US Politics, March 2020 — There’s a very good chance you’re not going to die.

Republicans had a deal until Nancy Pelosi rode into town from her extended vacation. The Democrats want the Virus to win? They are asking for things that have nothing to do with our great workers or companies. They want Open Borders & Green New Deal. Republicans shouldn’t agree!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2020

The Democrats want the Virus to Win? for April thread title

I have no doubt many ppl truly believe they do

Whats their stance on social-distancing or self-isolation? And on getting back to work asap to fix the economy?

I think there's still a lot of denial about the whole thing even being serious. They care about it at all mostly because it's hurting their precious economy, so they'd like nothing better than to believe everyone can go back to work. We'll see how that holds up. I don't really like to think about what level of sickness and death it would take to fully persuade them that this isn't at some level all bogus. I don't want to find out.

there are many who can not be persuaded, it’ll always be something. we’re all pretty convinced at this point that there is a core for every bullshit egregious belief that just won’t give, right? the best you can do is beat their asses so hard and so bad that they stfu for a few years.

there are many who can not be persuaded, it’ll always be something. we’re all pretty convinced at this point that there is a core for every bullshit egregious belief that just won’t give, right? the best you can do is beat their asses so hard and so bad that they stfu for a few years.

That Pelosi tweet above answers a question I was pondering during the briefing: "He seems unusually restrained about the Democrats, like he's terrified they won't strike a deal--but who knows what he's tweeting?"

Nancy's bill: https://www.axios.com/nancy-pelosi-coronavirus-stimulus-proposal-d7b4a9a0-610a-4324-a07b-6bb64e1f5c81.html

I imagine this includes pawns so they have something to surrender? Because these two in particular are right in R's wheelhouse for spinning a no-vote:

• Creates new carbon offset guidelines for airlines, with a long-term goal of reducing jet fuel emissions by 50% by 2050.

• Addresses broader health care concerns that Democrats have pushed for months, including increasing subsidies on the individual market and creating new incentives for states to expand Medicaid.

Good morning!

Xpost yeah, bargaining chip mostly

staggering, alright

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-trump-economy-reopening-b4480e51-e497-4f60-9634-03142c01abdb.html

Wild to me that I have an EIN number that I haven’t used for years that is going to save my bacon when they start giving out free money

Trump eyes a back-to-work plan despite coronavirus

Can't wait for him to issue this directive and realize very quickly how little power his stupid words have.

I'll go back to work if he promises to resign.

Really? Pence? policy wd be wait for the Rapture.

NYT:

The Treasury secretary and the top Senate Democrat said late Monday that they were on the brink of a deal on a nearly $2 trillion emergency economic aid measure to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, after a marathon day of talks as Democrats demanded stronger protections for workers and restrictions for bailed-out businesses.

Hours after Democrats voted to block action on the plan until they secured concessions and the Senate dissolved into partisan sniping, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, signaled that their private negotiations had yielded important breakthroughs that could clear the way for enactment of the plan within days.

Policy right now isn't that different from "wait for the Rapture." Certainly a whole lot of waiting going on.

Everyone asked years ago how Trump would react to a crisis, and now we've seen it a few times: do nothing, then blame victims for their failure. Seems to be working for him, tbh.

exactly, so change would be close to nil

why did Trump retweet this???

Dr. Fauci is all of us 🤦🏼‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/WTShJUchsr

— Laura Martínez® (@miblogestublog) March 20, 2020

idk man *stares at tea leaves*

People hate Donald Trump.

The release on Friday of an ABC News/Ipsos poll indicating that 55 percent of Americans approved of Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus—12 points higher than the previous week—prompted another round of fatalistic chatter in certain quarters of the political establishment. Shocked by Trump’s victory in 2016, some left-leaning commentators and rank-and-file Democrats alike have been steeling themselves for his reelection in 2020, noting that most presidents win second terms; that, at least before the pandemic, the economy was humming along; and more recently that, during moments of national disaster, Americans tend to rally around the leader they have.

But these nuggets of conventional political wisdom obscure something fundamental—something that even Democrats have trouble seeing: The United States is in revolt against Donald Trump, and the likely Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, already holds a daunting lead over Trump in the battleground states that will decide the 2020 election. By way of disclosure, I am a Democratic pollster; for professional and personal reasons alike, I want Democratic candidates to succeed. But no matter what, I also want candidates and party operatives to base decisions—such as where and how to campaign—on an accurate view of the political landscape. At the moment, Democrats are underestimating their own strength and misperceiving the sources of it.

