pretty much here's the technical version: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/counterfactuals/ here's the lay version: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/13/counterfactual-history-what-if-waste-of-time
related: https://nypost.com/2020/07/28/barr-...er-house-democrat-testimony-disaster-goodwin/ excerpt: Later, he chided Nadler & Co. for their silence in the face of clear criminal activity. “This is the first time in my memory that the leaders of one of our two great political parties, the Democratic Party, are not coming out and condemning mob violence,” he said. “Can’t we just say the violence against the federal courts has to stop? Could we hear something like that?” The room was silent. The attorney general challenged their loyalty, and not a single Democrat objected. For them, it was just another day at the office. Nearly every time I watch Barr in extended interviews or read one of his substantive speeches, I find myself saying, “If only.” If only Barr had been Trump’s first attorney general, the last four years would have been dramatically different. Bob Mueller could have stayed in retirement because there was never real evidence of Russian collusion, not even enough, we now know, to start an FBI investigation. It was all ginned up to thwart Trump during the campaign, and then upend his presidency. Yet because Trump picked Jeff Sessions to be AG, and because Sessions, in a supreme act of selfishness, took the job knowing he would recuse himself from overseeing the FBI probe, the nation got put through the wringer.
How Hillary would have done with the virus in comparison to Trump is too complicated to estimate and we should abandon thinking about it, but it’s possible for a person to accurately, objectively calculate and rank all harm done in world by sexism and racism, interesting.
I understand the concept from grad school. I also know that isn't how the real world works. People make judgments, hopefully educated judgments when the grade or address the performance of someone. While anything is possible, I find it very unlikely that Clinton or another Republican President would have handled this pandemic as poorly as Trump. In fact one would have to try quite hard to screw it up to the degree that he has. LMFAO
It’s an interesting pattern. 1% is the same as 99% logic at play. Not literally of course. Eg. yes there is a 0.1% that Clinton would tell people to ingest chemical to fight off the virus, to speak to conspiracy theories on covid often, to call it a hoax.... vs there is a 99% chance, wait 100% chance of those happening with trump You can also play the circular reasoning game of if leadership is important in a crisis - no at 1% vs yes at 99%. This logic get played out for climate change too. 99% knows it happening but because there is a 1% uncertainty (making up numbers but you get the idea), we should wait. This may seems to be open minded but it is often just a massive failure of discernment. Sometime it’s helpful to push the boundaries for that possibility - you never know, but if you act like this in real life —- good luck. I have noticed this is a style of @Os Trigonum for certain topics. Nothing wrong with it - but good to be aware of what it is.
I agree with all you say here, especially the bolded part. But the bolded part is a different claim than the one I originally made, which was (way back): When I say there is little reason to think that COVID-19 "would have played out any differently" with any other President (meaning Hillary), I'm NOT suggesting that Hillary would not have been a better leader, or that that Hillary would not have been better organized at putting together a national response. But what I AM saying is that COVID-19 would still have been a pandemic. COVID-19 would still have infected people. COVID-19 would still have killed people in nursing homes. COVID-19 would still have been affected by the different policies and approaches taken by politicians and leaders in 50 states. And honestly, I don't think Hilary would have pursued policies all that different from the ones Trump pursued, because I just don't believe there are a lot of variable policies one CAN choose in that situation. She would have faced the same choices he did, and maybe 75% of the time, she would have made the same or similar decisions. And I don't think anyone here can quantify the difference in the death rate or total deaths (now at 150 million) that the other 25% of her decision-making might have affected.
I'm not normally a fan of citing American Thinker (even *I* have some standards ), but this piece seems reasonable and pretty well-argued, and it relates to the points I make above about what Hillary Clinton's covid response might have been. https://www.americanthinker.com/art..._handling_of_the_virus_was_not_a_failure.html July 29, 2020 President Trump’s Handling of The Virus Was Not a Failure By David Keltz Do facts matter anymore? Has such intense and unabashed hatred of President Donald Trump caused Democrat leaders to lose any semblance of sanity and let slip all grasp of reality, or are they fully aware of their mendacity, to promulgate a false political narrative about the president's handling of the virus in order to fool the American people into voting Trump out of office in November? On June 30th, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi proclaimed Trump’s handling of the virus to be a complete failure at a press conference: “Safety is first, and people have families at home that they have to go home to, and they don’t want to carry somebody else’s virus there... We are at a place now that we don’t have to be. This is a president who doesn’t want to wear a mask, who again called the virus a hoax... science says, wear a mask, test, trace, keep your distance. The president doesn’t support any of that. He has events that are counter to that...this is a matter of life and death, and this administration has failed miserably.” It certainly is curious that Pelosi, who was not wearing a mask as she made those comments, would claim to care about safety and social distancing, considering that on June 3, she went out and joined Black Lives Matter protestors on Capitol Hill for a photo-op that was too important to pass up. That was after her famous rendezvous in San Francisco’s Chinatown on February 29th, where she showed her displeasure with Trump’s China travel ban that prevented people from coming into the U.S. from the place where the virus originated. Although Dr. Anthony Fauci and CDC guidance repeatedly changed their stances on mask wearing, Trump never said people should not wear masks, and in fact often encouraged it. Considering that he is tested virtually every day, there is no reason for him to speak to reporters who are also tested, (and are more than six