RIP - Herman Cain

[Farm93]

Tulsa Rally participant and now a victim of COVID19.

With every tragedy hopefully some good will emerge.   I hope his death will serve as a reminder of the unnecessary risks of holding campaign rallies in 2020.  The rally was unnecessary.   The lack of PPE was reckless.   The untimely death seems so avoidable.   It was never clear when exactly he got COVID, but the press releases of his positive test came ~9 days after the rally.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli...544484002/

[OutsiderFan]

It hardly matters where he got the infection. Whether he got it at a political rally without masks required, in an airport, or a grandchild's birthday party, the issue is the same. Cain acquired a fatal disease because the virus that causes it was allowed to spread out of control in America, and that until it is controlled more misery will come. That's the takeaway that people should be left with from his death.

[Genuine Realist]

It hardly matters where he got the infection. Whether he got it at a political rally without masks required, in an airport, or a grandchild's birthday party, the issue is the same. Cain acquired a fatal disease because the virus that causes it was allowed to spread out of control in America, and that until it is controlled more misery will come. That's the takeaway that people should be left with from his death.

I regret any man's death, and particularly political mavericks - we need many, many more of them. However, Cain was apparently battling a cancer relapse and had a few other comorbidities. He was not a healthy man. Any disease he contracted could have been fatal. 

BTW, I turn 74 myself on Saturday.

[JustAnotherFan]

It is sad.

[dabigv13]

Apparently one of the co-founders of Turning Point USA, a conservative organization for college students it seems, also recently passed away.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/29...ons-387077

A recent, now deleted tweet from that org:



Got to believe if Trump took this seriously from the beginning, a lot of these folks might still be alive.

[76lsjumb]

It hardly matters where he got the infection. Whether he got it at a political rally without masks required, in an airport, or a grandchild's birthday party, the issue is the same. Cain acquired a fatal disease because the virus that causes it was allowed to spread out of control in China and then spread around the world, including into America, and that until it is controlled more misery will come. That's the takeaway that people should be left with from his death.

Fixed it for you...

[JustAnotherFan]

It hardly matters where he got the infection. Whether he got it at a political rally without masks required, in an airport, or a grandchild's birthday party, the issue is the same. Cain acquired a fatal disease because the virus that causes it was allowed to spread out of control in China and then spread around the world, including into America, and that until it is controlled more misery will come. That's the takeaway that people should be left with from his death.

Fixed it for you...

Just had to slip that in there, right? Because if not for China the US would have done a bang up job.

[76lsjumb]

It hardly matters where he got the infection. Whether he got it at a political rally without masks required, in an airport, or a grandchild's birthday party, the issue is the same. Cain acquired a fatal disease because the virus that causes it was allowed to spread out of control in China and then spread around the world, including into America, and that until it is controlled more misery will come. That's the takeaway that people should be left with from his death.

Fixed it for you...

Just had to slip that in there, right? Because if not for China the US would have done a bang up job.

No, actually what I was driving at is, if not for China, the US - and, for that matter, the rest of the world - might very well not have had to do ANY job!

[oregontim]

No, actually what I was driving at is, if not for China, the US - and, for that matter, the rest of the world - might very well not have had to do ANY job!

That seems like pure whataboutism, frankly. Yes, the virus started in China. Horseshoe bats, live markets, all that, yes. But the meaningful discussion is about the terrible lack of leadership here in this country. Can you find the China line there? Can you find the US line? Spain, Germany, Italy, UK ... are we not, by far, the worst in the world? If we have to bring up China, let's talk about results. Fighting the damn thing.

[dabigv13]

76lsjumb seems to be trolling. Best thing to do with trolls is ignore them.

[Farm93]

76lsjumb seems to be trolling. Best thing to do with trolls is ignore them.

That's probably true.   I don't care if the virus came from Mars, China, Vietnam or Italy.   Whatever.
There was a call to action and the USA failed to rise to the occasion.   The USA's exceptionalism for this battle against the pandemic has been MIA, and that inability to rise to the occasion is not China's fault.    

At this point I think it is pretty clear the second wave, likely the more deadly wave globally, could be declared the Trump wave or the USA wave by most developed countries if they were looking for a person to blame.  They won't do that, of course, because they will actually be more concerned about protecting their citizens than trying to come up with quirky names on Twitter or Tik Tok or Instagram to distract citizens.

[76lsjumb]

76lsjumb seems to be trolling. Best thing to do with trolls is ignore them.

Sorry you feel that way.  It's just that I have grown somewhat tired of the viewpoint -- which seems to be a heavy majority viewpoint in this forum -- that constantly bashes the US for everything, to the point of calling literally everyone in the United States "stupid moral cowards," and then, if you even hint that some responsibility might lie elsewhere, or that maybe "they" aren't as evil as "we" insist, brands you as a troll.

Don't worry, though.  I heard a new phrase a few days back and it struck me that it was a perfect description of this forum -- doom-scrolling.  It occurred to me that is all that was happening when I came here, and I decided it really serves no edifying purpose.  So, I'll save you the trouble of ignoring me.  I'll leave voluntarily.  

Maybe I'll go looking for garvin.  Say goodbye to teejers for me.  And, BC, please know that, while I imagine we disagree on a number of things, I have very much appreciated your effort to discuss matters and respond without ad hominem attacks or profanity-laced rants and with a willingness to keep an open mind.

Now, I'm going for a walk [socially distant and with face covering].  Hope we get through all this.

Bye.

