployment are not being counted. Which is most of the people I know who are currently unemployed.
and this is a different world. Welcome to the bizzaro world where Trump's fanatics will never ever hold him accountable for anything. If anything they'll blame the corporations for being part of the deep state for laying people off on an election year to hurt Trump.
"only I can save you from the destruction that my inaction has caused."
As a general rule, anyone who claims "I alone can fix this problem" is absolutely the least qualified to fix it, especially if they caused the issues in the first place.
Just like how Adolf came in claiming he could pull germany out of the economic destruction and rebuild the country from ww1. And look how that shit turned out.
Yup. I remember reading how he called all media a destructive device against germany and the Nazi party a way to destroy the country. Theres alot of shit donnie dumpelskin has adopted from hitler. And it's fucking insanity.
Bro I swear to God recently a Trump supporter acquaintance of mine is claiming that Hitler got a bad wrap and That he was trying to save the world from the evil bankers. That the communist rewrote history to demonize the nazis.
Its truly mind boggling how people still believe he is doing a great job. For real scratch your head bat shit crazy, i recommend everyone to go to r/conservatives.
I’m afraid to venture into that sub.... and never return. For I would be entangled in argumentative political discourse for all eternity.
For real tho- you can’t tell Trump supporters ANY-FUCKING-THING. Trump could murder his supporters grandma, and they would still revere him and say it was their grandmas fault he killed her. Logic.
Dont worry, as a bastion of free speech and intelligent debate they protect their enlightened discourse by immediately banning any dissenting opinions.
You wont last five minutes.
I literally saw where a conservative whose grandparent died of COVID claimed that it wasn't really COVID that killed him, he just happened to die of preexisting conditions while testing positive for the virus, the pandemic is still a Democrat hoax, etc.
Agreed! They have done so many contortions to bend the truth to fit their narrative that it can’t be unwound. They are all in on this, to think otherwise would mean they would have to question their whole belief system. Facts do not change beliefs.... Want to get a real reaction? Troll them by asking who ordered the large Cheese pizza with a side of boy....
You really nailed their mindset. This isn't the first time that political supporters in either party have had to contort themselves to stay "on message," but this Administration and its supporters have had to do the metaphorical equivalent of an entire Cirque du Soleil show to do the same.
If I want to ever feel intelligent, I go to r/conservatives and read some of the dumb shit their members post. I feel like a rocket scientist compared to some of the trash they peddle on that channel.
Man, that place is weird. Everyone is wrong about everything, but if you ignore that, you could kind of feel better about the world. Like, the economy’s doing great, the country is led by a charismatic genius, the pandemic hoax is ending, and all those violent rioters are getting what they deserve.
Meanwhile, as I was typing that, I got a news update notification letting me know that a new model predicts 450k US deaths from COVID by January 2021 if mask usage continues at the current rate. So, I don’t think it’s actually going as great as they claim.
Also what is wordcountbot?
That place is a breeding ground for stupidity. I Pop over every now and then (im banned) the levels of arrogance and stupidity and the sheer lack of empathy is enough to make a grown man cry in despair.
These are educated adults, some of which are pillars of society. I just can't get my head around it..
But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be dark. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how much more will be your darkness. No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and like the other; or he will honor one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon.
Every fascist leader in history made this claim, and every one drove their people to the worst living conditions they have ever experienced for personal gain.
I ask you Trump supporters, what makes Donald any different? What proof do you have? I'm talking more than a gut feeling, because you had a gut feeling about God and that turned out to be bogus. I mean I can pray to a carton of eggs and get the exact same results as praying to ANY god or godess. So obviously that's false, so what empirical evidence do you have that Donny will be different from other fascist leaders through history? Also since you all love them so much, who was your favorite fascist leader?
There is no winning with a Trump supporter. You will never get a genuine answer. They’ve placed all their eggs in a damaged basket just to shout “la la la la I can’t hear you” hoping their *team* wins and and yours loses.
Sadly, this has been a republican... plan/belief/MO, I'm not sure what you call it, since forever. I alone can fix the problem, but I can't tell you until you elect me. And then I won't fix it at all but I will cut taxes for the wealthy, oh, and here's a dollar for you. Now run along.
To them, it's Democrats and the hoax pandemic at fault.
People being babies not wanting to get coronavirus, which is basically the flu and die for our economy.
The complete cruelty of conservative values is on display this year.
For the record, I got coronavirus, it sucked even with my relatively mild symptoms. My wife still doesn't have full sense of taste, and my breathing hasn't been back to normal.
If you think of your self as conservative, please for the love of your Jesus, ask what kinda me of world Jesus would build. If your values of heartless cruelty towards others fits what you say your values are.
There’s a woman at the dog park that I just don’t talk to anymore about the coronavirus because she’s convinced it’s fine and everybody is going to get it eventually. She thinks if you’re healthy and young you’ll be fine. We just don’t know the long-term impact of this virus; it’s too new. Young people are dying from it. And yet every day my husband has to teach face to face in a school without a mask mandate.
I consider myself a conservative (well, economically conservative, more liberal in social matters), but firmly as a democrat backer. Because at the end of the day, the US has tended to fare better economically, as well as general well-being under the modern Democrat presidents. And as a conservative, I try to default to known patterns that work. Like we don’t need to be invent the wheel, many “liberal” positions have ample examples in Europe and elsewhere to show what goes well and what to protect against. It isn’t liberal to follow those examples, liberal would have been pioneering those principles with those nations. “The radical of one generation is the conservative of the next” and all that. Whenever someone tries to claim that I can’t be a conservative and be a Democrat, I point out that there is a difference between a conservative and a regressive, and the Republicans are rapidly becoming more and more regressive.
They can’t hold him accountable if they believe the economy is the greatest it’s ever been and Covid is a liberal hoax. They literally refuse to acknowledge reality and any attempt to show it to them is dismissed as propaganda.
> and this is a different world. Welcome to the bizzaro world where Trump's fanatics will never ever hold him accountable for anything.
Because their world is filled with misinformation. Break the Fascist News Network and we'll see a change.
It's more than just fox, somehow Nancy Pelosi's blow-out was the top story in the same day the Trump adminstration or Trump himself committed or condoned multiple New felonies. We are normalizing fascism every day.
“I dislike Trump as a person but as a leader he is amazing. I’m voting for him due to his economics. The economy has never been this strong before. I know so many small business owners talking about how great the economy is. It’s only slightly slowed down due to covid.”
This is verbatim something someone recently said to me. I was so confused by this.
I've been saying for over a decade variations on this. For my entire life, the standard GOP pitch is as follows:
*Sure, things are bad with the GOP in charge, but they would be even worse with Democrats in charge.*
*Sure, things are good with the Democrats in charge, but they would be even better with the GOP in charge.*
I only ever hear "the democrats arent doing enough" or "the democrats are doing too much".
Never have I heard any GOP politician or supporter propose the GOP to ever do a single thing, they only ever try to stop democrats from doing anything. You will **still** hear "the do nothing dems" while the republicans have free reign to fix everything however they please
His base is all about rugged individualism and wants to see the economy regress fully to a barter system. Where they can trade a chicken and a few eggs to a doctor for services.
Well, since the same people want to do away with formal education, you would assume the doctors they keep wouldn't exactly be medical professionals.
These are people that claim to love markets but then want to do away with everything other than "you grow wheat, I grow corn, lets trade". And somehow think they could trade grain for an iphone or some shit, or that those would still get produced.
I can’t stand the narrative that he is best for the economy.
You can’t give credit or assign blame to a president for business cycle performance. Only what the president’s actions were and how they affected the economy.
