Some right wingers are saying that Bush 2 also predicted a pandemic

[Renew Deal]

But that misses the point. Bush and Obama "predicted" the pandemic because it was completely predictable. It's like predicting the sun will rise. The difference between them and Trump is that they took it at least somewhat seriously and Trump didn't. Trump loves to talk about his big brain, but he fired the pandemic response team, called Coronavirus a "democratic hoax" and bullshitted his way through his presidency.

Tell me again Grandpa Trump about how I should ingest bleach.

Trumps presidency is *^%. It is burning to the ground. Hopefully we will live long enough to see the end of it. The republican party needs to go with it.

Link to tweet

[nilram]

1. Both Obama and Bush DID something about it. TRUMP dismantled their work.

It's amazing I have any hair left at all.

[Renew Deal]

2. But nobody could have predicted it.

It's such shit.

[captain queeg]

3. Anyone with half a brain realized it was a possibility

Even an inevitability

You might think it unlikely but only a science denying, self centered moron would completely dismiss it.

[Renew Deal]

4. Sums it up well.

[Jake Stern]

5. Just about every president before the current ignorant squatter

had enough sense to know that such a thing was not just a very real possibility but was almost certainly going to happen at some point and worked to prepare for it.

So I guess in that respect Bush did "predict" the pandemic as did Obama, Clinton, Bush Sr, Reagan, Carter, etc.

[0rganism]

6. in February i thought it was just astounding incompetence from unqualified idiots

sometime around mid-March this stopped making sense to me. the actions and lack thereof tell a different story: someone -- maybe Trump, maybe Putin, maybe both -- sees a huge amount of death as a solution, not a problem.

and look where the virus is hitting hardest: densely-populated urban areas, minority populations...

at this point, especially after he encouraged nationwide white nationalist anti-health rallies and demanded ongoing operation from meat-packing plants, i have to conclude that Trump intends to see a huge death toll from the virus. not like 100k huge. like 2 million huge. i think he's counting on it to keep him in power somehow.

[Renew Deal]

7. One of them said it out loud

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213380696

The thing you have to remember with Trump is that he views everything through a lens of how it benefits him. He didn't care about coronavirus until the stock market started to slide.

[0rganism]

8. they do that fairly frequently these days

it's like they think it doesn't matter anymore whether they publicly state their objectives
like they know their crappy ideas have reached some inflection point of self-sustaining critical mass
like they know the necessary events have already been set in motion for a core set of goals to be achieved

like from their perspective the ball is already rolling downhill with no one positioned to stop it.

[AnnieBW]

9. The Intel Community

Has been warning about a big pandemic since at least the mid-90's. We dodged bullets with SARS and H1N1.

[Crunchy Frog]

10. I never thought I'd give Bush credit for anything.

At the time. I couldn't imagine that there could be a worse president. How wrong I was about that.

[Renew Deal]

11. What worries me is that republican presidents continue to get worse.

Especially in the last 40 years. They get more partisan, more broadly ignorant, more accepting of racism, etc. It's a persistent decline. And the republicans "bench" is no better. Are Pence, Cruz, Cotton, or Lee their great hope? I'm pretty sure that Charlie Baker or Nikki Haley cannot win primaries in the modern republican primary.

This is why the republican party needs to be destroyed in 2020. Democrats should run against the republicans as a party. A party that nominated and supports Trump clearly is incapable of governing.

[Jake Stern]

12. Ronnie Raygun wouldn't make it past the first debate in today's GOP

Could you imagine him making a statement like he did in 1989 where he said people don't need assault weapons for sporting or home defense?

He'd be booed off stage and hustled out of the building under armed guard for his safety.

[blitzen]

13. Except he would never make that statement now. n/t