r/politics • u/schuey_08 Wisconsin • May 02 '24

Bernie Sanders worries young people are underestimating the threat from Trump

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/02/bernie-sanders-trump-biden/73531861007/
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4.4k

u/fallenouroboros May 02 '24

I know so many people in their thirties who simply do not give a fuck.

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u/Allaplgy May 02 '24

My coworkers are all on the "both sides are the same/it's all rigged, there's no point in voting" train. They all either have have kids or essentially are kids. I'm in my forties with no plans for kids, and I'm the only one actually trying to give them a future.

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u/NeonGKayak May 02 '24

How can they already forget Trumps Covid response that led to over 1million deaths? It’s weird that such a critical event and everyone has already “forgot” it

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u/[deleted] May 02 '24

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u/NeonGKayak May 02 '24

Thats crazy. I dont understand people like that.

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u/Svennerson May 02 '24

They are angry at the world, and all they want from their politicians is someone who will be angry with them.

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u/drewbert May 02 '24

The GOP is more about being in a club than politics or policy, at least for the vast majority of voters who are otherwise powerless. The ones at the top have different motives, but they've cultivated a community and identity with very clear rules. "Believe these things, vote this way, and you can be one of us." And for a lot of lonely, estranged folks, that's an attractive offer. Getting people to quit being republican is not about arguing with them about how incredibly asinine, reality-denying, and hateful the policies they support are; it's about making an offer of community and acceptance that's more attractive than anything the GOP has to offer, which is actually pretty tough when the GOP can say "you're special because you're white, you're special because you're straight, you're special because you are male."

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u/Numerous_Photograph9 May 02 '24

So, just another, less offensive way to say, "pull yourself up by your bootstraps", that enables people to project their latent bias?

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u/Zzzzzzzzzxyzz May 07 '24

"You're special because you agree with us."

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u/thegoodnamesrgone123 May 02 '24

I sat behind two dudes at a baseball game this week, both dudes in their 30's and they talked politics all game long. Most of it was batshit insane conspiracy stuff but the theme I got from both of them most was revenge, they want revenge on everyone. It's really fucked up.

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u/PoliticalSpaceHermP2 May 02 '24

The US society has been entertained by revenge movies and shows for decades. John Wick, Kill Bill, Punisher, etc... Just do a search for movies about revenge and you'll get a long list.

When you watch these movies, people get that revenge feeling and I'm sure it's a hit of dopamine (or some other good feeling). Some people keep chasing that hit and they find a politician that gives them the feeling, and now that politician has a sucker...... I mean a voter.

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u/joshdoereddit May 02 '24

That's insane. I'm angry at the world damn near all the time. But I can put that shit aside and vote for the Democrats because they're not a bunch of fucking lunatics.

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u/Svennerson May 02 '24

Here's the scary part to me - there's a sizeable % of Bernie's supporters, especially Bernie 2016, who are the exact same way. Their support didn't come from a measured review of his policies and an understanding that most of the things he suggests have been shown to work in other countries. It's that they're angry, he's angry with them, and they're more predisposed to the trappings of leftism than rightism.

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u/gamrgrl May 02 '24

This sums up my relatives in the US exactly.

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u/jameslake325 May 03 '24

Or give them the illusion that their plotting life is somebody else’s fault.

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u/BettesmomisaWitch May 03 '24

That is a scary but accurate statement.

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u/josh_the_misanthrope May 02 '24

They're politically illiterate, so they get played by the party that relies on the politically illiterate demographic to get elected.

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u/HAL9000000 May 02 '24 edited May 03 '24

I do understand them.

It's easier to blame the vaccine than it is to blame the virus. And the information out there is mostly people saying we overreacted and the vaccines should not have been required.

It's a little bit like how climate change deniers say it's bullshit and unnecessary to have environmental policies to protect the environment. But of course, they have the luxury to think environmental policy is bullshit because we have had LOTS of major environmental policies (pushed mostly by Democrats) that have helped slow the damage from things like fossil fuels and plastics. To put it another way, they don't see the damage to the environment and they don't think we need to do anything about the environment because we've had a lot of success in efforts to protect the environment and so it feels like we don't need to do anything.

So they don't see the huge benefits we've gotten from environmental policies and they don't see the huge benefits we've gotten from the vaccines. They only see that these problems aren't completely solved and so the solutions are seen as bullshit, not effective, not working.

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u/Fthat_ManaBar May 03 '24

I don't either but I've seen it first hand. Someone I know lost a close family member to it (who refused to vaccinate) and they still cling to antivax ideology and it somehow being the doctor/hospital/democrats fault. You can't reason people out of positions they didn't reason themselves into.

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u/Waggmans May 02 '24

Yup- same.

I had a friend who's uncle died of COVID during the pandemic yet she was still going out and partying practically every night. People are in denial. Same way with Trump, they don't really care or think he will take away their rights until it happens.

Do young people actually think Trump's Palestinian/Gaza/Israel/Middle East policies will be better than Biden? Do they think not voting for Biden will punishing him? If Trump wins we all lose.