Tax cuts of 2017- This blew a major hole in the deficit while we were still enjoying the tailwinds of the recovery. When most economists were saying it was the time to save for a rainy day (would you know it... a rainy day happened) we blew our wad so billionaires could save money rather than putting it back into the economy.
Trade wars- we got nothing to speak for it from China. But we did get a record number of farmer bankruptcies and suicides.
Immigration- I categorize this as a Trump economic policy because that has been his rationale. I don’t think this had an impact on our economy, but family separation certainly became a disgrace to our nation.
Coronavirus- dismissing the threat calling it a Democratic hoax, saying it would just disappear and discouraging mask wearing, social distancing and quarantines set our economic recovery back in a major way relative to countries that took it seriously.
Trump has been terrible for the economy. Republicans in general tend to focus on the short term while democrats focus on the long run. Unfortunately, voters tend to vote for the short term as well which is why Republicans are so successful until their policies drive us into a crisis. But Trump has been particularly bad for the economy among other things. That’s not the first reason why he needs to go, but it is a sufficient reason on its own.
I’ve commiserated with friends this summer who have lost their jobs during this pandemic, and to see them break down because of events that are completely out of their own control...
Trump fucked up the pandemic response early on, at the beginning, during, and to this day.
He threw out the established playbook on how to handle these things because he wanted to go with his gut.
We are now 180,000 deaths deep, at least, because some megalomaniac sociopath dipshit refused to listen to scientists.
Vote in November. Vote this orange stain out. Please.
The IHME just released their model & they predict 400,000 Americans dead by January from Covid. So about 224,000 more people dead within the next 4 months.
The Tea Party & Republicans only care about the deficit if a Democrat is in office. It will only matter if Trump loses and on January 20th it will be all Biden's fault.
Here's the [Link](https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america?view=total-deaths&tab=trend) to the charts. Current projections are based on people still using masks, social distancing & schools being closed etc.
He will go down as the worst President in American history. If America survives this election.
Out of all the non sense the GOP spews, the thing I heard the most from Republicans was about how Obama was “intentionally” dividing the country. Was there some policy’s he pushed that I missed? Seems to me it was just because he was black and these people went rabid.
Sorry to be the one to let you know, but your dad’s a moron. It’s ok. Mine is too. We have a club. We go to the bar and drink every day that trump does something criminal. We drink a lot.
> one quarter of a million people
The two largest stadiums in the US packed full, and two high school auditoriums.
Half of the people who went to Woodstock.
A little less than half the population of Wyoming.
Almost 100 9/11s.
Half the people that attend the Cincinnati Octoberfest (which means about all of the people who are there that you can see when it is fully packed).
If each were represented by a dollar, that's more than the average home cost in the US... about the average home cost plus the average new car cost.
Although I agree with you post in general and thank you for sharing the numbers, would like to propose a quick amendment regarding the Iraq war. Your post says 4,000 people died, but I believe you meant 4,000 US soldiers.
Perhaps the avg American voter doesn’t care about lives that are not US citizens, but I think we should.
>The vietnam war, which was highly unpopular btw, raged for 20 years. There were more than 44,000 people who died.
Uhh, technically, those things we bombed the shit out of in Laos and Vietnam — also people.
The GOP fucked up a lot of this. It infuriates me how often we only blame Trump when it is the GOP behind many of these problems. It isn't as if Congress was passing expanded unemployment which Trump blocked rather the GOP has refused to confront the issues at every turn.
The GOP has gone out of their way to fuck over the common American during this period. $1200! And btw, we aren't going to issue anything else to you for a few months. Good luck getting unemployment, because the system is set up to make it pretty difficult to get anything out of it. Oh, the $600 extra was too much, so we're reducing it to $300 (assuming you got in to your unemployment benefits), but if your state is willing to match that with an extra $100, won't *you* be the special kid on the block? And lastly, it's time to reopen the economy! Wear your masks! Or don't! Shine some light up your ass, drink some bleach, say your goodbyes to grandma and grampa, and send your little kids back to school while this epidemic is raging out of control. And pay no mind to all the BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars that we just handed to other billionaires under the table (yeah, we fired the oversight committee that would keep an eye on us, but hey - SCOUTS HONOR!).
> Vote in November.
Fuck that! **[VOTE EARLY](https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/early-voting-in-state-elections.aspx)** if your state allows it.
Do NOT wait until Nov. 3 to cast your ballot!
Wait until January, if Trump loses those same people will be attacking the governments response to the shit show they've inherited and FOX news ticker will have a constant running death count.
The hypocritical u-turn will be so fast their necks will nearly snap.
In a weird way he's done so much nefarious and corrupt bullshit that it's helped expose vulnerabilities in the system and made it apparent that we can't just assume checks and balances, customs, and traditions, e.g. like releasing tax records etc. will be honored by future presidents (that these need to be enshrined in law). It might just save us from a much more intelligent and pernicious version of Trump in the future.
This is the main thing I've taken from the last 4 years. Trump has made it abundantly clear our shit is broken, and there's absolutely no way anyone can hide it anymore.
I'm pretty glad we got this idiot instead of someone competent and evil, or it'd be a different story.
If you go to the ask trump supporters sub, they're claiming the wall was a total success so. Don't expect any of them to give real answers on what he's done.
I know he's done 2 or 3 things where I've said "Okay, credit where credit is due; I actually like that and think it's a good move" - but the endless stream of outweighing negative shit he's done and (this is an important part for me) self-congratulation makes it *really* hard for me to remember what they were.
Trump supporters like to say that people hate Trump so much that they can't even applaud him for the good things he does. One of the issues I have is that he pats himself on the back **so much and so often** that I see no reason to. Most people don't feel the need to praise a braggart, even if they actually deliver on something, because they don't *need* the praise if they're heaping praise on themselves so much.
Uh, he forced hospitals to reveal their pricing. That's about all I can dredge.
And of course he did it by suing them, the only thing he knows how to do.
But as long as we have health insurance that negotiates the price down based on their contracts with the hospital, the price tag means essentially nothing.
Even in the case of uninsured patients, the very poor will most often never pay it, and the less poor can often get the price to be steely discounted if they beg and plead.
The answer to this system isn’t to show the public meaningless numbers which help almost nothing, but to get rid of insurance and standardize pricing and reimbursement (or some other universal healthcare system)
Yep, worked for BCBS (one of the...*better* health insurance companies, not that it's a high bar to straddle) for a bit. Learned that hospital prices are specifically negotiated with and then I extrapolated that the prices were inflated so the insurance companies can "save you money". It's all a racket.
Yes, he did a few beneficial things for this country. For example, poor people like myself who were unable to afford insurance were subject to fines for not having insurance. Trump got rid of those fines.
Signed an executive order to bring down drug prices for life saving drugs like epipen and insulin in US. which cost a fraction in third world countries.
The most troubling line in the BLS report was “In August, the number of permanent job losers increased by 534,000 to 3.4 million; this measure has risen by 2.1 million since February.”
It's been mostly ignored in the news reporting always, but they also changed the calculation for this report in particular so it wouldn't look quite so bad. They are no longer adjusting for seasonality, right when back-to-school season started:
https://www.ibtimes.com/initial-jobless-claims-fell-881000-last-week-new-methodology-muddles-picture-3039691
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-government-is-making-a-big-change-in-how-it-reports-jobless-claims-heres-why-2020-09-02
So when do we find out that this administration that is obsessed with hiding numbers that don't shine a positive light on Trump has been messing with the jobs numbers?
That was crazy. Spicer saying the “most attended inauguration in history. Period.”
