Trump admits on tape to downplaying Covid in March

[Apparition of Jack]

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump-coronavirus/index.html

This is huge. This is honestly the most damning thing against him, even more so than the Mueller report.

How this will affect the election I don’t know. But I can’t imagine it’ll be blown aside like everything else so far.

Edited September 9, 2020 by Apparition of Jack

[Forestluv]

This is a great test of how the mind deals with cognitive dissonance. How will Trump supporters interpret this information? My prediction is:  A) Justify it by saying Trump was being responsible by downplaying Covid to avoid a public panic; B) Avoidance / Diversion: What about Hillary, Obama, Biden, Antifa? etc and C) This is Libs playing politics during an elections year. D) The liberal reporter tried to bait Trump into saying something they could take out of context. Trump is actually the victim.

The potential mental defenses for Trumpers is limited in this case, since it is Trump’s own words. Trumpers cannot discredit it as FakeNews or anonymous sources. 

I predict very few Trump supporters will be able to look at this objectively and give any criticism whatsoever to Trump. A red/blue mindset is either / or. Either Trump is 100% responsible for the COVID crisis or Trump is 0% responsible for the Covid crisis. A red/blue mindset has a hard time giving partial responsibility to multiple inputs. 

It’s a great test of the average consciousness of the U.S., those at Orange and above will be able to rationally see how Trump’s behavior made the crisis worse than it could have been. I estimate about 65% of Americans would view this as poor behavior by Trump. 

[Lyubov]

Not like this is remotely surprising to me or anyone concious enough not to be his follower. Trust me, he has said far far worse things in private (even though this is bad). I suppose by worse I mean things that even his followers would faint if they heard. Like their whole reality crumbling cause they bet all their tokens on this guy and lost. 

I wouldn't ever bank on this helping dems.

Edited September 9, 2020 by Lyubov

[Leo Gura]

Trump is 1000% uglier in private than in public and stories of his private ugliness will leak out for decades to come. But none of it will convince Trumpists.

By this point, any decent person understands that Trump is rotten to the core and a menace to democracy.

[Forestluv]

1 hour ago, Forestluv said:

This is a great test of how the mind deals with cognitive dissonance. How will Trump supporters interpret this information? My prediction is:  A) Justify it by saying Trump was being responsible by downplaying Covid to avoid a public panic; B) Avoidance / Diversion: What about Hillary, Obama, Biden, Antifa? etc and C) This is Libs playing politics during an elections year. D) The liberal reporter tried to bait Trump into saying something they could take out of context. Trump is actually the victim.

My top prediction manifests:

 

[Leo Gura]

The idea that Trumpists think Trump does anything out of altruism -- "for the good of the people" -- rather than to increase his ego, is laughable.

Trump's only motivation, ever, is whatever most benefits him personally.

[Apparition of Jack]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The idea that Trumpists think Trump does anything out of altruism -- "for the good of the people" -- rather than to increase his ego, is laughable.

Trump's only motivation, ever, is whatever most benefits him personally.

Honestly, they probably feel the same way deep down, hence why they vote for him...

[Forestluv]

11 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The idea that Trumpists think Trump does anything out of altruism -- "for the good of the people" -- rather than to increase his ego, is laughable.

Trump's only motivation, ever, is whatever most benefits him personally.

Stage Red seems incapable of even pretending to care about the welfare of others. Trump always seems disoriented, awkward and uncomfortable when he tries to act altruistic or empathetic. Self-centered Orange seem much more comfortable feigning altruism and empathy. 

[TrustTheProcess]

2 hours ago, Forestluv said:

Stage Red seems incapable of even pretending to care about the welfare of others. Trump always seems disoriented, awkward and uncomfortable when he tries to act altruistic or empathetic. Self-centered Orange seem much more comfortable feigning altruism and empathy. 

That is a good observation lol

[Consept]

This is big because a lot of the anti-maskers, anti-fauci, conspiracy theories, have come about because of how much trump downplayed it. His downplaying has effectively cost lives, probably due to the extent at which it was downplayed and the disagreement with experts. 

However, it's not new that a government would downplay or not tell the whole truth about a serious situation as to not panic the public. I just wonder what his thinking was behind it. Of course he was worried about the election and approval ratings, but is there some part of him that thought this would be better for people to avoid panic and he's just very incompetant? Either way he's either very stupid or incredibly callous, so I can't see how this can look on him favourably 

[TrustTheProcess]

1 hour ago, Consept said:

This is big because a lot of the anti-maskers, anti-fauci, conspiracy theories, have come about because of how much trump downplayed it. His downplaying has effectively cost lives, probably due to the extent at which it was downplayed and the disagreement with experts. 

