To genuinely wonder what is going to happen to the US?

[AlternativePerspective]

Weirdly the story has now disappeared from the BBC since I saw it this morning, but basically. Donald Trump is suggesting UV treatment and injecting disinfectant as a means to kill COVID.

Obviously most know he’s a lunatic, but enough support him to keep him in power, and people will take this advice seriously and will surely inevitably die as a result.

Thing is, there seems no way to stop him. if he gets back into power, which he undoubtedly will, then they have another four years of this, in which case the stability of the country is in serious danger.

But if he doesn’t get in I predict serious unrest and even wonder whether the states could end up in civil war.

Either way it’s not a place I would want to be going right now.

It’s obviously easy to laugh at trump from the sidelines, but people are having to live under this....

Here you got. Had this sent to me yesterday

@Catsinthecupboard

We're you being paid to write that or are you genuinely brainwashed?

When he strays it is tremendous, great, then he does that weird fish measuring thing with his hands and you know the lies are starting.

It’s like he’s playing an invisible accordion. And yes, it signals the start of him just making shit up

The Americans I know put first their need for a president who will support them not to fund abortion providors.

So, given they support preserving life before birth, how do they feel about the loss of all those schoolchildren's lives directly resulting from his refusal to put in place any sort of gun law reform? Let alone the lives lost by people drinking bleach.

Remember the "perfect" early response?

Turns out it wasn't perfect at all, and it was all the Health Secretary's fault.

Deputy Heads will roll.

Trump supporters don't harm others

I'm pretty sure locking little children in cages whilst they cry for their mothers is harmful.

Also love that the Trump defender says she's deleting her account. That's handy. No need to try to have a reasoned discussion. Just tell us all that it's a witch hunt and then flounce.

Cats makes a lot of reasonable points.

Trump was democratically elected, and we have Trump because of the Obama and Clinton legacy. I voted for Obama - he came in on such a a tidal wave of hope and promise, and he totally failed to deliver. He turned out to be a massive narcissist who implemented some truly terrible policies and dramatically increased the number of wars the US became involved in. He was horrendous on education and deportation. Many Obama voters flipped to Trump because Obama didn’t help to improve their lives and because they were sick of the prioritisation of corporate interests. The bailing out of Wall Street at the expense of ordinary people, the fact that not one person was held accountable for the crash that devastated the lives of millions of Americans - that is on Obama and it is unforgivable.

Trump won because of that legacy and because many non-middle-class people who didn’t have Wall Street interests, pensions and investments, whose kids weren’t comfortably cushioned in corporate jobs and protected from serving in the armed forces and involvement in war after war, were sick of the hypocrisy of the Democrats.

I don’t like Trump but I absolutely despise the condemnation of Trump voters as across-the-board ignorant racists who should die by drinking detergent. That is how the liberal US media likes to portray them. All the major networks and publications like the NYT are still in utter shock that Trump is president. They still can’t understand it, and they seem to have no real interest in doing so, so they attack the people who put him there, and, it is a terrible, divisive and dishonest narrative. And it doesn’t serve their cause. Many of the people who voted for Trump just want better lives, like the rest of us - and a non-PC, non-establishment non-politician promising to protect their jobs and end wars seemed like someone worth taking a chance on.

Biden, who is in clear mental decline, is not the answer. I guess it would depend on his running mate, who IMO is effectively who Americans will voting for. I would love a genuinely progressive anti-war candidate - Tulsi Gabbard, for instance, but it won’t happen. We will be stuck with Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris, and more of the same.

Voice of reason, he was suggesting We find a medication that would clean up the virus

Do you mean clear up - as in get if off the hands - such as soap and water?

Or was he talking about anti-viral agents that stop the virus from working ? Because I am pretty sure scientists are onto that already

It sounded like he was talking about injecting an agent which has similar properties to disinfectant in the way it destroys viruses into the lungs.

And he was asking the scientists to look into that.

Any scientist who knows how disinfectants work and how the body works won't need to look at that suggestion for long.

Science and medicine should really be left to the professionals. Not to off the cuff sugggestions from the President in the briefing room.

There's something Hitleresque about Trump. The megalomania, the inability to see beyond his own fanaticism, the way he can get millions to blindly follow him.

I really hope the Americans are stupid enough to vote this monster in again.

aren't not are

The megalomania, the inability to see beyond his own fanaticism, the way he can get millions to blindly follow him.

It’s not the first time. Sounds exactly like Obama to me. But I suppose at least Obama was eloquent with it.

Well yes, now you mention it, Obama - Hitler. The resemblance is uncanny. I mean his grandad was German.

Or is that someone else?

Jillyhilly - unfortunately, it seems to me that voting for a billionnaire with a history of vindictive behaviour towards anyone he deems to be an enemy, an inability to accept criticism, and a track record of saying things that are obviously unrealisitc and/or dangerous, is just voting for unpredictability, not for someone who knows how to improve the lot of ordinary Americans, of which he has never been one. No wonder he got on with Kim Jong Un - they have a lot in common, personality-wise.

What worries me about Trump voters is the number who actually seem to believe he will improve their lot in the long term, rather than just shake everything up and alarm the rest of the world, who see another large power behaving in a way that seems to increase the risk of global conflict, not reduce it.