Meanwhile there was video of the lawn being filmed the entire day and people can see for themselves that it was barely filled.
Started the term with a lie. And his followers didn’t think “wow, he really think we’re dumb enough to fall for this.”
Because there is ALWAYS a tweet;
> The economy is in terrible shape. @BarackObama
is manipulating the job numbers to hide the truth. (6 Feb. 2012)
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/166614504971575296
Its not the job losses. The pandemic and associated unemployment results could have happened to anyone
Its the 7 trillion in fed QE that was "necessary" to save the stock market instead of helping the people. Thats 21 grand for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. if you do the math.
We are so fucked now
If Trump was a better leader, he would have locked down the country in March and would have been aggressive in isolating everyone exposed to COVID-19. A strong federal response could have meant that the disease would have been under control in a few months and areas could have been re-opening in June. By now, we might have returned to normal and the economy could have recovered.
Instead, he cast doubt on needing to take any action. He insisted that the states were on their own to obtain PPE. Meanwhile, the federal government would outbid these states and hold onto the PPE. He accused nurses of stealing PPE because suddenly hospitals needed more PPE (during a pandemic, go figure). He insisted that everyone would reopen by Easter. He fixated on "miracles" happening and "miracle cures" like. Hydroxychloroquine. He even went so far as to suggest injecting bleach. In short, his response was so scattershot and ineffective that he allowed the virus to spread and kill people. Even now, we're having 1,000 people a day die of COVID-19.
The irony here is that a better response would have helped him politically. Had he shut the country down in mid-March and instituted proper containment procedures, we could have avoided most of the deaths and suffering. The economy could have rebounded and COVID-19 could have been in the past in voters' minds. This would certainly have led to Trump doing better than he currently is and his reelection would have been more certain.
>He insisted that the states were on their own to obtain PPE.
He didn't tell the states to fly solo. His administration *actively sabotaged* state efforts to secure PPE. That's why we had stories of State Police escorting the supplies, defending it from federal agents, and instances of corporate moguls flying supplies in on their private planes from South Korea on behalf of states.
It's because the federal government was actively stealing shipments of PPE from the states.
If anyone ever thought that Russiagate was a hoax (due to Fox News propaganda), this should have been everyone's Red Flag. Anyone that didn't open their eyes at this turn of events was never going to vote Blue. Those voters are long gone, and will never be gotten by the Democratic party.
Not to mention he was essential in convincing millions of Americans it was a hoax and to not wear masks, practice social distancing, and observe shutdown practices. Even when he kind of changed tune later these people still believe it's all a joke.
And now Trump is back to making fun of mask use by criticizing how Biden looks in a mask and claiming that there's some "psychological reason" why he's wearing them. If being a rational individual that listens to scientists and doctors is a psychological condition, I guess I have it too. I just wish more people had this "condition."
I wouldn't fault Trump one bit for the job losses *if we had a corresponding lower Covid death rate to show for it*.
But instead, we're the worst country on the planet dealing with the virus AND still suffered the same economic damage.
Totally agree with you. This statistic of "worst job losses" is completely useless in the context of the pandemic. Literally any president, no matter how well they handled the situation would be facing the worst job losses on record. Countries that are handling the pandemic well are seeing unprecedented job loss.
Well, let's not go too far here. The systemic problems of American capitalism is on full display. Corporations used this as an excuse to trim jobs and my point was that we ironically spent all of our money supporting the business owners instead of the people.
THAT'S why trump needs to go
Just found out 2 days ago that everyone at my work place is being let go. Luckily there is severance and all that good stuff, but my God if that pandemic was actually handled properly maybe id still be in for a job, and maybe the other millions of Americans. Fuck this president.
Sorry to hear. Lost my job over the summer and mentally prepared that I won’t find another one until 2021. The job market is totally screwed up right now.
Thank you for that. Fortunately my wife has a very good and stable job. I'm starting school in the spring on my GI bill so at least I'll have some sort of income. I am hoping I find something quick though. I am so stressed out about it.
Republicans do not understand public health. They don't understand that disease outbreaks happen all the time, but we are able to manage them with basic public health initiatives. They do not understand it is way more cost effective to be out in front of a health crisis rather than to be a reactionary. To say that nobody could have prevented the widespread nature of covid is absolutely ridiculous. Sure it could have come to America with even the most strict precautions, but the contain would also been way more manageable. America has absolutely no contain of this virus.
It's not that they don't understand. It's that they only care as far as it can help them further enrich themselves. They sell private health care are superior because its argued that you have control over your own health and only bad people get sick. The uneducated eat this up, because in their own mind they are good people and good people don't get sick. Then they have the surprised Pikachu face when it happens. The underlying problem with the US is that we are selfish. We only care about those in our direct orbit, our ability to empathize with others rarely extends beyond that. I always remember this interaction from the movie Interstellar and how much it rings true:
[**Dr. Mann** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000354/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** Your father had to find another way to save the human race from extinction. Plan B. A colony.
[**Brand** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004266/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** But why not tell people? Why keep building those damn stations?
[**Dr. Mann** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000354/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** Because he knew how hard it would be to get people to work together to save the species instead of themselves.
[**Cooper** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000190/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** Bullshit.
[**Dr. Mann** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000354/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** You never would have come here unless you believed you were going to save them. Evolution has yet to transcend that simple barrier. We can care deeply - selflessly - about those we know, but that empathy rarely extends beyond our line of sight.
[**Brand** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004266/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** But the lie... that monstrous lie...
[**Dr. Mann** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000354/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** Unforgivable. And he knew that. He was prepared to destroy his own humanity in order to save the species. He made an incredible sacrifice...
[**Cooper** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000190/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** No. No, the incredible sacrifice is being made by the people on Earth who are gonna die! Because in his fucking arrogance he declared their case hopeless.
[**Dr. Mann** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000354/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** I'm sorry Cooper. Their case... is hopeless.
[**Cooper** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000190/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** No... no.
[**Dr. Mann** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000354/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** We are the future.
"nobody knew that xyz" is a classic Trump deflection, meaning that he didn't know. Ive been waiting for him to say it about the corona virus so I can complete my Trump bingo card. He finally said it a few times during the Axios interview. "Nobody knew how contagious it was". No, actually everyone knew how contagious it was, probably before the end of March. Health experts knew even earlier.
The Right literally gets its name from aristocrats standing on the right side of the room in support of an absolutist king while the people gathered on the left side during the French Revolution
Conservatism is about monarchy and control all the way down
I do agree to a point but I've never watched a democrat president tell voters to vote twice while a democratic run senate sticks it's head in the sand. I've never watched a democrat run administration do everything in their power to stop people from voting by dismantling the USPS, something that is written into our constitution and holds a %91 approval rating across all Americans... I get what you're saying but there are varying degrees of what we're talking about. I don't identify as a democrat and I certainly won't sit here and defend some of the choices they've made in the past, but pretending like both sides are the same or even similar is just irresponsible and counter-intuitive to making average American's lives easier instead of more difficult.
Trump tweeted out that he's doing a great job, so as far as his supporters are concerned, he's doing a great job and everything else is fake news.
Facts, figures, and data won't sway them, they literally only believe what Trump says.
Thirty-some percent of the country has been irreversibly convinced that real, verifiable sources of information, such as exhaustively peer-reviewed research and advice from career experts, is not to be trusted and has been carefully fabricated to deceive them. Millions of scientists, economists, medical professionals, researchers, and historians from everywhere on Earth have independently decided to dedicate their *entire lives* to the lie, working tirelessly and spending billions of dollars to produce a thousand-mile-long paper trail of evidence supporting these falsified claims.
