Republicans: 'Nobody Expected' the Coronavirus Pandemic. So Joe Biden Is Nobody?

[Quixote1818]

Wanted to post this in GD but figured it would be locked:

By Jonathan Chait

President Trump, having stopped dismissing the threat of the coronavirus and calling criticism of his laggard response “their new hoax,” has begun insisting everybody was shocked. “It’s something that nobody expected,” he has said. Conservative pundits have picked up this revisionist history. “Armchair Quarterbacks Try to Rewrite History on Coronavirus,” argues National Review’s David Harsanyi. “Generalized ‘Trump didn’t take this seriously enough!’ stuff is ignoring the timeline, wherein every major Democrat didn’t take it very seriously until early March either,” insists Ben Shapiro.

One example of a major Democrat who took this seriously would be Joe Biden, who, as the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, is arguably the major Democrat. Biden wrote an op-ed on January 27 warning that Trump had left the country unprepared to handle the coronavirus outbreak, and proposing steps to counter it. One of his main advisers, Ron Klain, wrote an op-ed making similar points five days before that.

The primary defense made of Trump is to compare his laggard response against the straw-man alternative in which the only alternative was to close down everything three months ago. “Now we’re going to act as if politicians were negligent for failing to try to lock down the entire economy in early January?” writes Harsanyi mockingly. Obviously, there were numerous steps available short of a total lockdown. Indeed, the massive lockdown was only necessary because Trump failed to take any advance steps, like mobilizing an effective testing system, stockpiling masks and ventilators, and reconstituting some kind of structure to replace the pandemic response team he dismantled in 2018.

The “nobody could have known” defense memory-holes the fact that Democrats and Republicans were fiercely debating whether the government should be doing more in the very recent history. Trump’s stance, which he repeated constantly, was that the coronavirus had been contained, was likely to fizzle out, and would not be very harmful. The whole Republican position for weeks was that Democrats and the media were “doing everything they can to instill fear in people,” as Trump put it.

More: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/nobody-expected-the-coronavirus-pandemic-joe-biden-did.html

[Cha]

1. Thank you for this, Quixote.. the Derelictrumps

stole that defense from Condy Rice.. didn't she say nobody could have predicted 9/11? Even though they had an August 6th Memo that should have Enlightened them?

[BidenBacker]

8. Good memory there, Cha

‘The Attacks Will Be Spectacular’

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/cia-directors-documentary-911-bush-213353

"Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”

Clinton & Gang also warned them about OBL on the way out the door...just like Obama & Boys warned this rotten Republican administration about a possible/probable pandemic.

Gotta love Pubbies...they crave the authority but shirk the responsibility. Every damn time.

Harry S. Truman: "The buck stops here."

Donny J. Trump: "I don't take responsibility for anything."

[Cha]

13. Thank you for bringing that information on board, BB..

That was all drilled into us on DU back in those days.. will never forget.

Harry Truman~

Incompetentrump-

[S.E. TN Liberal]

2. Which is why President Obama had the Pandemic Response Team set up...

[blm]

3. And Warren had a plan to quickly counter the health crisis in January with an

attached plan for what would be a certain economic crisis.

This, nobody could have known stuff from GOP is utter bullshit.

[Quixote1818]

4. And this: Obama officials walked Trump aides through global pandemic exercise in 2017: report

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/488069-obama-officials-walked-trump-aides-through-global-pandemic-exercise-in-2017

[relayerbob]

5. They didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition either

[Hestia]

22. +1

[Aussie105]

6. Republicans: 'Nobody Expected' the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Nobody expected? Just like a car accident, or a house fire?
Not expected either, but you still take out insurance in case it happens. Only dumb people go 'Not planning on a car accident, so not happening, so insurance not needed!'

Loosely translated the Repug attitude is:

We don't need no stinkin' virus to destroy this country!
We will do it all by ourselves!
And be proud of it, and take credit for it!

Trunp: Who is in charge of this mess? What do you mean, it's me? I take no responsibility for this!

But yes, the lessons from the Spanish flu, too soon forgotten?

More recent viral diseases:
Swine flu and bird flu, as well as MERS (2012) and SARS (2002) - latter 2 being corona virus diseases. Many countries learnt the process of protecting their citizens from those. And put them into good effect with COVID-19.

But America? Nope, lesson not learnt, care factor zero, preparedness factor zero.

But COVID-19? Do people really believe there will be no similar pandemics in the future? History says otherwise.

Southern drawl accent: Trump? Why that boy is so stupid, you could take him duck huntin' and odds on the ducks would get him first!

[LovingA2andMI]

10. This...

More recent viral diseases:
Swine flu and bird flu, as well as MERS (2012) and SARS (2002) - latter 2 being corona virus diseases. Many countries learnt the process of protecting their citizens from those. And put them into good effect with COVID-19.

But America? Nope, lesson not learnt, care factor zero, preparedness factor zero.

But COVID-19? Do people really believe there will be no similar pandemics in the future? History says otherwise.

Southern drawl accent: Trump? Why that boy is so stupid, you could take him duck huntin' and odds on the ducks would get him first!

All of it!

