@bobknight33 you ignorant slut.....

80-90% of all US covid deaths are because of Trump's total bungling of the pandemic. Most due to his denying it was anything but flu for months and encouragement of his followers to ignore and fight against public health measures. Every death since July is because of Trump's disastrous response, and most deaths before July but not all. After two months, Biden's administration has cut deaths by 60%+.

So yes, anyone responsible for that many deaths should not remain president, and he didn't despite the fraud fraud and attempted overthrow of democracy he perpetrated.

math... how does it work?

I don't disagree that Trump could have handled many aspects of the pandemic better, but I think your numbers are a bit off.

One, because with the lack of a vaccine, experts are unsure of how many of the deaths can be laid specifically at Trump's feet. In other words, they are unable to put a solid number to how many would have died had he done anything different. It certainly would not be 80-90%, that is a nearly unproveable claim in the face of no vaccine being available. The closest estimate is from the Lancet Commision, which suggests that 40% could be Trump's fault, along with four decades of "long-standing flaws in US economic, health, and social policy" that compounded inefficiencies in the country's public-health systems before the pandemic. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32545-9/fulltext

If you look at statistics, Biden's administration was running at similar death numbers than Trump's for a couple of months after he took office. They only began to decline rapidly since the vaccine became more available. Vaccine availability is more of a factor of how fast the companies were able to make the vaccine, versus anything Biden could have done. His contribution, if you will, is primarily not stockpiling a reserve and sending it out as fast as possible. The current death rate is running about the same as from May 2020 to November 2020. The winter surge was about as bad as everyone expected.

Here is a link that shows the deaths on a timeline. Select "deaths' instead of "cases". https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/01/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/

Way I see it, while Trump is a major contributor to USA Covid-19 deaths, yes, but the MAIN reason is the overly libertarian, short-term economics driven policy and false "human right/freedom" anti-masking rhetoric that caused the rise of the pandemic to the levels countries like the USA & Brazil is at. There are many levels of government, people's behavior and economic factors to blame, not just Trump.

Just calling it the "China virus" doesn't solve the pandemic, nor absolve Trump of blame, he hardly ever tried to get things under control.

All Trump did was letting 0%/low tax paying Wall street mega-corporations profiting handsomely during the pandemic, while the mom & pop main street stores & its staff going under. You know, because MAGA!

I'm regurgitating the numbers Dr Birx used, and comparing our outbreak to other nations that took it seriously like S Korea and New Zealand. If we had used the same serious action S Korea had, our death rate per 100000 would be an astonishing 1/60th of what our death rates were in the first 6 months or so. Just universal mask wearing would have cut our deaths by an estimated >1/4, 130000 fewer deaths, and slowed the rate of new cases significantly, but Trump fought against them.

Here's the link on that data...., granted slightly dated.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/23/how-many-coronavirus-deaths-are-truly-attributable-trump/

Remember, the Whitehouse said 100000-240000 possible deaths, around the same time Trump said deaths would never rise over 20000, using the lower of those numbers and blaming Trump's policies for the excess we are >80% his fault now, using Trump's promised numbers over 96% are blood on his hands.

There's also the fact that after knowing about the uncontrolled epidemic in WuHan Trump let over 40000 people (just not Chinese nationals) back in the country from that region with no tests available and no quarantine except for those obviously extremely sick. An immediate and actual travel lockdown could have made our deaths zero, and definitely would have made them exponentially lower.

Then there's the dismantling of the Global Health Security and Biodefense unit he closed that likely could have identified the outbreak in China much earlier and again, made our numbers zero. It's exactly what they were created to avoid.

I honestly feel 80- 90% was being generous, in fact there's a real possibility that a thoughtful adult president would have made any number of intelligent decisions, any one of which could have avoided the pandemic altogether or minimized infections enormously, even minimizing the Chinese epidemic.

I do agree, Biden is doing much better at taking it seriously and acting like rapid vaccination is important, but still isn't doing enough. I would prefer an enforced national mask mandate, mandatory social distancing, school closings until vaccination saturation, etc until we have herd immunity....not half assed measures like 50% capacity at bars and restaurants, with few business shutdowns and zero enforcement, pretending it's over every time infection rates dip.

I would say we can't pick and choose on the measures some countries took. In your examples, one country is an island and the other might as well be, given that they have a DMZ with the only other part of their country that touches any other nation.