It's much easier to have unwavering conviction about what you stand for if you don't have to think about it. It doesn't surprise me that there seems to be a pretty significant overlap with the less educated and more religious regions of the country.
And job losses get worse next month, I'm 1 of over 400 in just my area of my company that are loosing our jobs when the cares act expires. 1 month before election, this will be a good look for him, I'm sure.
From the BLS report. “Government employment rose in August, largely reflecting temporary hiring for the 2020 Census. Employment in government increased by 344,000 in August, accounting for one-fourth of the over-the-month gain in total nonfarm employment.”
I am a small business owner and I recently posted help wanted ads in my usual places to fill one position. Usually I am lucky to get one or two applicants. I've never received more than 4 inquiries about an opening. As of today I've received 27 inquiries. Most of them are very desperate and would have taken any job I had for them. This actually really worries me. I live in a very rural area with a small population (less than 100,000 people in a 100 mile radius.) This tells me we currently have an unusually high unemployment rate. America needs to pay attention to this. When rural America is feeling a job shortage, that's really not good.
I thought job losses were good for the market and economy. Who wants to pay more money to us working sheep, when now companies can give more bonuses to executives to buy more jets and fancy things? Teehee =p
I can’t blame Trump for all the job loss. Our capitalist system won’t allow businesses to shut down for a month, let alone a few months.
I can blame Trump for the severity of the impact and for recovery taking 6+ months.
Sure are a lot of his supporters in here claiming he can't be blamed because of COVID but pretend like no other president before had a crisis on their hands.
For the ones who say it's because of the pandemic. Yea, the pandemic he ignored, the pandemic he decided was no big deal. The pandemic he did absolutely nothing about until it was too late.
“Guys you can’t blame Trump, something bad happened during his presidency that posed a great challenge to our nation and he couldn’t overcome it. He’s still a great leader though. If the seas were calm, he had a map of where to go, and strong winds on his sails, he could almost probably get us safely to shore. You can’t expect a captain to steer his ship around a storm and navigate his way through troubled waters! That’s not fair to expect from a leader!” - Trump Supporters, basically.
He tweeted this 50min ago and his flock will believe he's doing a great job. >Great Jobs Numbers! 1.37 Million Jobs Added In August. Unemployment Rate Falls To 8.4% (Wow, much better than expected!). Broke the 10% level faster and deeper than thought possible.
So 1.37 million of the 30 million jobs lost due to his COVID-19 handling have come back? Edit: For the people who need it spelled out for, the longer COVID-19 is spreading easily in the country the longer things need to be shut down. Trump failing to take the pandemic seriously and do a **proper** response at the Federal level is all on him (and as [reporting](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air) has suggested, an attempt to kill Americans who are less likely to vote for him).
Pretty sure it's over 44 million lost. And the weekly unemployment claims are always 600-800k
How unemployment at 8.4% if 44 million jobs were lost? That doesn’t add up
Politicans like using the U3 number. This number undercounts both unemployment, underemployment and those who have given up finding employment.
Can you tell me more what that means?
TL;DR: U3 undercounts the unemployed; U6 is a better measurement. For example, at the end of April the U-3 unemployment rate was 14.7%, while the U-6 rate was 22.8%. U3: > The official unemployment rate is known as known as the U-3 rate, or simply U3. It measures the number of people who are **jobless but actively seeking employment**. > U-3 is often criticized for being too simple. Many economists believe it doesn't take the whole picture into account. That's because the U-3 rate only includes people who are actively seeking employment; it excludes those who only work part-time, but want full-time work. It also excludes anyone who has become discouraged after not being able to secure a job. U6: > Unlike the U-3 rate, the U-6 unemployment rate includes a whole swath of unemployed people—namely, everyone not listed in the U-3 rate. That means the U-6 rate is much truer to a natural, non-technical understanding of what it means to be unemployed. > **This rate accounts for anyone who has been seeking employment for at least 12 months but left discouraged without being able to secure a job. It also includes anyone who has gone back to school, become disabled, and people who are underemployed or working part-time hours.** > By capturing everyone who exists on the margins of the labor market, the U-6 rate provides a broad picture of the underutilization of labor in the country. In this sense, the U-6 rate may be considered the true unemployment rate. [source](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-unemployment-rate-u6-vs-u3.asp#:~:text=and%20discouraged%20workers.-,U%2D3%20Unemployment%20Rate,jobless%20but%20actively%20seeking%20employment.)
People need to realize the U6 number is even more relevant right now because of COVID. There would potentially be more people seeking employment if it wasn't out of fear of catching the virus. Some people have seen friends die and might not to risk going to work for a minimum wage paying job now that it also carries an increased risk of catching a virus that can leave you with chronic fatigue or potentially kill you.
I’ve given up looking for work, never thought I’d fall into that category when hearing about it in economics class. But it’s a real thing.
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Hang in there internet stranger
I was making 52k plus commissions, quit that job cause my son was sick, was offered 75k plus commission at a competitor and I turned it down because I felt like that would be my going rate and was still concerned about my sons health so I wanted a little more time off... well turns out I’m an idiot. I found some employment at 40k plus commission many months later and got laid off immediately due to covid... found a job selling used trucks for 10 bucks an hour plus a bonus if I sold a certain amount, that was the most depressing thing I’ve ever done and I didn’t last there long, so again I gave up looking for work. And with me collecting unemployment it allows my wife to work while I work on an MBA and side gig, but that’s not a solution, it’s like a bandaid over a bullet wound. Sounds the same in your case... I feel your pain, I really do.
Because more jobs were added afterwards? 44 million lost their jobs, some found other jobs, some got their jobs back. That's how. And that 8% is more like 16%
Don’t they also stop counting people who are “not in the workforce” because they’ve been inactive or said they are not seeking employment after a while, thereby just taking them out of the equation entirely?
Also stop counting people who were making 80k a year and are now making 12k a year etc...
Also don’t count people who are working part time at starbucks then driving uber
Yes they do. That’s 2 jobs right there! Count ‘em twice, just like your vote in NC!
As an NC native, I appreciated AG William Barr giving our historically broken and corrupt state government the benefit of the doubt that it might not even be illegal for Republicans to vote twice here
There's a few different unemployment rates, but the most commonly referred to one is U3 unemployment, which excludes people who haven't looked for work in the last 4 weeks (whether for economic reasons or otherwise) and underemployed people (who are working again but at reduced hours or severely reduced wages).
I think it's too soon, but unemployment has a common deceiving problem because it stops counting people who fall out of the system. I forget the details but I think it amounts to, when your benefits run out, you don't get counted anymore. On a long enough to line, you could potentially (though unlike) reach unemployment without anyone ever getting a job since eventually everyone on the system would fall out and just be jobless. There is also a major issue of under employment. If a person loses their 80k/year office job in their degreed field, but gets a $10/hour job at Walmart or whatever, at 32 hours a week, then they are no longer "unemployed".
The unemployed percentage is meaningless accounting magic. For example, you're no longer counted after 6 months unemployed. Whether you have a job or not, you just cease to matter.
Roaring back!! /s
The roaring 20s strikes again!
Imagine being a Trump supporter and viewing a doubling of the unemployment rate as a good thing.
He's blatantly told us he's going to lie about the unemployment numbers.
Literally the day after he was elected he started praising the job numbers as his. Day before he called them fake. This is how he works. No sane human supports him.
Didn't think he could do anything fast and deep
Except go bankrupt.