[Grokenstein]

7. Republickscum also didn't see 9/11 coming.

...You know, despite warnings passed on by intelligence and the previous President.
They also slashed defense budgets for embassies and consulates prior to the attack in Benghazi.
They're pretty bad at being prepared.
Why do we keep turning the reins of government over to them?

[William769]

9. ...

[Marcuse]

11. 1984: A Future History of Alternative Facts

https://blog.erratasec.com/2016/02/weve-always-been-at-war-with-eastasia.html

Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. A large part of the political literature of five years was now completely obsolete. Reports and records of all kinds, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks, photographs--all had to be rectified at lightning speed.

Although no directive was ever issued, it was known
that the chiefs of the Department intended that within one week no reference to the war with Eurasia, or the alliance with Eastasia, should remain in existence anywhere.

[agingdem]

12. Joe Nobody

nobody could have predicted..nobody could have known..nobody will notice...whenever someone gives me those bullshit excuses I say..."let me introduce myself...I'm Mrs. Nobody...I predicted, I knew, and I noticed"...

[BidenBacker]

14. A blast from the past

None of this Republican revisionist history bullshit is new...Goppers have been pulling this shit since long before most of us were even born. From a campaign speech FDR made way back in late September of 1944...see if anything has changed much since then...

America Has Not Been Disappointed

http://www.speeches-usa.com/Transcripts/franklin_roosevelt-america.html

The fact is that, since Pearl Harbor, only one-tenth of one per cent of man-hours have been lost by strikes. But even those candidates who burst out in election-year affection for social legislation and for labor in general still think you ought to be good boys and stay out of politics. And, above all, they hate to see any working man or woman contribute a dollar bill to any wicked political party. Of course, it is all right for large financiers and industrialists and monopolists to contribute tens of thousands of dollars -- but their solicitude for that dollar which the men and women in the ranks of labor contribute is always very touching.

They are, of course, perfectly willing to let you vote -- unless you happen to be a soldier or sailor overseas, or a merchant seaman carrying munitions of war. In that case they have made it pretty hard for you to vote -- for there are some political candidates who think they may have a chance if only the total vote is small enough.

And while I am on the subject of voting let me urge every American citizen -- man and woman -- to use your sacred privilege of voting, no matter which candidate you expect to support. Our millions of soldiers and sailors and merchant seamen have been handicapped or prevented from voting by those politicians and candidates who think they stand to lose by such votes. You here at home have the freedom of the ballot. Irrespective of party, you should register and vote this November. That is a matter of good citizenship.

Words come easily, but they do not change the record. You are old enough to remember what things were like for labor in 1932. You remember the closed banks and the breadlines and the starvation wages; the foreclosures of homes and farms, and the bankruptcies of business; the "Hoovervilles," and the young men and women of the nation facing a hopeless, jobless future; the closed factories and mines and mills; the ruined and abandoned farms; the stalled railroads and the empty docks; the blank despair of a whole nation -- and the utter impotence of our Federal Government. You remember the long, hard road, with its gains and its setbacks, which we have traveled together since those days.

Now there are some politicians, of course, who do not remember that far back, and some who remember but find it convenient to forget. But the record is not to be washed away that easily. The opposition has already imported into this campaign the propaganda technique invented by the dictators abroad. The technique was all set out in Hitler's book -- and it was copied by the aggressors of Italy and Japan. According to that technique, you should never use a small falsehood; always a big one, for its very fantastic nature will make it more credible -- if only you keep repeating it over and over again.

For example, although I rubbed my eyes when I read it, we have been told that it was not a Republican depression, but a Democratic depression from which this nation has been saved -- that this Administration is responsible for all the suffering and misery that the history books and the American people always thought had been brought about during the twelve ill-fated years when the Republican party was in power. Now, there is an old and somewhat lugubrious adage which says:

"Never speak of rope in the house of one who has been hanged."

In the same way, if I were a Republican leader speaking to a mixed audience, the last word in the whole dictionary that I think I would use is that word "depression."

I've listened to audios of this speech and FDR had Dems laughing their asses off at times. Later on in the speech you'll see that not only have Goppers been revising history for ages they've also been lying their asses off for as long as people can remember. It involved among other things an infamous FOX News-like fabrication about FDR's little dog Fala...

Perhaps the most ridiculous of these campaign falsifications is the one that this Administration failed to prepare for the war which was coming. I doubt whether even Goebbels would have tried that one. For even he would never have dared hope that the voters of America had already forgotten that many of the Republican leaders in the Congress and outside the Congress tried to thwart and block nearly every attempt which this Administration made to warn our people and to arm this nation. Some of them called our 50,000-airplane program fantastic.

Many of those very same leaders who fought every defense measure we proposed are still in control of the Republican party, were in control of its national convention in Chicago, and would be in control of the machinery of the Congress and the Republican party in the event of a Republican victory this fall.

These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala.

Well, of course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family doesn’t resent attacks — but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers, in Congress and out, had concocted a story that I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer back to find him — at a cost to the taxpayers of 2 or 3 or 8 or $20 million — his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since.

I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself — such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself as indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent [and] object to libelous statements about my dog.