Well yes, now you mention it, Obama - Hitler. The resemblance is uncanny. I mean his grandad was German.

Or is that someone else?

You think someone with a German grandfather resembles Hitler?

Undoubetdly. Every single one of them. Especially Herr Obama the well-known Hitler impersonator.

Ah. I can see that you’re attempting a joke, but it sounds very much that you’re implying that there’ a connection between a German ancestry and resembling Hitler, Mockers.

@JillyHilly

You make some good points and food for thought for us all. Personally, I despise Trump on so many levels and did so long before he ran for office. However we need to appreciate that those that voted for him, and might vote for him again, are not some hive mind that fully agree with everything he says and does. I expect a lot of his voters will have done so with a heavy heart and not all of those who support him enthusiastically will be 100% aligned to all his policies or blind to his character flaws. It doesn't help that the media does love to seek out people that are almost caricatures of the Trump supporter stereotype whenever they decide to do bit of vox pop and that can skew our view.

There are myriad social and economic issues in the USA, many long-standing and invariably getting worse, that lead to a figure as divisive as Trump getting into office. These are not being appropriately discussed or addressed as best I can tell as an outsider looking in. They are also not all unique to the USA and those of us from other countries could do well to consider that before taking easy pot shots at the USA.

The USA has been friend and ally to the UK and many other nations for a long time. That relationship benefits us all and depends not just on good political alignment but also on friendly relations between the respective populations. I will never suggest that criticism of Trump should cease but those of us who do criticise him could be more empathetic towards ordinary Americans.

Fuck, I'm turning into a hippy I think. Peace and love everyone.

I'm actually glad some Trump supporters are posting, so everyone can see how ridiculous the pro-Trump narrative is. The idea that this rich, corrupt, misogynist, racist idiot actually cares about and is helping ordinary people is a total fantasy.

There was a real effort to understand Trump voters in 2016. That's when we were deluged with articles about economic anxiety and how they just wanted a better life. But as time went on it became clear that many of his supporters are not badly off, and support has much more to do with identity than economics. Look at cat's post ranting about 'illegals' -- that's typical.

People who condemn Trump and his supporters are not doing so because we don't understand or don't care about ordinary people. (I come from a working class rust belt family myself) It's because we haven't fallen for his lies, and can see what a racist and corrupt president he is. There is no moral defense of him.

People who condemn Trump and his supporters are not doing so because we don't understand or don't care about ordinary people.

It’s Trump’s most impressive con - that he understands the ordinary, everyday struggles. Even though he was born into and inherited wealth and got bailed out every time he got bankrupt thereafter.

I doubt he’s ever run out of milk and had to pop out for it, boiled an egg, changed a nappy or a lightbulb or picked up a child from school.

When people say that, “he understands” it’s code for their rage that their lives haven’t turned out as they have wanted and it’s someone else’s fault. He speaks to their rage, their frustration and works on “othering” the problem. He stokes the racist fire, the xenophobic ones and his misogyny doesn’t hurt either. He tells people that their shit lives are someone else’s fault and they are better than the illegals (as per a pp), people with black or brown skin or people from other countries.

Even now with COVID-19 it’s the “Wuhan virus”, he inherited faulty tests from the Obama administration (for a virus that didn’t yet exist) and “he doesn’t take responsibility at all”.

Well, obviously not all of Trump’s supporters are badly off. He has the support of plenty of corrupt, hugely wealthy, powerful people, organisations and news networks. He wouldn’t have stood a chance of getting into power without a lot of hugely powerful, wealthy individuals, organisations and other politicians standing behind him, reinterpreting his inanities. He’s not a lone wolf - lone wolves don’t get elected in the US.

Oh right, Tulsi Gabbard. That 'real' progressive who supported Trump's ban on Syrian refugees. The anti-war candidate who supports the drone war and takes money from Lockheed Martin. Who Steve Bannon wanted to bring into the Trump administration because he was such a fan.

Again, all these "I'm not a Trump supporter but..." posts defending him are defending him because they don't entirely think that badly of him.

nolongersurprised Yes exactly. I agree totally. He's legitimising some people's anger and hate, and they love him for it.

There’s usually a “rally around the flag” increase in ratings for incumbent presidents with external crises. All he has to do is show some genuine empathy for those who have died, look like he has a unifying national plan and is communicating well with governors and make a plan for the future. (We created a tremendously strong economy and once we get through this together we’ll rebuild it stronger than ever!”

But he can’t. He’s stuck on his old greatest hits of creating divisions, airing his personal grievances and making this crisis everyone else’s fault.

I keep hoping Trump is some kind of weird social experiment, a kind of "look how bad this can get so let's not do it again shall we?" and once he's gone they will go forward with ever more sensible options but I feel that's a pipe dream.

Trump really is the finest example of what happens when a white, elderly, sexist/racist/xenophobic, bible bashing male comes into power that doesn't understand the world has moved on without him.

Seriously, he's a rambling redneck and if his followers choose to inject themselves with Dettol I will not weep for their departed souls. Darwinism at it's finest.

Let them crack on.

I just want Covid to clear up ASAP so I can go back to what's left of New York.