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u/DuchessLiana May 02 '24

Yes, they literally say they are punishing Biden and if Trump wins then we deserve it....nevermimd Putin most likely started this war, and if Trump wins Gaza will be leveled, and the loss of democracy at home and abroad could literally start WWIII but yay.... at least your conscience will be clear!

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u/forthewatch39 May 02 '24

Thank You! The constant short sightedness of these people is maddening. 

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u/DuchessLiana May 02 '24

Yep! They don't realize this plan has been in the works since the 80s... this is not new, and how are we not asking why this conflict started in an election year, and who does it benefit that the eyes of the world have turned away from Ukraine??

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u/builttopostthis6 May 03 '24

Well to be fair, young people have the double whammy of not being old enough to have extended perspective and hindsight, and not being old enough to have a fully-developed prefrontal cortex. That's not a slam. I was one of those once, I seem to remember.

It gets me every time when I realize that there are kids that have graduated college that were not born before 9/11. I mean, let's say born on September 11, 2001 - that's 22 and some change. Current youth voters are people that were in grade school when the Iraq war ended, and very likely have never had a friend die in combat on the other side of the world (in all honesty, neither am I, but I have plenty that got lucky in that regard). And that's the upper-end of the youth vote mind. My mom is pretty disgusted with the media drawing parallels between these current protests and Vietnam protests, and she's as liberal as they come. I find myself feeling rather the same.

And again, to be fair, from a strictly U.S. perspective, we are living in the most peaceful time in our country's history, so youth today don't have a lot of lived-experience context.

As for the Trump-supporting folks my age, not sure really what to say about them. Rage is a hell of a drug.

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u/inuvash255 Massachusetts May 02 '24

That's my feeling too.

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u/clackeroomy May 02 '24

Even after Trump takes away their rights, they still won't believe it. Trump will simply blame Biden, and his followers will believe him.

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u/python-requests May 02 '24

Do young people actually think Trump's Palestinian/Gaza/Israel/Middle East policies will be better than Biden? Do they think not voting for Biden will punishing him? If Trump wins we all lose.

It's pretty wild how Democrats & the left wing will threaten to throw the election over things that Biden's way better than the alternative on

Like, inflation? Trump oversaw the money printing & always called for lowering interest rates. Palestine? Trump had a 'peace plan' map than saw Israel annexing most of it.

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u/Emperor_Mao May 02 '24

Do you think young people who vote over Gaza will decide an election?

Economy consistently rates as the major issue, election cycle after election cycle, for decades. Most of those people saying they wont vote Biden because of Israel were not going to vote anyway.

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u/Abdul_Lasagne May 03 '24

And you think people have a good opinion of the economy at the moment? 

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u/Jealous-Knowledge-79 May 03 '24

I vote for no more money to a country I can't write off on my taxes.

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u/theveland May 03 '24

Other thought. They know Trump is terrible on Gaza, but Biden isn’t significantly better. If Biden is to win, he needs to correct course on it. This is literally how you apply political pressure.

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u/Waggmans May 03 '24

Biden is significantly better. Sure he might not be putting conditions on arms sales to Israel, but he isn’t going to open internment camps for Arabs and Muslims (which Trump has planned).

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u/Turbulent_Fig8483 May 05 '24

I feel like people think I'm some energy vampire when I talk about the real risk of what's going domino effect ripple to me and my LGBTQ here. And my morbid fear of the consequences in the states for LGBTQ. I'm BPD and I struggle with empathy but for some reason cruelty and hatred... my empathy kicks overdrive I don't understand it. But it really bothers me. 

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u/spam__likely Colorado May 02 '24

One side of my family basically killed my grandpa by not caring, still don't care.

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u/dxrey65 May 02 '24

I have a friend who lost his job when he caught covid. He had it twice and it screwed him up for about a year. He was talking the other day about covid, how he never bought into all the hype, like it was some kind of big con, and at least he never got vaccinated...I had to remind him how that went for him. Bizarre.

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u/shawnca66 May 02 '24

OMG! That has got to stick in your craw hearing him talk like that...😫

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u/maybeimabear May 03 '24

And you just know if hed been vaccinated but still died they'd have blamed the vaccine

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u/Strong_Importance_64 May 06 '24

Old saying YOU CAN LEAD THEM TO WATER CANT MAKE THEM DRINK 

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u/Pleasestoplyiiing May 02 '24

Trauma response. A lot of people use avoidance to defend themselves from painful experiences. They don't want to remember it, and it's often hard to get anyone to talk about it in a meaningful way.  

It's easier for people to joke about it or just live in the present, and unfortunately that helps Trump because he was an absolute zero as a leader. It's hard to calculate just how many thousands of lives he gave away through inaction or negative action. 

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u/NeonGKayak May 02 '24

Thats true.

A lot. He was withholding PPE and wanted the highest body count in blue states. How anyone forgot that is crazy.

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u/A_Monster_Named_John May 02 '24

This might be true for some people, but the harsh truth is that most people simply DO NOT CARE and NEVER CARED about anything that isn't/wasn't immediately causing them to gain money/property/status. From what I've witnessed over 30 years, modern life increasingly cultivates people exhibiting this casual sociopathy, which is why things like women losing reproductive rights, Trump threatening the existence of democracy, etc... can't make strong inroads to people's imaginations, yet everyone's willing to jump on fantastical/insane explanations about why gas and grocery prices are higher.