I would say our closest comparison to a nation state composed of multiple 'states' is the EU. Which, if you add up the number of their deaths in total as of now, 627,242 deaths have been reported in the EU/EEA. Their lockdowns were FAR more stringent than ours, and their death total is on par. Do all of their leaders have as much blood on their hands?

Yes, they had isolation we don't, but also had fewer resources to work with by far, and are much closer to the outbreak in China with tons of travel between countries. I would say having a reasonable, thoughtful population that wanted to avoid being someone who spread the virus and killed people, so followed instructions nearly without exception, compared to the U.S. who had a leader denouncing closings, masks, and social distancing and a population that was happy to spread the disease for political reasons. I think that has WAY more to do with our horrific , worst on the planet per capita despite the most resources by far outcome.

We only have two borders to close. Canada is easy, just ask nicely and they'll stay home. The border with Mexico is a problem, granted, I found it odd Trump didn't use emergency powers to finish his fence when he had a legitimate reason, but that would mean admitting Covid is dangerous, but if we cooperated with Mexico to secure the border we could have minimized all international travel early.

Back to Canada, with two open borders. They have 23000 and a population of 37.59 million, so they also have a per capita death rate well under 1/2 ours, close to 1/3, and they also could have done better if we had done better. It's impossible to figure out what percentage of their infections came from the U.S., but it's definitely a significant number.

Other nations have divisions, if not states, provinces, prefecture, or some other separation of areas. I don't agree that because we have states in our country we are like the EU, because a federal law or executive order covers all states and territories, the EU has no such mechanism as far as I know.

We were the only nation with an international Global Health Security and Biodefense unit, with teams in China and elsewhere, designed to identify new diseases early to avoid pandemics. Trump is totally responsible for dismantling that office, meaning there's a likelihood every non Chinese death and most Chinese deaths would have been avoided had Trump not been butt hurt over a good system set up by Obama. His racist and political hatred put the planet at risk. That alone puts most deaths, U.S. and global, directly on his hands.

Also, the EU population is double ours, meaning with all the multiple open borders and haphazard mix of regulations from different countries, and the enormous immigrant populations, and some actual temporary lockdowns in some of their countries (but not all by far) their infection/death rates are barely over 1/2 what ours are per capita. That's not on par, sorry.

Some of their leaders have some blood on their hands because of poor or slow decisions, but few actually fought against all science and public health measures, denying the mortality rates and doctor's recommendations to convince their populations to do nothing at all to mitigate the pandemic...Brazil did....look at them now. Yes, the president of Brazil absolutely has blood on his hands, and his response mirrored Trump's.

The EU has open borders and free travel amongst the various nations if you are a citizen of a member nation. I will agree our per capita death rate is higher, but still (based on the well researched Lancet study) you cannot lay more than about 40% of the deaths at Trump's feet. I don't deny he could have handled the pandemic much better, but it has been some time since we have had a pandemic on this level. Multiple leaders have handled it differently and time will eventually label them for the history aspect of it.

I go by the facts. Not conjecture, and not opinion. I also don't consider Birx to be even remotely a good source since she rode down the trail willy nilly with the same person you are blaming all the deaths on. I will never trust or vote for Trump again, but you cannot lay the percentage you are proposing on him solely. Just like we cannot move Biden to almighty status for his handling of the situation when he is currently running a similar death rate on par with the same time last year, WHILE having massive vaccination.

Has he made steps that have helped? Certainly and I would say he is definitely doing a better job than Trump, but by your own admission almost anyone could. The fact of the matter is, as I said last year, you cannot fight a pandemic like this without having the martial law like power China had or being in a situation to isolate yourself from outside contact.

I thought I addressed that. Travel was also open between states, and many countries with "free travel amongst nations" had no-travel/stay at home orders in place, unlike the U.S., and afaik, mandatory quarantine for all international travelers.

Again, because he eradicated the international Global Health Security and Biodefense unit, I can legitimately ascribe every single non Chinese death and most Chinese deaths to his actions directly. A pandemic on this level WAS foreseen after SARS, Ebola, and Swine Flu, it's why we created the GHSB. It's why we had a pandemic response plan that Trump completely ignored and actually denied it existed for months and months.

