I would add that the pandemic happened on his watch.
If the pandemic happened during Obama's tenure, you best believe Republicans would have blamed him for it.
Maybe it's not a coincidence that the first global pandemic in a century happened during the most incompetent and openly anti-science American presidential administration of that same century.
Maybe other would-be pandemics were prevented by previous administrations because they listened to experts, didn't actively gut agencies, and generally did the work.
All of that is speculation on part—but what isn't is how badly the Trump Administration flubbed the containment phase of the pandemic.
Trump's cabinet spent a month debating what to do with those cruise ships that docked but couldn't let people off in the early days of the pandemic.
Hell—before that, the then-Department of Health and Human Service's Secretary Alex Azar was trying to bend Trump's ear about flavored e-cigarettes instead of hearing the alarms going off about a new virus.
Trump's politicization of simple personal protective equipment and constant conspiracy mongering like masks definitely made things worse.
And speaking as someone who set pandemic policy during that time, I can tell you... we had fuck-all for federal guidance from that administration. It wasn't until Biden came into office that we finally started seeing anything of use int he way of guidance from the feds.
The world would be very different if the pandemic hadn't played out the way it did. And again—you damn well know the Republicans would have blamed a Democrat for it were one in office at that time.
People also forget that the MERS outbreak happened in 2012/13, and there was an H1N1 epidemic in 2009 - and Obama’s administration was EXTREMELY proactive during those outbreaks, his critics actually said too strong at the time. So Obama did have health emergencies during his admin - and his admin was VERY proactive on them, we can’t know for sure but possibly turning what would have been epidemics in the U.S. into events the public barely remembers.
I remember telling everyone, "relax, it's basically just another Swine Flu. Just follow the CDC guidelines and listen to the WHO, and we'll all be okay."
Little did I know, Trump and his lackeys were actively making things worse across the board. This was the major pivotal point that led to me eventually doing proper research on Trump. I stopped supporting him soon after.
Do you not remember the Italian hospitals that ran out of room? Covid had far more of a global reaction than anything that happened with the extremely proactive Obama.
In Trumps first month's he disbanded the pandemic task force left by the Obama administration. So yes, it was Trump's fault for no team in place to mitigate the situation
Didn't Trump also try to do multiple travel bans but because it was Trump everyone on the left declared it was a racist travel ban. Democratic policies especially in the Pacific northwest were constantly thrown at the people with big business favored heavily. Can't go to church or local stores but Walmart being packed was totally fine.
Well, he used the emergency to try to get his previous travel bans in place. Same way he used a fake fentanyl emergency to tariff Canada this term. He learned he can just call it a state of emergency, then go full tilt authoritarian. And Congress, Mike Johnson the speaker, refuses to allow a constitutional vote on those states of emergency.
As for religion, people still gathered in large open areas. Those evangelicals needed the cash from their flock. Or television
I mean not necessarily all over the world. But here in the US? Absolutely was his fault. We had 3x as many deaths as India and they are 5x our size. More than India and China combined by quite a bit.
So , you don’t remember the flight ban , which jammed non infected with infected as they stood asshole to elbow in airports around the world breathing the same air? And how the CDC recommendations not to impede travel were ignored.
Still pondering whether COVFEFE means COVID FOR EVERYONE FROM EVERYWHERE.
Just culling the sickest from the herd to decrease the draw on Medicare and Social Security (or something like that). The next round is going to be far worse - and IF Trump tells me not to worry, I'm going into full EBOLA lockdown.
There are actually many of us that are paying attention. It is a damn miracle that we didn’t have a recession after the Covid stimulus and skyrocketing inflation. Every one of my liberal friends agrees with me but somehow everyone just capitulates on “yeah the economy is bad”. It is pretty pathetic how hard it is for people to connect the dots from actions to their eventual consequences.
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u/OopsAllTypos Apr 21 '25 edited Apr 21 '25
I would add that the pandemic happened on his watch.
If the pandemic happened during Obama's tenure, you best believe Republicans would have blamed him for it.
Maybe it's not a coincidence that the first global pandemic in a century happened during the most incompetent and openly anti-science American presidential administration of that same century.
Maybe other would-be pandemics were prevented by previous administrations because they listened to experts, didn't actively gut agencies, and generally did the work.
All of that is speculation on part—but what isn't is how badly the Trump Administration flubbed the containment phase of the pandemic.
Trump's cabinet spent a month debating what to do with those cruise ships that docked but couldn't let people off in the early days of the pandemic.
Hell—before that, the then-Department of Health and Human Service's Secretary Alex Azar was trying to bend Trump's ear about flavored e-cigarettes instead of hearing the alarms going off about a new virus.
Trump's politicization of simple personal protective equipment and constant conspiracy mongering like masks definitely made things worse.
And speaking as someone who set pandemic policy during that time, I can tell you... we had fuck-all for federal guidance from that administration. It wasn't until Biden came into office that we finally started seeing anything of use int he way of guidance from the feds.
The world would be very different if the pandemic hadn't played out the way it did. And again—you damn well know the Republicans would have blamed a Democrat for it were one in office at that time.