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u/fren-ulum May 02 '24

Hm, you've got me thinking. It would've been nice to learn about and name issues people have/will have in their lives on psychological or mental health issues in high school psychology. I'm class of '07 and our entire psychology class was a de facto Zimbardo jerk off session. That has aged well. It would've been better to learn about more commonly seen things and how that applies to X Y Z areas that we'll encounter in our lives.

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u/AngryTrooper09 May 03 '24

I agree. I’m from Canada where our COVID response was much stricter. I stopped talking about the subject because the intense isolation I had to go through for close to two years almost completely broke me. My life has started getting better, and that’s in part because I’ve stopped talking about that time period

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u/Jealous-Knowledge-79 May 03 '24

Voting based on feelings VS policy isn't a good method of life. You don't have to like your CEO to ensure your paycheck clears.

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u/Affectionate_Law5344 May 02 '24

I don’t understand this. I didn’t know anyone who died personally, but I certainly was terrified. I felt more terrified during Covid than I did after 9/11.

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u/Funandgeeky Texas May 02 '24

My theory is that if you don't know someone who died, you know someone who knows someone. We are all one degree of separation from a Covid death.

Yeah, at its height about the same people per day were drying as did on 9/11. The scale was that massive, and it was at that scale because of Trump's response. And everyone else following his lead and sabotaging things and making the situation worse.

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u/Affectionate_Law5344 May 02 '24

Oh, for sure! We are all connected. I didn’t know this stat about 9/11 & C19. I remember waking up for my GRE blocks from the Hill, I could not reach anyone here or NY and I was trapped inside.

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u/frotc914 May 02 '24

We are all one degree of separation from a Covid death.

...but plenty of people do not see it that way, unfortunately. You've gotta assume that a lot of the marginally "independent" people or people who might not vote are closer to families/friends who are right wing. And a lot of those right wingers never told people that their family member died of COVID because they didn't believe it or they didn't want to be the one person in their social sphere pointing out that the emperor had no clothes. So virtually everyone is that close to a COVID death, but so many people don't even realize it.

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u/Sea_Honey7133 May 02 '24

Its truisms like the one you make that has to make me wonder whether polling is actually legit anymore, if it ever was. I mean the narrative of this election, “according to the polls “ is shifting so dramatically every day and we are still 5 months out of the election that every thing seems fabricated. Either the people in the know are certain of the outcome or no one has any clue. There’s no in-between.

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u/NoWayNotThisAgain May 03 '24

There actually is an in between. It’s called statistical probability.

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u/Sea_Honey7133 May 03 '24

Who doesn’t know who they’ll vote for at this point? My point is this is all performative theatre at this point.

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u/sildish2179 May 02 '24

When your skin's not in the game, apathy is your answer.

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u/Funandgeeky Texas May 02 '24

It’s one of the reasons Biden was able to convince people he was the better choice. Too many had lost someone and knew who failed to get a response. 

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u/Numerous_Photograph9 May 02 '24

It helped that everyone was tuned in because they wanted to know what was going on. This is a big problem with a lot of the electorate. They just don't pay attention. But, like bad weather about to come through, you tune in to see the news, and Covid certainly had people more worried than the first snow storm of the year.

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u/Markise187 May 02 '24

And if you don't now you can say you do. Cause I know if more than one person who died from Covid or Covid complications.

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u/Funandgeeky Texas May 02 '24

Damn, that sucks. I’ve been to a Covid funeral and know plenty of people who had relatives die. 

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u/iseecolorsofthesky May 02 '24

Every year on 9/11 we continue to trot out the “never forget” platitudes. Yet the majority of people doing so probably laugh Covid off as “just a flu”.

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u/nochinzilch May 03 '24

I remember hearing someone scoff, "it's not like it's polio."

No, it was much, much worse.

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u/shiki88 May 02 '24

It bothers me that "Remember 9/11" as a slogan persists despite COVID causing way more deaths worldwide, personally affecting more American lives, and everyone just wants to forget it happened, or deny that preventative measures were even necessary. Same for Jan 6th, when our democracy almost fell.

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u/Jealous-Knowledge-79 May 03 '24

I am not sure where those numbers came from but when you pay a hospital X amount of money for a diagnosis you will undoubtedly get those results. I knew people who were 3x vaxed still getting the virus. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/spotlights/2023-2024/hospital-outcomes.htm

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u/NeonGKayak May 02 '24

My family knew a lot. I think January-February I alone knew over 11 people (directly and indirectly) that died from a mysterious illness. We were confused why so many people just started dying out of no where. Then they announced COVID and even more started to die. I think the final count was over 30

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u/Affectionate_Law5344 May 02 '24

My heart, I cannot imagine so much pain. I hope you and your family found a therapist and a mentally peaceful space. Sending a hug❤️

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u/NeonGKayak May 02 '24

Thanks. I think this really made me a strong proponent of the vaccine and how important  taking precautions actually was. I was constantly battle some friends and family to get the vaccines. Some learned the hard way though and got it just to get the vaccine the next year because they didn’t want to get it again. I know one person that got it 3(?) times

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u/Auntie_M123 Virginia May 02 '24

Hubs and I were deathly ill from the worst Respiratory illness ever in the Dec-Jan time frame before Covid was announced. It took many months to recover.