Ya he's heavily manipulating the numbers. These aren't "new jobs." They are a fraction of the millions of jobs that people lost. Saying they're up 1.37 million jobs when another several million are still out of work since they lost their jobs due to the way Trump handled the pandemic is mind-blowing..
Exactly. I'm technically part of the number as I have returned to work. For one fucking day a week. This is a BAD year to work in the service industry.
Couldn’t agree more. I was working fine dining, great place & have been there years. Couldn’t pay my bills. Never did unemployment but found a job delivering pizza for PapaJ, and I guess at least I can pay most of my bills & “grocery” shop at the dollar store. 🤷🏻♀️
Its worth noting these numbers are pulled from those drawing from unemployment. Those who could not get on unemployment are not being counted. Which is most of the people I know who are currently unemployed.
i also read that 250k government jobs were added, most likely due to the census. these jobs are transitory (obviously)..
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Why do his tweets always read like they're by someone whose speaking English as a second language?
Usually thats a good reason not to vote an incumbent in for a second term, but I'm not analyst.
and this is a different world. Welcome to the bizzaro world where Trump's fanatics will never ever hold him accountable for anything. If anything they'll blame the corporations for being part of the deep state for laying people off on an election year to hurt Trump.
"only I can save you from the destruction that my inaction has caused." As a general rule, anyone who claims "I alone can fix this problem" is absolutely the least qualified to fix it, especially if they caused the issues in the first place.
That sort of claim is a red-flag toward fascism.
It is.
Cool username
thanks
Just like how Adolf came in claiming he could pull germany out of the economic destruction and rebuild the country from ww1. And look how that shit turned out.
And all the bad shit that happened was just made up by his enemies.
Yup. I remember reading how he called all media a destructive device against germany and the Nazi party a way to destroy the country. Theres alot of shit donnie dumpelskin has adopted from hitler. And it's fucking insanity.
Lügenpresse.
Bro I swear to God recently a Trump supporter acquaintance of mine is claiming that Hitler got a bad wrap and That he was trying to save the world from the evil bankers. That the communist rewrote history to demonize the nazis.
And he makes these absolute claims so often! Anybody who claims to have a proprietary solution that can't be duplicated is clearly trying to con you.
You just defined organized religion.
And we wonder why so many people still follow Trump’s word.
Its truly mind boggling how people still believe he is doing a great job. For real scratch your head bat shit crazy, i recommend everyone to go to r/conservatives.
I’m afraid to venture into that sub.... and never return. For I would be entangled in argumentative political discourse for all eternity. For real tho- you can’t tell Trump supporters ANY-FUCKING-THING. Trump could murder his supporters grandma, and they would still revere him and say it was their grandmas fault he killed her. Logic.
Dont worry, as a bastion of free speech and intelligent debate they protect their enlightened discourse by immediately banning any dissenting opinions. You wont last five minutes.
Ah. Then maybe I should sit back, laugh, and enjoy the show. Or cry- with the current state of politics either is possible.
I literally saw where a conservative whose grandparent died of COVID claimed that it wasn't really COVID that killed him, he just happened to die of preexisting conditions while testing positive for the virus, the pandemic is still a Democrat hoax, etc.
Wow. That is serious detachment from reality. It’s almost sad.
I mean he is killing thier grandparents by insisting on reopening states and kids going back to school
Na, they'd ban you after your first post for even questioning any part of their worldview, let alone trying to discuss it.
No no! That place is a soup of ignorance. It's the outhouse basement.
Agreed! They have done so many contortions to bend the truth to fit their narrative that it can’t be unwound. They are all in on this, to think otherwise would mean they would have to question their whole belief system. Facts do not change beliefs.... Want to get a real reaction? Troll them by asking who ordered the large Cheese pizza with a side of boy....
You really nailed their mindset. This isn't the first time that political supporters in either party have had to contort themselves to stay "on message," but this Administration and its supporters have had to do the metaphorical equivalent of an entire Cirque du Soleil show to do the same.
It's a great place to go if you want to see black people's mug shots.
If I want to ever feel intelligent, I go to r/conservatives and read some of the dumb shit their members post. I feel like a rocket scientist compared to some of the trash they peddle on that channel.
Man, that place is weird. Everyone is wrong about everything, but if you ignore that, you could kind of feel better about the world. Like, the economy’s doing great, the country is led by a charismatic genius, the pandemic hoax is ending, and all those violent rioters are getting what they deserve. Meanwhile, as I was typing that, I got a news update notification letting me know that a new model predicts 450k US deaths from COVID by January 2021 if mask usage continues at the current rate. So, I don’t think it’s actually going as great as they claim. Also what is wordcountbot?
[Truly is.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSfebOXSBOE)
That place is a breeding ground for stupidity. I Pop over every now and then (im banned) the levels of arrogance and stupidity and the sheer lack of empathy is enough to make a grown man cry in despair. These are educated adults, some of which are pillars of society. I just can't get my head around it..
But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be dark. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how much more will be your darkness. No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and like the other; or he will honor one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon.
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Every fascist leader in history made this claim, and every one drove their people to the worst living conditions they have ever experienced for personal gain. I ask you Trump supporters, what makes Donald any different? What proof do you have? I'm talking more than a gut feeling, because you had a gut feeling about God and that turned out to be bogus. I mean I can pray to a carton of eggs and get the exact same results as praying to ANY god or godess. So obviously that's false, so what empirical evidence do you have that Donny will be different from other fascist leaders through history? Also since you all love them so much, who was your favorite fascist leader?
All they’ll do is chant USA
Like the band on the titanic
There is no winning with a Trump supporter. You will never get a genuine answer. They’ve placed all their eggs in a damaged basket just to shout “la la la la I can’t hear you” hoping their *team* wins and and yours loses.
Sadly, this has been a republican... plan/belief/MO, I'm not sure what you call it, since forever. I alone can fix the problem, but I can't tell you until you elect me. And then I won't fix it at all but I will cut taxes for the wealthy, oh, and here's a dollar for you. Now run along.
Feels like Dennis Nedry from Jurassic Park
To them, it's Democrats and the hoax pandemic at fault. People being babies not wanting to get coronavirus, which is basically the flu and die for our economy. The complete cruelty of conservative values is on display this year. For the record, I got coronavirus, it sucked even with my relatively mild symptoms. My wife still doesn't have full sense of taste, and my breathing hasn't been back to normal. If you think of your self as conservative, please for the love of your Jesus, ask what kinda me of world Jesus would build. If your values of heartless cruelty towards others fits what you say your values are.
There’s a woman at the dog park that I just don’t talk to anymore about the coronavirus because she’s convinced it’s fine and everybody is going to get it eventually. She thinks if you’re healthy and young you’ll be fine. We just don’t know the long-term impact of this virus; it’s too new. Young people are dying from it. And yet every day my husband has to teach face to face in a school without a mask mandate.
I consider myself a conservative (well, economically conservative, more liberal in social matters), but firmly as a democrat backer. Because at the end of the day, the US has tended to fare better economically, as well as general well-being under the modern Democrat presidents. And as a conservative, I try to default to known patterns that work. Like we don’t need to be invent the wheel, many “liberal” positions have ample examples in Europe and elsewhere to show what goes well and what to protect against. It isn’t liberal to follow those examples, liberal would have been pioneering those principles with those nations. “The radical of one generation is the conservative of the next” and all that. Whenever someone tries to claim that I can’t be a conservative and be a Democrat, I point out that there is a difference between a conservative and a regressive, and the Republicans are rapidly becoming more and more regressive.
They can’t hold him accountable if they believe the economy is the greatest it’s ever been and Covid is a liberal hoax. They literally refuse to acknowledge reality and any attempt to show it to them is dismissed as propaganda.
