Trump Is Gambling with Our Lives As His Stake

[MineralMan]

Donald J. Trump is apparently a betting man. Right now, he is betting that his reckless approach to the COVID-19 pandemic will earn him enough votes to win re-election in November. To do that, he needs the economy to be in recovery mode before November. That won't happen if the country remains shut down due to the pandemic.

So, he's deliberately forcing things to open back up in his hope of getting the economy at least re-started by November. So, he's making a bet that not so many people will die to offset any economical gains his policy will stimulate. He's trying to stifle reports of CV19 deaths to keep them as low as possible, and is enlisting his base of idiots to fill bars and restaurants and stand at state houses in blue states with guns to intimidate state legislators into re-opening prematurely.

The problem for Trump is that he's a lousy gambler with a face that reveals his every thought. What he says, too, gives his game away to anyone who pays attention. He is gambling against the odds with all of this.

His premature re-opening idea is going to result in a spike in deaths, without any question. He will not be able to hide those deaths, since every news outlet is reporting them as they rise and rise. In addition, the very people who make up his base are the ones going out in public unprotected. They are at high risk for contracting CV19.

By the end of May, the CV19 death toll will exceed 100,000, and the premature opening will lead to further increases on an accelerating basis. It's not a very long time until every voter will know at least one person who has died or has become seriously ill from CV19. If schools reopen in the Fall, the infection rate among children and their parents will zoom up and exacerbate the problem even more.

In the end, the economy will not recover by November. In fact, it will continue to worsen as more and more people become infected.

Trump will lose his bet, because it is a sucker's bet. Trump is a lousy gambler.

[Eyeball_Kid]

1. You're missing something that is exceedingly ugly and criminal.

Last edited Thu May 14, 2020, 11:45 AM - Edit history (1)

Trump is INTENTIONALLY and criminally negligent. A more blunt way of saying it is that he is actively killing people to further his own brand and his own agenda. He's masking his killing to give it the appearance that he's passively letting people die so that he has some kind of deniability. But make no mistake about him. He's fully aware that his "policy" is designed to kill more people, regardless of his rationalizations and excuses.

It's easy to place this consistent fact in the background of our assessments of Trump's behavior: there is nothing about him that implies "good intentions." He's not making fatal errors by having notions of adhering to the "greater good." There is nothing about him that points in this direction. Folks talk about him as if the phrase "he has no conscience" doesn't actually show up in his daily decisions. Killing thousands has just as much moral weight to him as squirting ketchup on his steak. He doesn't care who he kills or how many he kills. He has the power to deny any accountability for any action. That's who the nation elected.

[MineralMan]

2. I'm not really missing it. It's implicit

in his decisions. Of course he doesn't care about the death toll. He only cares whether or not it affects him in his gamble.

[Eyeball_Kid]

5. To belabor the point:

IMO, your implication is that the death toll is an INDIRECT result of Trump's egomaniacal (and destructive) behavior. My POV is that Trump is ACTIVELY killing. It's not a byproduct. It's a feature and an objective. By now, there can be no "indirect result." He's not negligent, he's not oafishly stupid and uninformed. He's killing.

[Thomas Hurt]

3. His approach from the beginning was a bet, not just the re-opening.

The first bet was it won't be a big thing, denial, naivete that the Chinese were going to be able to save the world.

Then the bet was, "oh we have a few cases, but it is under control", more denial, can't upset the stockmarket.

Then the bet was on managing expectations, "oh as long as less than 100K people die we are the greatest at handling this problem".

[MineralMan]

4. Well, since Trump refuses to listen to anybody with any expertise,

he's always using guesswork to decide which way to bet.

He fancies himself to be an instinctive expert on everything. He is woefully incorrect in thinking that.

Finally, his lack of intellect and self assurance dooms him. He has bankrupted his own companies, and is about to do even worse with the USA.

[Eyeball_Kid]

6. Trump defined "success" as holding the death toll to 50 or 60k. But that's always been phony.

Trump knows that the death toll will reach far beyond 100k. He knows that he can move the goal posts at any time, and the MSM will lap up any implication that his actions are well intentioned but only misguided. It's all a lie, and the MSM is promoting the slim to nonexistent chance that Trump's "policy" should be polished with a little bit of trustworthiness. This gives the MSM another excuse to publish an exposé about Trump's deception, as if the deception is an aberration or a bug. But the deception is a persistent feature. It's SOP. And very few news or journalistic outlets seem to understand this. Even though we are all well-informed about Trump's 20,000 or higher lies since taking office, the granular effects of lying as a persistent feature seem to get lost, and that the lying has minor consequences for the nation at large. But the killing. The active killing and the lying about it continues to evade the consciousness of the Fourth Estate.

[Thomas Hurt]

7. He thinks lying and scams are the power of positive thinking...

Leadership is mere cheer leading, delegating and making demands.

The epitome of christofascist anti-intellectualism.

[MFM008]

8. He is forcing

Us all to be exposed to get to ' herd immunity'.
They gave up on all other strategic plans.

[DTomlinson]

9. I for one have full confidence in the gambling skills of a man who bankrupted casinos.