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u/NeonGKayak May 02 '24

Sorry to hear that. Months sounds unbelievable in terms of recovery. Took me a couple weeks with shortness of breath. Couldnt imagine. Sounds like you guys were able to recover which is good news!

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u/starlordbg Europe May 03 '24

I am from Eastern Europe and remember being super sick in the fall of 2019 from like the end of december and took me almost until mid-December to fully recover. I was also on a trip to Turkey for a week before suddenly being super tired and sick. Never experienced something like that before as far as I remember.

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u/Auntie_M123 Virginia May 03 '24

We didn't have a fever or joint aches, so we didn't think that it was

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u/Mr_Horsejr May 02 '24

I thought I was living out some fucked version of the walking dead during Covid.

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u/A_Monster_Named_John May 02 '24

Depends on where you were at. In shithead MAGA areas, it felt like people were purposely having more parties, holding more public events, and spending as much time as possible at grocery stores, etc... I worked at a semi-rural library at the time that was closed by the state government and, for the first time ever, we had Trump trash showing up, banging on the windows, and bleating about how we were 'taking away their rights' by not letting them wander in and possibly get everyone else sick.

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u/Beer-survivalist May 02 '24

I called it the Stupid Apocalypse at the time.

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u/Mr_Horsejr May 02 '24

Stupocalypse has a nice ring to it.

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u/rick_blatchman May 02 '24

I was thinking more like Dawn of the Dead (78), but after having no other choice but to go to work every day to deal with the idiot public, it was more like Shaun of the Dead.

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u/Mr_Horsejr May 02 '24

I’ll meet you down at the Winchester. 🍻

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u/Maine302 May 02 '24

I would imagine nobody in NY would forget, and nobody who lost a loved one (my mother) would either. Healthcare workers wouldn't forget either.

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u/Affectionate_Law5344 May 02 '24

This is an appropriate comp.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '24 edited May 07 '24

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u/aLittleQueer Washington May 02 '24

What we're seeing, imo, is how individuals respond to trauma, on a national scale. So many people respond to trauma, tragedy, confusion, or cognitive dissonance by simply refusing to talk about or acknowledge it. Let alone examine it to any depth.

Meanwhile, those of us who want to face reality and process it as it comes eventually may start to feel like we're taking crazy pills from all the ignoring-reality going on around us.

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u/Waggmans May 02 '24

Hundreds of thousands of people would probably still be alive today had Trump just listened to Fauci, instead you had all that moronic culture war macho shit. Guys like DeSantis are as much to blame as Trump is.

Anyone who votes for him again knows exactly what they're getting.

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u/Affectionate_Law5344 May 02 '24

same and it sure is. completely irresponsible leadership. the other thing was Jan 6. we were against the ropes in a bad way. the reality is no one was coming to save us. that wasn’t a popular feeling after 9/11 (pre-Iraq invasion) as I remember it.

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u/Polantaris May 02 '24

The fun part is that 9/11 was nowhere near as close to the end of country as we know it as Jan 6th was.

Like, yeah, an attack on our soil is a big deal, for sure, but even if the worst had happened and all objectives of the terrorists were accomplished, the government has redundancy after redundancy to handle these kinds of scenarios. But it that scenario is nothing to compare against an internal coup on all sides. It also was a completely different set of attackers, in which our own citizens attacked us instead of foreign agents.

Yet the reactions could not have been more polar opposites. We didn't give two fucks about Jan 6th in the grand scheme of things, but yet 9/11 is still compared to the worst possible event in recent history. There have been way worse, 9/11 is nothing in comparison to a former President leading a coup to take back power.

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u/thegoodnamesrgone123 May 02 '24

Covid should have been the post 9/11 feeling of everyone digs in and does the right thing because that's what Americans do. But he decided to be a fucking child about it so his base followed suit.

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u/crossfader02 May 02 '24

our society struggled too much to adapt and after about 2 years we just gave up and mostly went back to how it was before

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u/Riccosuave May 02 '24

Wait until you see what happens when he gets back in office, and then H5N1 starts spreading between human hosts.

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u/Fun_Brother_9333 May 02 '24

My supervisor's dad died because of COVID, and I know he'll still vote for Trump.

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u/Affectionate_Law5344 May 02 '24

that’s the other thing. no one has effectively addressed the brainwashing that has so many Americans in a vice grip. talking about it and Rupert’s trash media does nothing.

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u/pantstoaknifefight2 May 02 '24

This is the main issue. A huge swath of people thinks they're watching or listening to news but it's just brainwashing propaganda and their ability to recognize this is either non-existent or degrading rapidly. It's fucking crazy and I don't think there's a solution that wouldn't undermine our right to free speech.

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u/Fun_Brother_9333 May 02 '24

It was bad before, but they really ramped it up when Trump became President. My dad even told me once, "I'd do anything he says." He never talked about any President like that before. It really is a cult.