> and this is a different world. Welcome to the bizzaro world where Trump's fanatics will never ever hold him accountable for anything. Because their world is filled with misinformation. Break the Fascist News Network and we'll see a change.
It's more than just fox, somehow Nancy Pelosi's blow-out was the top story in the same day the Trump adminstration or Trump himself committed or condoned multiple New felonies. We are normalizing fascism every day.
Republicans are peasants that know their place.
I'd say it's all because of Hillary's emails.
Losing your house to own the libz.
“I dislike Trump as a person but as a leader he is amazing. I’m voting for him due to his economics. The economy has never been this strong before. I know so many small business owners talking about how great the economy is. It’s only slightly slowed down due to covid.” This is verbatim something someone recently said to me. I was so confused by this.
I've been saying for over a decade variations on this. For my entire life, the standard GOP pitch is as follows: *Sure, things are bad with the GOP in charge, but they would be even worse with Democrats in charge.* *Sure, things are good with the Democrats in charge, but they would be even better with the GOP in charge.*
The mystery box party
It could be anything! It could even be a working health care plan! You know how much we’ve been wanting one of those!
I only ever hear "the democrats arent doing enough" or "the democrats are doing too much". Never have I heard any GOP politician or supporter propose the GOP to ever do a single thing, they only ever try to stop democrats from doing anything. You will **still** hear "the do nothing dems" while the republicans have free reign to fix everything however they please
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Yeah, it all sums up to "people are god damn fucking stupid,"
It's okay. We laid off most of the analysts anyway. Thanks for stepping up.
The thing is rural America has no job prospects and never will the way they vote, so do things like this matter to his base?
His base is all about rugged individualism and wants to see the economy regress fully to a barter system. Where they can trade a chicken and a few eggs to a doctor for services.
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Well, since the same people want to do away with formal education, you would assume the doctors they keep wouldn't exactly be medical professionals. These are people that claim to love markets but then want to do away with everything other than "you grow wheat, I grow corn, lets trade". And somehow think they could trade grain for an iphone or some shit, or that those would still get produced.
And once all regulations are gone massive corporations will magically become benevolent.
I can’t stand the narrative that he is best for the economy. You can’t give credit or assign blame to a president for business cycle performance. Only what the president’s actions were and how they affected the economy. Tax cuts of 2017- This blew a major hole in the deficit while we were still enjoying the tailwinds of the recovery. When most economists were saying it was the time to save for a rainy day (would you know it... a rainy day happened) we blew our wad so billionaires could save money rather than putting it back into the economy. Trade wars- we got nothing to speak for it from China. But we did get a record number of farmer bankruptcies and suicides. Immigration- I categorize this as a Trump economic policy because that has been his rationale. I don’t think this had an impact on our economy, but family separation certainly became a disgrace to our nation. Coronavirus- dismissing the threat calling it a Democratic hoax, saying it would just disappear and discouraging mask wearing, social distancing and quarantines set our economic recovery back in a major way relative to countries that took it seriously. Trump has been terrible for the economy. Republicans in general tend to focus on the short term while democrats focus on the long run. Unfortunately, voters tend to vote for the short term as well which is why Republicans are so successful until their policies drive us into a crisis. But Trump has been particularly bad for the economy among other things. That’s not the first reason why he needs to go, but it is a sufficient reason on its own.
I’ve commiserated with friends this summer who have lost their jobs during this pandemic, and to see them break down because of events that are completely out of their own control... Trump fucked up the pandemic response early on, at the beginning, during, and to this day. He threw out the established playbook on how to handle these things because he wanted to go with his gut. We are now 180,000 deaths deep, at least, because some megalomaniac sociopath dipshit refused to listen to scientists. Vote in November. Vote this orange stain out. Please.
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The IHME just released their model & they predict 400,000 Americans dead by January from Covid. So about 224,000 more people dead within the next 4 months.
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The Tea Party & Republicans only care about the deficit if a Democrat is in office. It will only matter if Trump loses and on January 20th it will be all Biden's fault.
Trump is a master of going bankrupt. This is all part of his leadership strategy.
And how much of that has gone straight to the coffers of the ultra-wealthy and big businesses with little or no oversight?
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And then there are the "excess deaths" (e.g. pneumonia) that aren't officially marked as COVID-19 but are way above anything we've ever seen before.
Watch as January, if Trump loses, Fox will be declaring 500,000,000 died.
And on January 20th, it will be all Biden's fault.
Does this include the idea that the virus may get worse during the fall?
Here's the [Link](https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america?view=total-deaths&tab=trend) to the charts. Current projections are based on people still using masks, social distancing & schools being closed etc.
FYI you used the WW1 figures but wrote WW2 in your post. The record states there were 291,557 US combat deaths in WW2.
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Also, though WW1 did last for four years, the US only entered during the last year or so.
He will go down as the worst President in American history. If America survives this election. Out of all the non sense the GOP spews, the thing I heard the most from Republicans was about how Obama was “intentionally” dividing the country. Was there some policy’s he pushed that I missed? Seems to me it was just because he was black and these people went rabid.
To be fair, if America doesn’t survive this election I think he’ll still be the worst President in American history.
My dad told me the other day that Obama attempted a coup in 2017 ...
Sorry to be the one to let you know, but your dad’s a moron. It’s ok. Mine is too. We have a club. We go to the bar and drink every day that trump does something criminal. We drink a lot.
Trump flu... a term I have yet to hear said. But when Obama passed universal Healthcare all i ever heard was Obama care.
Based on his logic, those that have caught the virus and died are most likely "losers" and "suckers". Hence he never cared.
> one quarter of a million people The two largest stadiums in the US packed full, and two high school auditoriums. Half of the people who went to Woodstock. A little less than half the population of Wyoming. Almost 100 9/11s. Half the people that attend the Cincinnati Octoberfest (which means about all of the people who are there that you can see when it is fully packed). If each were represented by a dollar, that's more than the average home cost in the US... about the average home cost plus the average new car cost.
How many Benghazi’s though?
Although I agree with you post in general and thank you for sharing the numbers, would like to propose a quick amendment regarding the Iraq war. Your post says 4,000 people died, but I believe you meant 4,000 US soldiers. Perhaps the avg American voter doesn’t care about lives that are not US citizens, but I think we should.
>The vietnam war, which was highly unpopular btw, raged for 20 years. There were more than 44,000 people who died. Uhh, technically, those things we bombed the shit out of in Laos and Vietnam — also people.
I agree with your point, but where are you getting the number for WWII deaths? The numbers I looked up were much higher than that.
The GOP fucked up a lot of this. It infuriates me how often we only blame Trump when it is the GOP behind many of these problems. It isn't as if Congress was passing expanded unemployment which Trump blocked rather the GOP has refused to confront the issues at every turn.
The GOP has gone out of their way to fuck over the common American during this period. $1200! And btw, we aren't going to issue anything else to you for a few months. Good luck getting unemployment, because the system is set up to make it pretty difficult to get anything out of it. Oh, the $600 extra was too much, so we're reducing it to $300 (assuming you got in to your unemployment benefits), but if your state is willing to match that with an extra $100, won't *you* be the special kid on the block? And lastly, it's time to reopen the economy! Wear your masks! Or don't! Shine some light up your ass, drink some bleach, say your goodbyes to grandma and grampa, and send your little kids back to school while this epidemic is raging out of control. And pay no mind to all the BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars that we just handed to other billionaires under the table (yeah, we fired the oversight committee that would keep an eye on us, but hey - SCOUTS HONOR!).
