TRUMP GOT COVID

20 years ago today I was awake in the middle of the night too so I could be one of the first in line to but Kid A and scoop up a sweet limited edition poster.

I’m only half awake rn so I have nothing clever to add here

Are people not concerned about the "sympathy vote" - however undeserved?

If he died soon I think it would be bad for the Democrats.

I mean getting mild covid didn't exactly work out badly for Bolsonaro but he wasn't in the middle of an election campaign at the time.

The Trump family were sat in that debate hall without masks, chances are they've all got it, and maybe some people on the Biden team as well.

He'll say anything to get out of another tv debate

Bolsonaro gets covid once every 6 weeks, no one pays it any attention

I'm not much bothered by the risk of sympathy vote but am worried that prospect of President Pence might add a few more votes. What are the election rules if he actually dies before Nov 3 anyway?

Amy Covid Barrett

Asshole’s popularity tends to rise when he’s not visible, so it could help him

xps:
How Stuff Works: What Happens if a Presidential Candidate Dies?

Before the Electoral College meets: new candidate chosen by party. It doesn't have to be the vice-presidential candidate.
Before inauguration: covered by succession rules under 20th amendment. VP-elect becomes President-elect.

Seems bizarre outcomes are possible, eg: Trump loses the popular vote but has an edge in the electoral college, dies before the Electoral College meets, the GOP puts Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz on the Electoral College ballot, and if their electors are faithful or Biden has unfaithful electors, someone who wasn't on any 2016 ticket could get in. One would hope that would be the death knell for the Electoral College...

Great article about some such bizarre-outcome possibilities:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/

my thoughts and prayers going out to that poor virus right now

Kate Garraway - Did you have an instinctive reaction when you heard Donald Trump had contracted coronavirus?

Dominic West - "Well I did slightly leap in the air with joy when I heard"#GMB pic.twitter.com/d2tqM3zyhR

— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) October 2, 2020

Aside from poetic justice, isn't this actually terrible news? If he's lying, which could be the case, and could be covered up easily, he could make a "miraculous recovery", further enabling his fantasy 'everything is fine' narratives. If he is sick and survives, he'll sail to victory on a sympathy vote. If he is sick and dies, another Republican will sail to victory on a sympathy vote (and a de-energized left who are already only voting for Biden begrudgingly).

Has anyone ever won on a sympathy vote?!

Sympathy isn’t doing it for Boris, who had a baby on the way at the time as well and was a lot more popular than Trump.

who votes for someone because they're ill?

People who were going to anyway

You would think without the rallies it's the Republican activists who would be further de-energised too.

left wing tinfoil hat social media seem to think this is a scam and he's going to announce a miracle cure in a couple of weeks, doesn't sound likely.

People who were going to anyway

Exactly. Don't think Trump will lose support because of this but the idea that someone who wasn't going to vote for him in the first place decides to do so because "get well soon" seems preposterous.

Ah imagine thinking this admin could cover something up

Has anyone ever won on a sympathy vote?!

It's a weird world and there have been a lot of elections. Some probably qualify. There are interesting stories out there. Some wives have won (or been appointed to) seats previously occupied by their husbands.

Jean Carnahan, for example, was appointed to the Senate seat that her husband Mel won posthumously; she was not reelected.

If Mark Kelly wins his Senate race it may partially reflect a sympathy vote for Gabby Giffords.

If he is sick and survives, he'll sail to victory on a sympathy vote.

No. People hate him.

If he is sick and dies, another Republican will sail to victory on a sympathy vote (and a de-energized left who are already only voting for Biden begrudgingly).

No. Mike Pence is widely loathed within the Republican Party, and the Trump cult views him as basically a vestigial tail. Only the hardest of Bible-thumping psychos actually likes Pence.

I will say this - the emails I got overnight with subject lines like "Your chance to meet the President of the United States" are reading pretty darkly hilarious this morning.

This is all Trump's own fault for getting so many tests.

a) no he doesn't
b) god speed, comrade rona

It's a weird world and there have been a lot of elections. Some probably qualify. There are interesting stories out there. Some wives have won (or been appointed to) seats previously occupied by their husbands.

The world can be weird but our march toward the destruction of humanity -- something you'd think as spetacular -- as quite banal for much of the time.

I'd rather wait for narrowing gaps in polls from this point onwards.

Maybe God gave Trump covid so he'd win with a sympathy vote from the people that crucified his son. Weird.

COVID-19, welcome to the resistance.

This is all Trump's own fault for getting so many tests.

― here we go, ten in a rona (onimo), Friday, October 2, 2020 7:27 AM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Actual lols.

Boris did well out of the sympathy vote for a month or so, which is all Trump really needs. Admittedly Boris was starting from a much higher position in the polls.