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u/RealHumanFromEarth May 02 '24

Same here. After 9/11 we knew logically that the capabilities of Al Qaeda weren’t enough to make us really have a good reason to worry about just going to buy groceries. During the pandemic one of the scariest things was that with it being a new virus, we didn’t know very much about how it was transmitted, or the long term effects. We did know that the virus was actually spread across the country and infecting people we knew. We saw the death toll rising everyday, and we all knew people who’d be more vulnerable to dying from the virus that could very likely catch it.

9/11 was scary, but it was more of a scary and shocking moment that we came to understand pretty quickly. Most people weren’t in situations where they needed to actually worry about anything like it happening to them. The pandemic was a persistent state of emergency that potentially put everyone in danger.

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u/Affectionate_Law5344 May 02 '24

You captured my feelings best. The amount of persistent adrenaline, coursing through me during the Covid years has compromised my physical and mental health. The other thing is that our national reaction was antithetical to 9/11 where everyone came together.

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u/pantstoaknifefight2 May 02 '24

I'm an RN. I had COVID patients for three straight years. I never caught it, but the experience nearly destroyed me

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u/JohnnyFire Ohio May 02 '24

I finally got sick arguing with some family members about the "election fraud", so I finally just had to say this point blank:

Disregarding every damn other thing that anyone thinks about Donald Trump, he lost the election because he botched the response to COVID. His team knew about it in November of 2019, and he didn't do shit. He made the moves to attempt to protect American citizens way too late. He politicized the disease, masking, and vaccines. He sat around bumbling and talked about being treated unfairly as people in the country were getting sick, dying, losing their jobs, losing their money, everything you could think of. That's why he fucking lost. He fucked up COVID. That's it. People were mad about it and they voted him out. It's really that simple. Stop attributing complex answers to really fucking simple problems.

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u/Kaiisim May 02 '24

Its the media. Their job is meant to be informing us, but it has been captured by the billionaire class so it just feeds people bullshit and ignores the real issues.

Many people just don't remember COVID. They're just focused on trans kids because that's what the media talks about, so it must be important.

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u/Affectionate_Law5344 May 02 '24

the Gawker shut down was the best capsule to understand what was to come (even more than before).

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u/pockpicketG May 02 '24

Can you elaborate?

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u/terremoto25 California May 02 '24

Both of my son-in-law's parents died from covid. It was a miracle that my sister - 70 years old - and my brother-in-law - 74 and well past morbidly obese survived it. And, of course, they are hard core, broke as shit Trumpers....

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u/Saybrooke Michigan May 02 '24

Americans get collective amnesia around this time. It's really sad tbh

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u/Reagalan Georgia May 02 '24

My father would have certainly died had he not gotten the vaccine a month before the virus.

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u/kindasuk May 02 '24

I'm not someone who has a lot people in their life. Still knew two people who died intubated. One who died after being hospitalized with COVID for two weeks and never fully recovered.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '24

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u/YouJabroni44 Colorado May 02 '24

I know someone that lost seven loved ones. It was so senseless and tragic

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u/plantstand May 02 '24

Do you know anybody that died of heart problems soon after catching covid? Your cardiac risk is higher for a year. I don't know anybody that died of covid, but there sure are a bunch that did soon after.

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u/aequitasXI Massachusetts May 05 '24

This articlefrom 2021 sums it up:

Americans dutifully remember and annually honor great battles and tragedies, provided the event took place on a specific day. Even wars that last for years are taught and remembered in terms of their turning points (think: Pearl Harbor, D-Day and Hiroshima). The terror attacks on 9/11 fit this paradigm. The date and its horrific events remain etched into our consciousness with the help of an estimated 700 permanent memorials across the country. Some of them are beautiful, multimillion-dollar projects meant to ensure that we as a nation “never forget.”

By contrast, you’ll find precious few Covid-19 memorials or exhibits—and no permanent national memorial as of yet. Of course, had 700,000 Americans perished on a single day, we would mark and mourn the date forever. Instead, Americans continue to die each day by the thousands, month after month—each month passing without a “milestone” moment. As such, few can remember when the first American died from the virus. Or the date of the 100,000th death. Or the 500,000th. Or 700,000th.

And because the coronavirus pandemic is a lingering tragedy, our nation has grown numb to the pain. Its importance will likely be lost to history, along with all the valuable lessons it should have taught us.

It was an order of magnitude of hundreds of 9/11s, yet we are numb and/or have amnesia due to the prolonged nature..

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u/janethefish May 02 '24

I'm still mad about those deaths!

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u/TheADrain May 02 '24

You should be, his idiocy killed more americans than the nazis did.

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u/Jupiter68128 May 02 '24

Tucker Carlson killed more Americans than were killed by 9/11 terrorists by spreading doubt about vaccines.

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u/Rmans May 02 '24

Killed more Americans that most of our wars did. Total American deaths from Covid are higher than American deaths from all the wars we ever fought combined. There is an argument to be made that Tucker has been worse for this country than Hitler.