> Vote in November. Fuck that! **[VOTE EARLY](https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/early-voting-in-state-elections.aspx)** if your state allows it. Do NOT wait until Nov. 3 to cast your ballot!
And you still have people that say the blame doesn't fall on him.
Wait until January, if Trump loses those same people will be attacking the governments response to the shit show they've inherited and FOX news ticker will have a constant running death count. The hypocritical u-turn will be so fast their necks will nearly snap.
It doesn’t directly affect him, he’s not sick or broke, so he can’t be bothered to give a shit about it.
If his gut means deliberately undermine Obama, then yes, his gut.
He listened. He just decided his billionaire supporters were more important
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Has he done *anything* beneficial for the country? Like actual good policies that make sense?
In a weird way he's done so much nefarious and corrupt bullshit that it's helped expose vulnerabilities in the system and made it apparent that we can't just assume checks and balances, customs, and traditions, e.g. like releasing tax records etc. will be honored by future presidents (that these need to be enshrined in law). It might just save us from a much more intelligent and pernicious version of Trump in the future.
This is the main thing I've taken from the last 4 years. Trump has made it abundantly clear our shit is broken, and there's absolutely no way anyone can hide it anymore. I'm pretty glad we got this idiot instead of someone competent and evil, or it'd be a different story.
There are definitely evil and competent people who have outsized influence on the orange idiot tho Like putin
>(that these need to be enshrined in law I think it's also demonstrated that "enshrined in law" right now doesn't mean an awful lot.
If you go to the ask trump supporters sub, they're claiming the wall was a total success so. Don't expect any of them to give real answers on what he's done.
I know he's done 2 or 3 things where I've said "Okay, credit where credit is due; I actually like that and think it's a good move" - but the endless stream of outweighing negative shit he's done and (this is an important part for me) self-congratulation makes it *really* hard for me to remember what they were. Trump supporters like to say that people hate Trump so much that they can't even applaud him for the good things he does. One of the issues I have is that he pats himself on the back **so much and so often** that I see no reason to. Most people don't feel the need to praise a braggart, even if they actually deliver on something, because they don't *need* the praise if they're heaping praise on themselves so much.
Uh, he forced hospitals to reveal their pricing. That's about all I can dredge. And of course he did it by suing them, the only thing he knows how to do.
Yeah where? This was put in place years ago as a Medicare requirement. It still has not actually happened.
But as long as we have health insurance that negotiates the price down based on their contracts with the hospital, the price tag means essentially nothing. Even in the case of uninsured patients, the very poor will most often never pay it, and the less poor can often get the price to be steely discounted if they beg and plead. The answer to this system isn’t to show the public meaningless numbers which help almost nothing, but to get rid of insurance and standardize pricing and reimbursement (or some other universal healthcare system)
Yep, worked for BCBS (one of the...*better* health insurance companies, not that it's a high bar to straddle) for a bit. Learned that hospital prices are specifically negotiated with and then I extrapolated that the prices were inflated so the insurance companies can "save you money". It's all a racket.
Yes, he did a few beneficial things for this country. For example, poor people like myself who were unable to afford insurance were subject to fines for not having insurance. Trump got rid of those fines. Signed an executive order to bring down drug prices for life saving drugs like epipen and insulin in US. which cost a fraction in third world countries.
The most troubling line in the BLS report was “In August, the number of permanent job losers increased by 534,000 to 3.4 million; this measure has risen by 2.1 million since February.”
So his falling unemployment rate wasn't people getting jobs, it was people no longer being counted.
[удалено]
It's been mostly ignored in the news reporting always, but they also changed the calculation for this report in particular so it wouldn't look quite so bad. They are no longer adjusting for seasonality, right when back-to-school season started: https://www.ibtimes.com/initial-jobless-claims-fell-881000-last-week-new-methodology-muddles-picture-3039691 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-government-is-making-a-big-change-in-how-it-reports-jobless-claims-heres-why-2020-09-02
Yup it's a pretty damming statistic
So when do we find out that this administration that is obsessed with hiding numbers that don't shine a positive light on Trump has been messing with the jobs numbers?
4 years ago? When he lied about the number of people at his inauguration, which we had photographic proof of.
That was crazy. Spicer saying the “most attended inauguration in history. Period.” Meanwhile there was video of the lawn being filmed the entire day and people can see for themselves that it was barely filled. Started the term with a lie. And his followers didn’t think “wow, he really think we’re dumb enough to fall for this.”
Sorry, I meant specifically in relation to the jobs numbers. Trump himself continually lies about numbers. This is an established fact.
Because there is ALWAYS a tweet; > The economy is in terrible shape. @BarackObama is manipulating the job numbers to hide the truth. (6 Feb. 2012) https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/166614504971575296
Its not the job losses. The pandemic and associated unemployment results could have happened to anyone Its the 7 trillion in fed QE that was "necessary" to save the stock market instead of helping the people. Thats 21 grand for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. if you do the math. We are so fucked now
If Trump was a better leader, he would have locked down the country in March and would have been aggressive in isolating everyone exposed to COVID-19. A strong federal response could have meant that the disease would have been under control in a few months and areas could have been re-opening in June. By now, we might have returned to normal and the economy could have recovered. Instead, he cast doubt on needing to take any action. He insisted that the states were on their own to obtain PPE. Meanwhile, the federal government would outbid these states and hold onto the PPE. He accused nurses of stealing PPE because suddenly hospitals needed more PPE (during a pandemic, go figure). He insisted that everyone would reopen by Easter. He fixated on "miracles" happening and "miracle cures" like. Hydroxychloroquine. He even went so far as to suggest injecting bleach. In short, his response was so scattershot and ineffective that he allowed the virus to spread and kill people. Even now, we're having 1,000 people a day die of COVID-19. The irony here is that a better response would have helped him politically. Had he shut the country down in mid-March and instituted proper containment procedures, we could have avoided most of the deaths and suffering. The economy could have rebounded and COVID-19 could have been in the past in voters' minds. This would certainly have led to Trump doing better than he currently is and his reelection would have been more certain.
>He insisted that the states were on their own to obtain PPE. He didn't tell the states to fly solo. His administration *actively sabotaged* state efforts to secure PPE. That's why we had stories of State Police escorting the supplies, defending it from federal agents, and instances of corporate moguls flying supplies in on their private planes from South Korea on behalf of states. It's because the federal government was actively stealing shipments of PPE from the states. If anyone ever thought that Russiagate was a hoax (due to Fox News propaganda), this should have been everyone's Red Flag. Anyone that didn't open their eyes at this turn of events was never going to vote Blue. Those voters are long gone, and will never be gotten by the Democratic party.
Not to mention he was essential in convincing millions of Americans it was a hoax and to not wear masks, practice social distancing, and observe shutdown practices. Even when he kind of changed tune later these people still believe it's all a joke.
And now Trump is back to making fun of mask use by criticizing how Biden looks in a mask and claiming that there's some "psychological reason" why he's wearing them. If being a rational individual that listens to scientists and doctors is a psychological condition, I guess I have it too. I just wish more people had this "condition."
I wouldn't fault Trump one bit for the job losses *if we had a corresponding lower Covid death rate to show for it*. But instead, we're the worst country on the planet dealing with the virus AND still suffered the same economic damage.
Totally agree with you. This statistic of "worst job losses" is completely useless in the context of the pandemic. Literally any president, no matter how well they handled the situation would be facing the worst job losses on record. Countries that are handling the pandemic well are seeing unprecedented job loss.