However, it's not new that a government would downplay or not tell the whole truth about a serious situation as to not panic the public. I just wonder what his thinking was behind it. Of course he was worried about the election and approval ratings, but is there some part of him that thought this would be better for people to avoid panic and he's just very incompetant? Either way he's either very stupid or incredibly callous, so I can't see how this can look on him favourably 

He could have followed suit as like every other competent country's leadership and said something like. "This is a serious situation. If we take proper precautions such as social distancing, quarantining, masks,, etc, we can mitigate the spread to keep our country safe and get back to business in less than a couple months. "-- compare that to what he actually did-- calling it a democratic hoax and saying it will disappear like magic. 

Edited September 10, 2020 by louhad

[Akemrelax]

The real question is: Why are these things happening all over the world? and what is the best way to deal with hate politics and predatory capitalism? 

I suspect one reason is that internet as a medium is affecting us in a way that's really bad for our mental health. Social media and the rest of the internet are not passive tools, they are intended to make you think and feel a certain way to maximize corporate profits. Negative emotions, outrage, radicalization, that's the tip of the iceberg. We haven't even begun to unravel the effects of this medium. Hypothetically, we live in an age where, if you have the internet, you can bypass boredom altogether for the rest of your life. That's huge! And it will affects every area of life. There's very little discussion about this in pop culture.

[Proserpina]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Trump is 1000% uglier in private than in public and stories of his private ugliness will leak out for decades to come. But none of it will convince Trumpists.

By this point, any decent person understands that Trump is rotten to the core and a menace to democracy.

Love you <3 

I'm sorry that I scared you and that I hurt you.  

[purerogue]

Lot of hate going on here, first EU did no better then Trump when it started out , you think they did not know how dangerous it is, they did , what did they do, nothing , their response was we will take actions when we see that it is going out of hands and said there is nothing to worry about,could they have stopped it if they started  to take serious measures, maybe, but they did not and then started to act as saviour, we did nothing wrong way.

Look what approach  Sweden, your so called pinnacle of development made, not shit talking there. 

Did he downplay danger, he did, does it matter, hard to tell, as it was already clear that most of population will have to go trough it anyway when it hit so many areas, just matter of how fast and how system can cope

Edited September 10, 2020 by purerogue

[Fadl]

10 hours ago, Apparition of Jack said:

Trump admits on tape to downplaying Covid in March

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump-coronavirus/index.html

This is huge. This is honestly the most damning thing against him, even more so than the Mueller report.

How this will affect the election I don’t know. But I can’t imagine it’ll be blown aside like everything else so far.

Most of the people know that Trump is an idiot, but the question is why he is going to be elected again?? It won´t surprise me at all if he tried to change the American constitution to allow him to be reelected for other terms.

[Toby]

10 hours ago, Forestluv said:

Stage Red seems incapable of even pretending to care about the welfare of others. Trump always seems disoriented, awkward and uncomfortable when he tries to act altruistic or empathetic. Self-centered Orange seem much more comfortable feigning altruism and empathy.

But is he stage red? He is an Enneagram type 8 which itself can be confused with red easily.

[Gidiot]

@Toby his core is red.

 

@purerogue trump blundered COVID if you are blind to see that, and if you using whataboutisms to deflect from the US response, sorry but you need to think before you post on this forum. sure. people are to blame too, anti maskers etc. but there was absolutely 0 genuine leadership from day one and this proves it,

Edited September 10, 2020 by Gidiot

[Toby]

I'm not so sure though. Clearly he is very unhealthy, narcissistic and might have a red shadow but he could still be orange. It's best not to confuse type with development. His lying, blaming is the equivalent of withdrawing and reading books in other types for example. It's just the type.

[purerogue]

1 hour ago, Gidiot said:

trump blundered COVID if you are blind to see that, and if you using whataboutisms to deflect from the US response, sorry but you need to think before you post on this forum. sure. people are to blame too, anti maskers etc. but there was absolutely 0 genuine leadership from day one and this proves it,

I am sure everything to your brain is just deflection, can't cure ignorance in first attempt.

[Consept]

7 hours ago, Akemrelax said:

The real question is: Why are these things happening all over the world? and what is the best way to deal with hate politics and predatory capitalism? 

I suspect one reason is that internet as a medium is affecting us in a way that's really bad for our mental health. Social media and the rest of the internet are not passive tools, they are intended to make you think and feel a certain way to maximize corporate profits. Negative emotions, outrage, radicalization, that's the tip of the iceberg. We haven't even begun to unravel the effects of this medium. Hypothetically, we live in an age where, if you have the internet, you can bypass boredom altogether for the rest of your life. That's huge! And it will affects every area of life. There's very little discussion about this in pop culture.

This is a massive factor, i would even go so far as to say its the driving force behind hate politics as you say. Theres a new doc on netflix called 'The Social Dilemma', which revolves around accounts from big players in the tech industry and they break down why they medium is so dangerous and how theyve actually lost control of it.