Trump pretty much stood back and let Fauci and the CDC guide everyone. This was a mistake. He should have taken the approach DeSantis did.Originally Posted by CryptoNinja
The believing that the Covid stuff was authoritarian by Democrats when it was Trump that locked us down and even wouldn’t let states open back up without his say so is particularly detached from reality. It was a novel virus. We didn’t have a lot of information. Meanwhile, people without any medical knowledge at all were out there claiming they knew stuff that was impossible to know (like the origins of the virus) and it makes sense that government would want to curb that. Did you know they estimate around 300k Americans died because of disinformation, mostly about the vaccines? And now we know Trump knew how deadly it was (see Woodward tapes) and he lied to us and told us it was going to “disappear” and that it was a “Democrat hoax”. This is why I’m like if they still can’t figure this out after that, I can’t help them. You can lead a horse to water …
However, Trump did not lock anyone down. The lockdowns were all state/local decisions.
At first, we didn't have any information about the novel virus. However, as months passed, it was clear that it was barely killing anyone under 35 (and virtually zero kids), and being outside was safe. The right was urging ending or relaxing these lockdowns, and the left was refusing, insisting it would kill grandma.
Did you hear the part where I talked about the 1200 CDC employees (all of whom were left wing) circulating a petition to declare racism a "public health issue", thus justifying the mass BLM protests and riots, while at the same time explaining why the beaches and parks were still closed? Like, what kind of anti-scientific bullshit was that? 1200 fucking CDC employees signed such a petition.
I was personally censored from writing on Twitter that COVID came from a Wuhan lab. "Preventing racism" was the excuse. It turned out that the government was advising Twitter to do this. You can't even claim that this censorship was going to save lives, because this was just discussion of the CAUSE of the virus starting, not the treatment.
The COVID thing was a perfect example of left wing authoritarian bullshit. And there was tons of left wing misinformation meant to scare people into compliance. Do you remember the NY Times poll where almost half of Democrats thought that anyone with COVID had a 50% or more chance to be hospitalized? (The actual answer was 1%.) This was taken in late 2020 -- when it was very well known what the true danger was. Democrat voters were confused because they read a different article each day on CNN about completely healthy 23-year-olds suddenly being in a coma from COVID.
I have long criticized a lot of the right's activities during COVID, such as the denial of the seriousness of the virus (at least in 2020-2021 before it mutated to be much milder), and the scaremongering regarding the (mostly useful) vaccine.
But the authoritarians in that situation were definitely on the left. I experienced it personally.
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