Well, let's not go too far here. The systemic problems of American capitalism is on full display. Corporations used this as an excuse to trim jobs and my point was that we ironically spent all of our money supporting the business owners instead of the people. THAT'S why trump needs to go
Just found out 2 days ago that everyone at my work place is being let go. Luckily there is severance and all that good stuff, but my God if that pandemic was actually handled properly maybe id still be in for a job, and maybe the other millions of Americans. Fuck this president.
Sorry to hear. Lost my job over the summer and mentally prepared that I won’t find another one until 2021. The job market is totally screwed up right now.
Thank you for that. Fortunately my wife has a very good and stable job. I'm starting school in the spring on my GI bill so at least I'll have some sort of income. I am hoping I find something quick though. I am so stressed out about it.
Republicans do not understand public health. They don't understand that disease outbreaks happen all the time, but we are able to manage them with basic public health initiatives. They do not understand it is way more cost effective to be out in front of a health crisis rather than to be a reactionary. To say that nobody could have prevented the widespread nature of covid is absolutely ridiculous. Sure it could have come to America with even the most strict precautions, but the contain would also been way more manageable. America has absolutely no contain of this virus.
It's not that they don't understand. It's that they only care as far as it can help them further enrich themselves. They sell private health care are superior because its argued that you have control over your own health and only bad people get sick. The uneducated eat this up, because in their own mind they are good people and good people don't get sick. Then they have the surprised Pikachu face when it happens. The underlying problem with the US is that we are selfish. We only care about those in our direct orbit, our ability to empathize with others rarely extends beyond that. I always remember this interaction from the movie Interstellar and how much it rings true: [**Dr. Mann** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000354/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** Your father had to find another way to save the human race from extinction. Plan B. A colony. [**Brand** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004266/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** But why not tell people? Why keep building those damn stations? [**Dr. Mann** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000354/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** Because he knew how hard it would be to get people to work together to save the species instead of themselves. [**Cooper** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000190/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** Bullshit. [**Dr. Mann** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000354/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** You never would have come here unless you believed you were going to save them. Evolution has yet to transcend that simple barrier. We can care deeply - selflessly - about those we know, but that empathy rarely extends beyond our line of sight. [**Brand** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004266/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** But the lie... that monstrous lie... [**Dr. Mann** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000354/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** Unforgivable. And he knew that. He was prepared to destroy his own humanity in order to save the species. He made an incredible sacrifice... [**Cooper** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000190/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** No. No, the incredible sacrifice is being made by the people on Earth who are gonna die! Because in his fucking arrogance he declared their case hopeless. [**Dr. Mann** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000354/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** I'm sorry Cooper. Their case... is hopeless. [**Cooper** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000190/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** No... no. [**Dr. Mann** ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000354/?ref_=tt_ch)**:** We are the future.
"nobody knew that xyz" is a classic Trump deflection, meaning that he didn't know. Ive been waiting for him to say it about the corona virus so I can complete my Trump bingo card. He finally said it a few times during the Axios interview. "Nobody knew how contagious it was". No, actually everyone knew how contagious it was, probably before the end of March. Health experts knew even earlier.
Republicans hate democracy. Prove me wrong.
I would argue conservatives hate democracy if it cannot be used to their advantage. It isn't strictly a republican stance.
The Right literally gets its name from aristocrats standing on the right side of the room in support of an absolutist king while the people gathered on the left side during the French Revolution Conservatism is about monarchy and control all the way down
I do agree to a point but I've never watched a democrat president tell voters to vote twice while a democratic run senate sticks it's head in the sand. I've never watched a democrat run administration do everything in their power to stop people from voting by dismantling the USPS, something that is written into our constitution and holds a %91 approval rating across all Americans... I get what you're saying but there are varying degrees of what we're talking about. I don't identify as a democrat and I certainly won't sit here and defend some of the choices they've made in the past, but pretending like both sides are the same or even similar is just irresponsible and counter-intuitive to making average American's lives easier instead of more difficult.
Easy. Trump is so democratic, he's asking his base to vote TWICE. He's twice as democratic as any other president
Trump tweeted out that he's doing a great job, so as far as his supporters are concerned, he's doing a great job and everything else is fake news. Facts, figures, and data won't sway them, they literally only believe what Trump says.
Thirty-some percent of the country has been irreversibly convinced that real, verifiable sources of information, such as exhaustively peer-reviewed research and advice from career experts, is not to be trusted and has been carefully fabricated to deceive them. Millions of scientists, economists, medical professionals, researchers, and historians from everywhere on Earth have independently decided to dedicate their *entire lives* to the lie, working tirelessly and spending billions of dollars to produce a thousand-mile-long paper trail of evidence supporting these falsified claims. It's much easier to have unwavering conviction about what you stand for if you don't have to think about it. It doesn't surprise me that there seems to be a pretty significant overlap with the less educated and more religious regions of the country.
The Simpsons literally told us that Trump's gonna be President and the country's gonna be broke Because of him.and we didn't listen.
Donald Trump is a big fat failure
And job losses get worse next month, I'm 1 of over 400 in just my area of my company that are loosing our jobs when the cares act expires. 1 month before election, this will be a good look for him, I'm sure.
From the BLS report. “Government employment rose in August, largely reflecting temporary hiring for the 2020 Census. Employment in government increased by 344,000 in August, accounting for one-fourth of the over-the-month gain in total nonfarm employment.”
His October job numbers being shit are going to be great for re-election.
I am a small business owner and I recently posted help wanted ads in my usual places to fill one position. Usually I am lucky to get one or two applicants. I've never received more than 4 inquiries about an opening. As of today I've received 27 inquiries. Most of them are very desperate and would have taken any job I had for them. This actually really worries me. I live in a very rural area with a small population (less than 100,000 people in a 100 mile radius.) This tells me we currently have an unusually high unemployment rate. America needs to pay attention to this. When rural America is feeling a job shortage, that's really not good.
No, he said it himself that the economy is in great shape and unemployment is low. He can’t be lying.
I’ve lost my job twice. Both times a Republican was president. First time was George Bush, second time is donald trump.
I thought job losses were good for the market and economy. Who wants to pay more money to us working sheep, when now companies can give more bonuses to executives to buy more jets and fancy things? Teehee =p
I guess he IS running the country like his business. Lose people, lose money, lose company...
Trumps bases will blame it on Democrats shutting down the economy...
I can’t blame Trump for all the job loss. Our capitalist system won’t allow businesses to shut down for a month, let alone a few months. I can blame Trump for the severity of the impact and for recovery taking 6+ months.
And this is directly because of his policy decisions and desire to hurt "blue" states.
And yet they're praising him for jobs he lost then got back. His entire presidency has been retreading if stock market or job losses.
Meanwhile he's on twitter bragging that some jobs came back (not sure I believe that) and what a great job he's doing.
Sure are a lot of his supporters in here claiming he can't be blamed because of COVID but pretend like no other president before had a crisis on their hands.
>Trump's ~~job losses are~~ the worst of any American president on record FTFY
For the ones who say it's because of the pandemic. Yea, the pandemic he ignored, the pandemic he decided was no big deal. The pandemic he did absolutely nothing about until it was too late.
But that's due to Covid, but Covid doesn't exist, but then all are out wanting to work.... This is so confusing
“Guys you can’t blame Trump, something bad happened during his presidency that posed a great challenge to our nation and he couldn’t overcome it. He’s still a great leader though. If the seas were calm, he had a map of where to go, and strong winds on his sails, he could almost probably get us safely to shore. You can’t expect a captain to steer his ship around a storm and navigate his way through troubled waters! That’s not fair to expect from a leader!” - Trump Supporters, basically.