Different century...same Republican bullshit. It's just what they do...the nature of the beast.

[Aussie105]

17. Wow! What an eye opener!

I had to read that twice, to take it all in.

The Republicans have been doing this for a long time, what they are doing currently is not new.

So what is the driving force behind the Republican party? Hate for all those who don't think like they do?

[peggysue2]

15. The GOP conveniently forgets a number of details

Intelligence warned the Trump Administration that a pandemic was not a matter of if but when. The Obama Administration left plenty of info and preparatory work, not to mention an infrastructure to deal with a likely global viral emergency. As a layman, I've been tracking this virus since early January when the Chinese government reported 400 cases. The Chinese probably underreported the number then but the seriousness of the contagion was clear and evident. Not seeing the danger means Trump and his den of incompetents were willfully blind. Because God forbid there should be anything left with President Obama's signature on it.

The 'we couldn't possibly have known' is just another attempt to shirk responsibility. When Trump has the audacity to say: some people said we should just ride it out. He should be called on the carpet. Because it was Trump and his brilliant advisors who thought 'riding it out' was just dandy. Until they saw the mortality statistics--2.2 million dead Americans. Those were the days when the infection was just going to 'wash over us like a wave.' And then vanish like a miracle. Easy peasy.

Bullshit, all of it.

They had the chance to contain this virus and they blew it. They've screwed up every element, wrecked people's lives by putting them at risk, brought what healthcare system we have left to its knees and even managed to destroy the economy.

These serial liars don't even have the decency to say they're sorry. No, they're too busy blaming everyone else and/or throwing excuses at the wall hoping something sticks.

All these suckers should be hanged from lamp posts. I'll settle for their removal in November. And if the gods are just, criminal prosecutions in 2021.

Never forget, never forgive!

[Baitball Blogger]

16. The go to excuse for non proactive managers: No one expected it.

No one told us, etc.

That is LITERALLY the prime example of a manager who is not pro-active. Especially when the facts say otherwise, showing plenty of warning coming our way.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

18. tRump fired everybody would might have expected it. Incl disease specialists in China. . . nt

[Aussie105]

19. When this is all over,

in 5 or more years, and the philosophers and history writers look back at these dark days, will they clearly see all the things that went wrong, and why they went wrong?

Will they write about how America had much, and one man came and destroyed most of it?

Will the chronicles of the political leaders of the USA have a blank place keeper for the years 2016 to 2020, with the word 'Sorry' printed across it?

Will the short list of #45's achievements be accompanied by a list pages long, of all the things he destroyed?

Will the print media publish long editorials of how they failed the public by just playing along with the GOP?

And most importantly: Will all Fox media infrastructures be blown up by members of the Army Engineer Corps, and the Murdoch tribe be banished from the USA as undesirable aliens?

Hoping to be around to see all this happen.

[NRaleighLiberal]

20. who would have predicted that the placement of a reality show buffoon as president

by a foreign power would begin the destruction of our country?

Lots of us, sadly.

[Aussie105]

21. Lots of countries have learnt from their past

that not taking politics seriously can bitch slap you in the face.

Repeatedly, and really, really hard.

[subana]

23. they need to come up with a new excuse for their incompetence!

they seem to use the 'nobody ever imagined' excuse a lot! Someone in this thread said they used it with 9/11 & they also used it when they were trying to do something on health care!

yes, many people imagined these things & prepared for them! They're called democrats!!

[SkyDaddy7]

25. SO TRUE!!...But what about...

In early & mid January when US Intelligence Agencies were briefing Trump this could turn bad fast & the fact China was not being fully transparent about how bad the outbreak really was...Trump was not only claiming it’s all under control he was publicly defending the job Xi Jinping was doing!!
...Now we know Xi Jinping knowingly allowed millions, if not more, to travel outside the epicenter of the outbreak before he ever did anything & he KNEW!! ...And Trump was warned but continued defending him in public!!

...I know some think right now is not the time to start pointing fingers but China owes the world an unquantifiable debt for not sounding the alarm back when those COURAGEOUS DOCTORS in Wuhan, China began to be concerned!! Instead they punished them for trying to do what was right for not only their own people but HUMANITY!!

...Regardless, China’s faults are NO EXCUSE for the piss poor leadership!! ...FUCK! that’s a compliment compared to what we’re witnessing from the Trump Administration complete lack of leadership!!!!!

...Rant over. Sorry.

[subana]

26. no problem, I understand the outrage

I am frequently outraged by the incompetence in our govt!! So now comrade donnie is saying he favors an untested drug over the use of ventilators! Since when did he get a medical degree? Why should anyone favor his medical opinions over qualified doctors who have been practicing medicine for many years?

China should have done more but now that it's here, it's time for our own govt to do more to save american lives!

[SkyDaddy7]

27. Hey, Woo Hoo!

Joe our's guy now we need to get him elected, so he can clean this cesspool up!

[subana]

28. yes, Joe can do it!

I have no doubts about that! Plus, unlike donnie, he actually knows about govt & how to get something done!!

[hay rick]

24. The dog ate everybody's homework.

Uh no, Joe turned his in in January.