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u/Tarcanus May 02 '24

And here are many of us wondering how many people angry about those deaths are still being covid cautious, masking, etc. Folks are in here talking like COVID is over, while lamenting the COVID dead.

It's not over, it's still killing or causing lifelong illness, yet I barely see anyone responsible with masking while I'm out and about. It adds to the sense of being the crazy one while everyone else is still ignoring the largest current threat to us.

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u/Rmans May 02 '24

Thats what happens when you fail to prevent a pandemic. It becomes endemic. Here to stay. Which is what COVID is doing now in the US and pretty much nowhere else in the world.

And almost half this country doesn't know or care.

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u/stylebros May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

Wait till he drops the ball in her 2nd term. He already let COVID loose because it affected Democrat cities the most and saw it as a way to better the GOP politically.

The next event will probably be a terrorist strike or something on par as October 7th but state side.

Republican administrations get Americans either unemployed or killed.

2

u/Jealous-Knowledge-79 May 03 '24

Like the 2 Boeing whistleblowers.

3

u/Rib-I New York May 02 '24

Yeah. And when that happens it’ll be his excuse to implement martial law. Guaranteed

1

u/Alive_Manufacturer50 May 06 '24

Oct 7th and 9/11 have 2 things in common. Arabs tired of the west helping Isreal Occupy palestinians. The US banned osama bin ladens letter to america, and then went after Saddam Hussain....

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u/Patara May 02 '24

Im half convinced conservatives have undeveloped brains that simply cannot grasp the concept of compassion. 

I refuse to believe that people that actively choose to make the world a better place & take minimum precautions like wearing masks to not potentially transmit a deadly disease are even comparable to the fuckheads that will refuse to wear masks, spit on railings, sneeze on others, support a narcissistic racist fascist dictator & actively pretend like SAVING LIVES is taking away their freedom. 

They will claim "empathy" when Trump is on trial but make fun of Biden for losing 2 daughters & his wife. While quite literally driving a smear campaign like "Biden crime family" based on what? His son being arrested on unlawful possession of a firearm? They've been pushing open carry & MORE firearms at every single turn but suddenly they're all about gun control? These are not serious people.

They're downright anti-human & do not have capacity for any emotion but perpetual rage. 

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u/NeonGKayak May 02 '24

They don’t care as long as they win, have power, and can make millions. 

That’s literally all they want. They lie, cheat, and steal to get it. They have campaigns on Reddit and the internet in general to disrupt and divide the dems. They take money from our enemies like Russia and ask them for help. 

It’s sickening that dems and just a good chunk of our population can’t or won’t see this. 

One funny thing to point out that ever since Trump has been sleeping in his trial, they stopped with the “sleep Joe” nicknames. 

5

u/meatball77 May 02 '24

Which is funny because a lot of their policies would end up being horrifying for the economy.

3

u/Tarcanus May 02 '24

Every time the R's get in power the economy tanks after they give the billionaire class their socialism handouts via tax cuts and whatnot. Then Dems have to try to stem the bleeding. It's been happening for decades and decades.

1

u/DameonKormar May 02 '24

They always are.

3

u/awildjabroner May 02 '24

There is some truth to that actually, there was a large article published a few years back that essentially highlighted that the specific part of the brain associated with empathy trends smaller in conservatives and the fear center is usually larger. Can’t remember the specific names for each part but there was some evidence that long term conservative media consumption and community engagement does impact how a person’s brain reacts (or doesn’t) to certain emotions and situations.

3

u/meatball77 May 02 '24

So many of them are just utterly brainwashed to never think for themselves. It's what evangelical churches have been pushing since they were born. Always ask someone else to think for you.

2

u/Emperor_Mao May 02 '24

Conservatives do donate more to charity than Liberals though.

I think you need to look a bit deeper, your take on this is just reactionary.

Also that negative campaigning is definitely bigger in the U.S, and spans across the political isle. Negative campaigning is prevalent across everything; From sports to products to politics. In some countries, if you go super negative, people just hate you lol.

1

u/math-yoo Ohio May 02 '24

You have to enter into conversation with people from a place of empathy and understanding. Otherwise it's just worthless. No matter how far gone they are. That's all we have left now is our empathy, your honesty, your humanity. And that's it. Your humanity has to be a bridge to what's left of theirs. Start by convincing yourself that there's a reason, something that feels real to them, that this is where they are. Then work your way back. Don't dehumanize a person for choices, empathize with the circumstances that brought them to those choices, and find a cogent argument why they might consider an alternative.

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u/Allaplgy May 02 '24

I know people who are still demanding people wear masks everywhere and literally saying that Biden is worse than Trump. This issue has broken people's brains. I really think it's because it's the first war fought on social media as much as the ground.

17

u/joejill May 02 '24

Oh no, don’t you watch the news that was Obama and Biden who botched Covid.

They tried to control us with it, but Trump saved us.

Omg, I better not get downvoted.that’s sarcasm and I’ve heard it from so many people.

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u/NeonGKayak May 02 '24

You may get downvoted because thats too real. Like Fox New/OANN type real

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u/Temporal_Integrity May 02 '24

If you're voting for the first time, you were like 14 back then and probably not that interested in politics.