The Republicans are going to fight this month dirty as hell. We've seen nothing yet

"Boris did well out of the sympathy vote for a month or so, which is all Trump really needs."

He did not fight an election from a hospital bed.

As has been routine for months, Vice President Pence is tested for COVID-19 every day. This morning, Vice President Pence and the Second Lady tested negative for COVID-19. Vice President Pence remains in good health and wishes the Trumps well in their recovery.

— Devin O’Malley (@VPPressSec) October 2, 2020

Am I reading into this or does this imply that Trump WASN’T being tested every day?

https://i.imgur.com/2JVhTEf.jpg

xpost It sure sounds like it. Unless it's just a total coincidence that his daily test came up positive on the same day as and immediately after Hicks came up positive.

Yeah, on second thought, "sympathy vote" does seem unlikely, and not exactly part of Trump's appeal.

In this case: I hope he survives, but has lasting, life-long health consequences.

Oh, and yeah I hope he survives to lose the election obv

pic.twitter.com/X1N9egkgwY

— burst cow (@sponcondereplay) October 2, 2020

Guys remember that sympathy bump Hillary got in the polls in the week after she got pneumonia?

Oh wait...

What are the odds of Trump contracting the 'vid if he hadn't run for president? Like you know we wouldn't be up to 200,000 dead under Prez Hillz.

Here's hoping he's one of the unlucky ones, and that his age and mass make him susceptible to at least a few of the bad symptoms. Though the rate we're going in this country, he's going to fully recover with no symptoms in a couple of days, but all his spraying at the debate will give it to Biden, who will then die.

But really, he is the president, our president, and they should really try absolutely everything to make sure he recovers. Windex, lemon Pledge, Dr. Bronners, bronzer, ear candles ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLGww-dlwIg&ab_channel=LesWinner

Leave Dr. Bronner our of this

goddamnit

out* grrr I hate this phone

Dr. Bronners will be used to wash his underwear after he shits himself so often. Also, brush his teeth, shampoo his hair, clean the sinks...

I most recently used Dr Bronner's in a solution that I sprayed on my house plants to kill gnats. I assume covid is around gnat size, I say give it a chance.

he could die in the next few days because he met liz truss, not because he looks like a corpse in the photo

If Trump were 96 instead of about 80, I'd be more eager to believe it.

Aimless, just go with the joke, plz.

It is very unlikely the genie misheard "12 inch pianist". In this thinkpiece I will

No I really believed that trump was about to die as a direct result of meeting liz truss so I appreciate mr logic steering me right with a healthy note of scepticism

Think we need ChatGPT to weigh in here

liz truss is too irrelevant to serve as a load-bearing component for topical humor

Aimless, just go with the joke, plz.

― The Luda of Suburbia (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 15 February 2026 bookmarkflaglink

Is this what pleading with the Terminator feels like?

I am a learning computer

xps article is full of comedy gold tho

At home in the UK, meanwhile, Truss has been trying to get her own club off the ground and has been accused of wandering the premises of London’s exclusive club 5 Hertford Street in search of members to poach for her rival operation.

stunned that this clearly capable, competent person is struggling to cohere her vision of a piss-up in a Nazi brewery

so Britishers is Liz truss really taking a hard right turn and not reading the room or is she really reading the room or is it not a hard right turn and she’s always been this way?

also, I would like to hear your thoughts on who Trump thinks she is

opening up new pork markets in Maralago

Theories I've heard

* she thinks she's thatcher and he's reagan
* she's got some kind of public humiliation kink
* she is a credulous idiot

so Britishers is Liz truss really taking a hard right turn and not reading the room or is she really reading the room or is it not a hard right turn and she’s always been this way?

she's one of those Tories who was anti-Brexit until Brexit and then she went uber-Brexit (and iirc she was libdem at college, and her parents are ashamed of her). She's an opportunist, but I also think she's a fascist, and she is definitely a moron. She is incredibly weird, just a uniquely alienating person in her public persona and behaviour, beyond the typical Tory norm. She has the personal manner of the most unpleasant pigeon in the flock, twitchy and odd. I sometimes wonder if this hard-right turn is because she's rather be notorious for being a Nazi than as the shortest-in-office, most-disastrous PM the UK ever had. But actually it's likely that she's an opportunist fascist, and, as CaAL above suggests, she's the Temu Thatcher for your shop-soiled Reagan knockoff, who also has a public humiliation kink and is also a credulous idiot.

There was some weird sex gossip about her while she was PM that I'm not gonna repeat because it was gross and felt a little misogynist and also it makes me sick in my mouth when I remember it.

Still managed to mention it though

right.