[BostonCard]

As I have said in the past, the reason I am so hard on the US's response is simply that a) the actions of the administration have a greater impact on all of us here than the actions of a government in a distant country and b) we can hold our own leaders accountable through elections.  The Italians, French, Brits, Germans can all hold their own governments accountable whenever they have elections.  The Chinese, of course, are screwed and have no way to hold their government to account, but that is a broader and deeper problem in China.

Don't get me wrong, COVID-19 or no COVID-19, there is no way in hell that I would rather be in China now than in the US.  But it is because of that reason that I will always have higher expectations for my own country than one run by the CCP.

BC

[Snorlax94]

It is sad news about Herman Cain.

Though tragic, if something can come from the loss and increased awareness, the hope is that more people who currently were not taking precautiouns will take Covid more seriously, and not attend political rallies indoors without a mask (as Cain did), and will not Tweet inaccurate statements that masks can be harmful and are a violation of personal freedom (as the Turning Point Twitter feed did).

[Goose]

I am deeply disappointed in our response on the Federal level to the COVID-19 outbreak in the US. They are certainly part of the problem. With Trump as POTUS, one would expect there would be problems, and there were. However, it is also a fact that the CDC botched their testing deployment. It is also a fact that even if they hadn't botched it, the response would have been too slow and too small to meet the need. The failure to manage the return of US citizens to CONUS properly is not Trump's doing. We were simply unprepared.

We were unprepared at the State and County level as well, and that really limited the options of what was initially possible. We couldn't do what Taiwan or Korea has done, or even what Germany did, because we weren't prepared. What was done in the Bay Area was probably about the best we could have hoped for. The County (and later the State) did basically the only thing they could do and declared a shelter in place. The response of our politicians was gratifyingly good. We were going for "the hammer and the dance". Good plan, maybe we can pull it off.

Unfortunately, the public wasn't quite as up to doing their part. We got our case load in the Bay Area down, but then we hit a plateau. Southern California started out with fewer cases but still had significant community spread. We were about two months along when our politicians basically lost it and decided to reopen even though we were not down to a very small number of cases, and even though we had not yet reached a level of preparation that we could execute "the dance", contact tracking and tracing. They knew that. Newsom knew that. The Counties knew that. They started opening anyway.

To me, this failure dwarfs anything that went before. OK, we were caught off guard by the outbreak, but we did the "right thing" and should be able to do what Italy and Spain are doing, at least. We aren't, and that isn't Trumps fault, it is our fault. Our compliance was never adequate. We never got our case load where it needed to be and we didn't hold our County and State governments accountable for developing a working contact tracking and tracing system. It could have been done. It wasn't.

Much of the nation is in even worse shape, because they made even less effort to get the community spread in check and did even less to prepare contact tracing and testing. In places like Florida, you can't expect them to contain the outbreak, because it is too large. The public in those States doesn't yet know that their tracking and tracing isn't going to be good enough because they aren't there yet. They may never get there the way things are going. Let's all go party on the Weekend.

It is not rocket science to know that you need to social distance, wear a mask, wash you hands, and just plain minimize your risk. During the SIP, that is what everybody should have done. In Italy (and Spain and France), many didn't, so the Government put troops in the streets. In the USA, many didn't, and our State and County governments did nothing to enforce the SIP. The public at large, who realized we weren't getting the numbers down, also did nothing. We are where we are because we have not expended the effort to force our County and State to do their job.

[BostonCard]

Yeah, no question that state and local leaders deserve a lot of blame.  I had been pretty positive about Newsome (at least compared to Cuomo), but subsequent events have not been well handled.  Moreover, there is less of an excuse 6 months into a pandemic than there is moths earlier.

BC

[OutsiderFan]

Blaming China for our virus catastrf*ck is like trying to claim Robin Mamlet was the reason Walt Harris had to be fired.

It's not like China fired ICBMS with biological warheads over American cities. It's not like China sent an army of infected people to the United States. It's not like China told the CDC to close its China office.  It's not like China said the virus was a hoax and downplayed it.  It's not like China failed to develop adequate testing for the U.S.

Should I go on, 76?  Or would you like me to stop here?

You'll see a lot fewer shots being taken at America when America isn't failing on so many fronts. Nothing gets better by lowering standards and accepting poor performance. Do your part to make America a better place by holding those in power of its government accountable for lousy performance, and you won't have to see people attacking the country for being the Stanford Football 2006 of its mostly admirable history.

And, make sure to read this: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/...o-thin-air

[chrisk]

SCC reported about twice the number of cases today as China did. China has about 700 times the population of SCC.

[Genuine Realist]

SCC reported about twice the number of cases today as China did. China has about 700 times the population of SCC.

It's a big world. The issue isn't binary.

Plenty of intellectual room to condemn Trump (for appalling leadership since March) and China. 

Whatever the failures of the US in containment since March, the colossal cynicism of China in letting the damn thing escape without fair warning should not be forgotten or forgiven.

I'm also with 76lsjumb on the constant US bashing. The comparisons to Norway, or Iceland, or New Zealand are just silly - island or peninsular countries with far smaller populations and easily controllable immigration. (New Zealand, for example, has a population of 4.3 million. SCC alone is 1.9). 

The nations that are having difficulty seem to me to share far more diffuse economies, small businesses, and so on. I'm simply not holding up Germany as a sociological model, despite the undeniable fact that it responded to the virus more effectively. 

All this has to do with the savage distemper that has overtaken the media since Trump. 

And Chris K, if you want to credit any reports from China - the most cynical and chauvinistic government in the world - be my guest.

[OutsiderFan]

It's a big world. The issue isn't binary.

GR (and everyone here), read the Vanity Fair article about Jared Kushner's national testing and tracing plan.