I also am going by facts. My facts say that at least four things Trump did against professional advice took us from prepared to minimise any pandemic to at worst a foreign epidemic to a place where months after pandemics start our leader denied any danger and made no moves to stop it.
1) Eradication of the GHSB, missed opportunity one to have zero US cases and avoid a pandemic completely.
2) Repeated early public denial of the danger while encouraging others to do the same and go about business as usual, missed opportunity two to have zero US cases, and a missed opportunity to minimize any spread if quarantining travelers (something else he failed miserably to even consider early on) failed.
3) Encouragement of those who trust him to ignore all mitigation efforts, don't mask, don't social distance, don't shut down non essential businesses, don't close schools, don't listen to medical professionals....missed opportunity number three to minimize US infections to thousands instead of hundreds of thousands. Remember the many months he said grandma would gladly die to get people back to work, pretending many months in that only feeble octogenarians get sick?
4) Denial of a prepared response plan, never following it and claiming total ignorance, missed opportunity number four to follow prepared plans based on science from day one, missing the opportunity to keep our infection rate at S Korean levels.

That's four well researched and vetted moronic, irrational, and irresponsible mistakes he personally made that multiplied our infection rate by 100- infinity times (if we could have had zero without his multiple massive and stupid mistakes, which is not just possible but likely, he can be said to have CAUSED every single US case, multiplying our infections by infinity.). There were more, but I'm beating a dead horse.
Remember, his real plan was natural herd immunity, with an expected 3-60 million deaths depending on who you asked.

I say if intelligent decisions could have avoided all US infections, and that's undeniable IMO, you can lay the blame for as high a percentage as you like on the leader who made bad dangerous decisions out of pure narcissistic ignorance and hatred of his predecessor...up to 100%. 80-90% still seems like I'm coddling him, at least two failures could have made cases zero, and others minimized it to under 10% of what we have. All four I listed almost certainly allowed >90% giving every doubt and giving him all possible credit....so yes, I'm satisfied I'm not exaggerating.

Obama's responsible and responsive planning and execution stopped Ebola from ever spreading here despite it making it to our shores, and it was FAR more contagious and deadly. Had we had Trump then doing the same things, there would be tens of millions dead and likely still spreading disease, imo.


Edit: let me try analogy...If a mayor removes the stop signs from 4 way highway intersections, they are responsible for every wreck that happens, even though other towns with stop signs still have wrecks at intersections. Trump pulled the signs, removed the flashing red light, and cut first responder funding, and claimed there never was a highway code to follow and he takes no responsibility for the jump in highway deaths.

What we are still talking about is your opinion. You feel that him removing the GHSB led to all of the pandemic deaths. I understand that and you have the right to have that opinion.

I am going off the report that was made by the Lancet Journal. The Lancet is one of the two oldest, most respected and most widely read medical journals in the world. They were established in 1823 and are ranked often first or second among general-interest medical journals by their “impact factor,” the frequency with which their studies are cited in other research.

They said 40% and that is also influenced by the state our health system was already in when he became President.

I will give you an analogy. If 97% of the world's climate scientists believe that, based on science, we have man made climate change, it really doesn't matter what the opinions of the other 3% are. We have man made climate change.

I respect you, but I disagree with your opinion. OTOH, I agree that Bob is an ass for even posting this. Trump fucked up and arguing it is pointless at this time.

Absolutely, that's just, like, my opinion, man. It holds no sway over others, who cares what a newt thinks?

I don't think it's a certainty that the GHSB would have prevented all deaths, or even avoided the pandemic, just likely, but that's enough to assign blame imo, and usually under the law too. There's zero chance he would be prosecuted, so it's all academic.

You have a link for the Lancet study? I would be interested to find what they include as "Trump's policies" and what isn't considered. Edit:Derp....I scrolled up and see you already posted it, thanks.
Even 40% is over 200000 deaths in his lap. That's 200000 more than are acceptable.

You could say that about climate change, and in a rational world it would be true, but that <3% are used to justify nearly 50% of policy and nearly all opposition to progress, so yeah, it does still matter.

I respect you too, and you're welcome to your opinion, but when you say I can't lay blame where I think it belongs, I feel obligated to explain how I came to my opinion.

Absolutely on Bob. It's infantile and ignorant at best, and a cynical lie aimed at the gullible.

I think I misspoke. I don't mean to say you can't blame Trump, I just think the percentages were off.

Perhaps I did, because that's what I meant, you said I couldn't ascribe as much blame as I was.

Moving this video to bobknight33's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.