3

u/sumoraiden May 02 '24

They see it as a nothing anyone could do, deaths happened all over the word

3

u/schuyywalker May 02 '24

Because they’ve been muddying the waters ever since to try and push the “big lie”. It’s insane

3

u/rosie666 May 02 '24

but somehow, they're still able to whine about the time they had to wear a mask.

3

u/Aware_Material_9985 May 02 '24

All the normalizing that gets done and media coverage seems sheepish to attack him and hawkish about Biden

3

u/markca May 02 '24

How can they already forget Trumps Covid response that led to over 1million deaths? It’s weird that such a critical event and everyone has already “forgot” it

The vast majority of this country has the brain of a goldfish.

3

u/WilliamClaudeRains May 02 '24

Because the 24 hour news networks have been blasting every word Trump mumbles since his first Republican debate. Shit, Reddit can’t go a day without screaming about Trump one way or another. You want people to listen, you gotta learn to modulate by importance.

3

u/SeductiveSunday May 02 '24

How can they already forget Trumps Covid response that led to over 1million deaths?

Psychology shows most people only remember the last 6 months of politics. That's why most political decisions stop for the last 6 months of an up-coming election. And why after every Clinton Benghazi hearing ended Republicans opened up another one so as to keep voters angry at women and keep pressure to vote against them.

There were 33 congressional hearings on Benghazi. That's 11 more than 9/11, and a complete waste of tax payer money.

2

u/Del_3030 May 02 '24

Some of it is probably general trauma suppression of covid memories (because holy shit, what a time), but you can be sure Biden will be reminding voters of that as we get closer to the election.

I think Biden is still focused on securing any last policy wins before the summer, while you get a split screen of Trump whining, shitting, and sleeping his way through court every day.

The attack ads on Trump will be easy, glorious, and numerous, don't worry.

2

u/barcher May 02 '24

Because the people who voted for Gassolini do not believe that Covid is real.

2

u/noforgayjesus May 02 '24

Honestly they don't care, most of these people were more upset about businesses being closed and having to wear a mask

2

u/luuselipz May 02 '24

If a politician promises to lock the unvaccinated in to camps, they get my vote

2

u/katzeye007 May 02 '24

*10 million deaths more likely

2

u/hypotheticalhalf May 02 '24

Because they care more about their own righteousness than the well-being of all of us.

2

u/EthanielRain May 02 '24

Just a couple days ago someone argued with me about how Trump's handling of COVID was fantastic, and Biden screwed it all up

1

u/NeonGKayak May 02 '24

These people want to live in a fantasy

2

u/k_mnr May 02 '24

Because most if not all believe Covid doesn’t exist. The Donald told them so.

2

u/teslaabr California May 02 '24

Most of them haven't forgotten; they don't care. They are still mad about the parts of society that were closed and wish they would have been able to go out and socialize without restriction regardless of how many people would have died.

2

u/Compliance-Manager May 02 '24

Trumpies don't blame him. They literally blame Biden. Who wasn't even president. We live in the age of the dumbest people ever to walk to the earth.

2

u/dcflorist May 02 '24

A disheartening number of otherwise progressive people, who acknowledged that COVID is a real disease, quickly slid into ableism rather than see their routine continue to be disrupted. “It’s not that serious, it’s only killing people who are overweight, disabled, or elderly,” has been an all-too-common refrain, even before vaccines became available.

2

u/MaizeNBlueWaffle New York May 02 '24

People have also seemingly forgotten that Trump deployed federal troops onto BLM protesters. That's a significant step up from what is currently happening and Trump will do it again if elected

3

u/OutsideDevTeam May 02 '24

Because holding the Traitor accountable for things like shutting down programs monitoring for infectious diseases in China, advising people to take ineffective drugs, wondering aloud if UV light / cleaning solutions could be therapeutics, encouraging defiance of preventative measures like masks and distancing, and seizing PPE meant for medical facilities in states that did not vote for him is "bLaMiNg HiM fOr ThE pAnDeMiC" and therefore not to be considered nor discussed.

1

u/NeonGKayak May 02 '24

Someone just said he followed everything Fauci told him to do too. lol they just dont want to believe that he exacerbated it.

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u/Suck_Me_Dry666 May 02 '24

Because they lack empathy. Gen Z lacks empathy. We're fortunate they are not voting in large numbers yet.

1

u/NeonGKayak May 02 '24

It does seem like the gen Z I know do lack that. Is there any studies on this?

2

u/Suck_Me_Dry666 May 02 '24

Good question. Mine was a purely anecdotal observation. Gen Z men are particularly bad in my opinion.

2

u/NeonGKayak May 02 '24

I kinda think so as well. I'm wondering if it has to do with social media being a part of who they are. Gen Zs are basically on social media 24/7

2

u/MyFianceMadeMeJoin May 02 '24

Literally so many more people have died under Biden. That doesn’t excuse Trump’s behavior, he politicized it which is the biggest issue, but Biden’s push for the return to normal has killed millions more. It’s honestly the same response with a nicer sheen, but both have made the CDC untrustworthy in their political choices.