feet away from him), with a mask on during a press conference. He also never called the virus a hoax, he said that the Democrats, similarly to the Mueller Investigation, and to the Ukraine Impeachment, were once again trying to undermine his presidency by falsely accusing him of putting the lives of the American people in danger. Pelosi of course is not the only Democrat leader who criticized Trump’s handling of the virus. During a February 5 hearing before the House Committee that was captioned, "The Wuhan Coronavirus: Assessing the Outbreak, the Response, and Regional Implications," (before it became racist to refer to the virus that way) several witnesses who were called by Democrat House members seemed more concerned about offending people of Chinese origin than of actually stopping the virus. Former Democrat representative Eliot L. Engel, who lost his seat this past month, said of Trump’s travel ban, "The United States and other countries around the world have put in place unprecedented travel restrictions in response to the virus. These measures have not proven to improve public health outcomes, rather they tend to cause economic harm and to stoke racist and discriminatory responses to this epidemic." One day earlier, Democratic representative Ami Bera, who presided over the hearing, told Politico, "In our response we can't create prejudices and harbor anxieties toward one population." Joe Biden also famously said of Trump’s travel ban, “In moments like this, this is where the credibility of a president is most needed... This is no time for Donald Trump's record of hysterical xenophobia, and fear-mongering." On March 24th, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo attacked the Trump administration, saying “What am I going to do with 400 ventilators when I need 30,000? You pick the 26,000 people who are going to die because you only sent 400 ventilators.” It turned out Cuomo did not need anywhere close to 30,000 ventilators, and not a single person died because they did not have a ventilator. Instead, he solved the problem by allowing the elderly who tested positive for the virus to go back to nursing homes, where they infected their neighbors, resulting in an additional 12,000 deaths. On May 5th, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio said, “What kind of human being sees the suffering here and decides that the people of New York City don’t deserve help... President Trump wasn’t there for us when we needed testing to stop this horrible disease.” As of July 25th, the U.S. has carried out nearly fifty-three million tests. One could be forgiven for taking anything De Blasio says too seriously, considering that he prioritizes his time by painting large Black Lives Matter letters in front of Trump Tower, freeing violent criminals from jail, and allowing shootings to increase by 130 percent in NYC. Let’s review the facts of Trump’s supposed “failure.” On January 29th Trump announced the formation of the Coronavirus Task Force, which first began meeting on January 27th. On January 31, President Trump took the bold and crucial step of banning travel from China, at a time when there were only six known coronavirus cases in the U.S. Dr. Fauci praised the travel ban, saying, “What we're doing now with the other travel restrictions -- so you block infections from coming in.” On March 13th Trump declared a nationwide emergency, which increased federal support under the “Stafford Act,” and put HHS in charge as the lead federal agency for the COVID-19 pandemic response. He also directed FEMA to assist state, and local governments by building field hospitals, setting up mobile testing sites, procuring PPE, and allocating 350 million dollars to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for construction of alternate care facilities in New York. On March 15th, the president, in coordination with Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, and other task force members, issued guidelines for the country to follow, under the President’s “15 Days To Slow The Spread,” This later became, Thirty Days To Slow The Spread.” On April 2, Trump authorized the Defense Production Act to ramp up production of ventilators and N-95 respirators. On April 16th, he issued guidelines for reopening America. Fifty-seven major disaster declarations were declared in all fifty states, five territories, Washington D.C. and one tribe, and 6.5 billion dollars in funding was allocated in emergency protective measures. 199 airbridge flight missions occurred, to expedite critical medical supplies from overseas. As of June 5th, 13.9 million face shields, 148.9 million surgical masks, 5.2 million coveralls, 1 billion gloves, 205.6 million cloth masks, 93 million N95 respirators, and 37.6 million gowns were delivered to all fifty states, and two U.S. Navy hospital ships arrived in New York City and Los Angeles. On May 15th Trump initiated Operation Warp Speed, to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. more
conclusion: So while the media, Pelosi, Biden and other Democrats falsely vilified the president’s handling of the plague that came from China, and told us to “follow the science,” by proclaiming that the virus can distinguish between anti-lockdown protestors, churchgoers, or hair salon owners who want to safely reopen their businesses, but not for “defund the police” protestors, arsonists, looters, vandals and anarchists who destroy property, topple statues, burn courthouses and churches, terrorize civilians, overrun city streets with autonomous zones, and clash with law enforcement officers, one wonders what any of them would have done differently if they had been commander in chief.
It was a troll comment ( like 99% of what you post) you were called out for it and here we are pages later and you STILL are backpedaling on it? Wow Take the L man let it go ..you won't even stand by your original comment..talk about cringemaster my god... You suck at this
The selfish and stupid continue the spread. Can you imagine how many people in the White House would have the virus if they weren't tested so damn much? Too bad Americans don't get that daily testing at their places of work. That will never happen, so just deal with it as they say. Selfish jerks.
A quick read of this article... It says that Trump is tested every day. Here is what Trump had to say "Speaking during a White House news briefing later Tuesday, Trump himself said he is tested on average once every two or three days. He denied ever having been tested multiple times in a single day but said, “I could see that happening.”"
Time for a lockdown. State adds record 313 more to the Texas coronavirus death toll By Asher Price Posted Jul 29, 2020 at 4:13 PM https://www.statesman.com/news/20200729/state-adds-record-313-more-to-texas-coronavirus-death-toll