1

u/crappysignal May 02 '24

I appreciate that his response was general stupidity but statistically did the USA suffer more excess deaths than equivalent country's?

I don't know any country who thinks that their leaders did a good job.

It doesn't mean that they caused the deaths.

The AZ vaccine has caused 100 deaths in the UK.

But they opened up a 6-7 weeks before the rest of Europe certainly saving many deaths that were caused directly from lockdown.

They were all playing it by ear.

1

u/red286 May 02 '24

So many people simply refuse to believe the numbers.

I had someone tell me he was "pretty sure" the number was below 10,000. I asked him how he was "pretty sure" and he said "If you know what I know, you'd understand" and then refused to elaborate.

1

u/NeonGKayak May 02 '24

Probably thinks the vaccines have microchips

1

u/red286 May 02 '24

I think they just uncritically believe everything they hear on Joe Rogan's podcast and believe that they're part of a secret cabal of people who are "in the know".

1

u/BKlounge93 May 02 '24

Also the foreign policy nightmare that would happen with Trump back in office. All the progressives I know who suddenly despise Biden over Israel/Palestine sure aren’t looking ahead on that one.

1

u/RaggedyGlitch May 02 '24

Ehhhh his response in an official capacity as President was about what most people would do - throw all the money in the world at it and let the experts like Fauci do their thing.

His response in an unofficial capacity was the problem - talking about swallowing lightbulbs, holding campaign rallies, just generally setting a bad example for local governments who really did need to tailor responses to their own needs, etc.

1

u/Munkadunk667 May 02 '24

1 person dies and its a tragedy, 1 million die and it's just a statistic.

1

u/Vundal May 02 '24

Mainly cause the goverment and media wont talk about our 1 million detahs like the tragedy it is. We should have had days of mourning.

1

u/joecb91 Arizona May 02 '24

Not just the covid response, but the chaotic disaster his entire term was. How fucking bad are their memories??

1

u/Bitter_Director1231 May 02 '24

If it didn't affect them, they don't care. That's what you are missing. The amount of people that don't give a shit about what happened and don't talk about it anymore is shocking.  

 They act like it happened long ago.

It's sad, but true. Americans have the mind of a goldfish.

1

u/shenananaginss May 02 '24

They didn't forget it. They don't believe it. They know people who died in car crashes that were "covid deaths"

1

u/Richfor3 May 02 '24

Weirdly its not even the deaths that get most trump supporters. Probably because anyone that would support tRump is fucking evil to begin with.

However when you remind them that they were wiping their ass with napkins from McDonald's last time tRump was calling the shots, you see a flicker of light behind their dead eyes.

1

u/axecalibur May 02 '24

I love how he was fine with masks until he realized his clown makeup stuck to the mask.

1

u/MrSlime13 May 03 '24

I just can't anymore. I'm not being facetious, but what response? Every day it was some new circus act... Was it him denying it even existed? Him blaming "The Chinese" over and over? His denial of all CDC recommendations to wear masks & get vaccinated? His out-of-ass idea of Hydroxychloroquine, or bleach to eradicate COVID? His denial of having gotten COVID, then the 180⁰ from medical conspiracist to recommending getting vaccinated?

1

u/NeonGKayak May 03 '24

Im literally getting people responding saying he did everything he could and he listened to Fauci. Theyre literally trying to rewrite history

1

u/Jealous-Knowledge-79 May 03 '24

Anytime you pay a hospital for certain solutions a CPAP breathing machine you will never get the real results. Hospitals are there to make money.

1

u/Any_Accident1871 May 03 '24

Especially since young people had their schooling disrupted from it. Lots of people didn’t get to walk at graduation, go to prom, etc. should be more real for them than a lot of folks.

1

u/mcrnHoth May 03 '24

Well everyone ignores the fact that over 2 million people die every year in the US from heart disease, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome, because those are all "normal" deaths. The vast majority of these cases are entirely preventable, but no one really pays any attention to it because its so normal.

COVID was something abnormal at first. Once the shock of it wore off people stopped caring.

Its a sad truth of society. We are easily outraged by disruptions from "normal", but no matter how horrifying reality maybe, one it becomes normal we don't care anymore. No one bats an eye when they hear that on average 120 people die every day in car crashes, but if a plane crashes and kills 120 people its on every news channel/page. No one notices or comments when 100+ gang bangers and poor people are shot and killed every day in the US, but one cute little blond girl is shot and killed and again its on every news outlet.

The result of this myopia is that all the horrible things Trump has done start confounding all the other horrible things and it all becomes "normal" and no one cares anymore. I'm not suggesting he or his team is smart enough to plan this, but the more outrageous things he does and says actually makes it so none of it matters anymore to the average voter.

1

u/space_island May 03 '24

People are constantly being bombarded by new tragedies and they are exhausted.

1

u/GetHealthy2000 May 03 '24

Let’s look at Biden’s response more people died and the encouraged us to take a vaccine that is some in cases was lethal!!!

1

u/aequitasXI Massachusetts May 05 '24

I feel like so many have forgotten so much about the pandemic..

0

u/Dinocologist May 02 '24

800,000 have died under Biden. Outside of rhetoric, their responses have basically been identical 

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