Every time Americans have gone to the polls since Trump took office, they have pushed back hard against him. The blue wave that began in state elections in 2017 grew bigger in the 2018 midterms and bigger yet in 2019. Trump focused the Republican Party’s whole 2018 congressional campaign on immigrant caravans and the border wall, and he lost. Trump held rallies in support of the Republican gubernatorial candidates on the last nights before elections in the deep-red states of Kentucky and Louisiana, and they lost. The GOP losses right through the end of 2019 were produced by dramatic, growing gains for Democrats in the nation’s suburbs. Democrats took total control of the Virginia legislature, where the party held on to all the suburban seats it had flipped two years earlier and gained six more.

...

Trump has nationalized our politics around himself and his job performance, and that has created a nine-point headwind for the Republican Party. While the pessimists obsess over any of Trump’s most favorable polls, particularly in the Electoral College battleground states, Trump has never raised his approval rating above the low 40s in FiveThirtyEight’s average of public polls; 52 to 53 percent disapprove of his performance in office. And that remains true during the current crisis.

Trump has improved his numbers with the evangelical Christians, Tea Party supporters, and observant Catholics who make up the core of his Republican Party, but it is a diminished party. The percentage of people identifying as Republican since Trump took office has dropped from 39 to 36 percent, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Trump has pushed moderates out of the party, and those moderates are changing their voting patterns accordingly. Fully 5 percent of the voters in the South Carolina Democratic primary had previously voted in the state’s Republican primary. In Michigan, Republican strategists tried to make sense of the 56 percent increase in Democratic turnout in Livingston County, a white, college-educated, upper-class community that Trump won by 30 points. Republicans are shedding voters.

Trump himself has been increasingly acknowledging that everyone hates him. No doubt it fuels some of his decision making. It certainly I think affects his supporters, who think along the same lines: you hate Trump, you hate me, so I hate you .

also worth considering that Trump is singlehandedly gonna get a solid chunk of his voting base killed

Trump himself has been increasingly acknowledging that everyone hates him.

I wouldn't go that far, but I have noticed a lack of tweets in which he refers to himself as "your favorite president" recently.

I had no idea he knew what irony was.

I think affects his supporters, who think along the same lines: you hate Trump, you hate me, so I hate you .

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, March 24, 2020 10:01 AM (twenty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is certainly the case. i don't understand why they identify with him so closely. he is not similar to them in any real way.

he's who they wish to be - stupid, boorish, racist, talentless, but always failing upward.

zurprize

Liberty University will reopen this week, Jerry Falwell inviting students to return and ordering faculty to come back to work. https://t.co/JUXEITZnqD

— Reid Wilson (@PoliticsReid) March 24, 2020

I fully support this

^^^

I know it feels like one of those "don't write off the south - liberals live there too!" things, but if you're a student at Liberty University, you made choices.

lemmings eventually reach the cliff edge

If you want to take away their right to contract coronavirus you'll have to pry it from their cold, dead hands.

he's who they wish to be - stupid, boorish, racist, talentless, but always failing upward.

I think it's less who they want to be than a sense that he is their warrior, their avatar. His flaws, which a lot of them not only acknowledge but cackle about, are in a way part of his armor. He's every asshole loner Dirty Harry hero in their own personal revenge flick.

lemmings eventually reach the cliff edge

― Pinche Cumbion Bien Loco (stevie),

truth bomb

https://media1.tenor.com/images/4af9b24da1b8071d430740fda028b804/tenor.gif?itemid=4819274

(xpost) Yeah, Murray Hamilton's Mayor Vaughn is going to be a ubiquitous point of reference for the next couple of weeks. "The United States is a entrepreneurial country. We need entrepreneurial dollars. Now, if the people can't buy here, they'll be glad to buy from the stores of China, India, Japan..." As will a T-shirt that keeps turning up on my FB wall: "The mayor in Jaws is still the mayor in Jaws 2. It is so important to vote in your local elections."

Oh the animals are coming
2 by 2
Lol just kidding
Try to swim, foo

I know it feels like one of those "don't write off the south - liberals live there too!" things, but if you're a student at Liberty University, you made choices.

Choices that will also impact their neighbors, healthcare workers, retail staff, etc. Not a win.

he is not similar to them in any real way.

He is rejected by the people that reject them (or that they perceive to reject them)

I'm sure there are food workers of color at Liberty U?

The thing that confuses me the most is that trump was their neighbor or boss or the owner of the company they work for, they'd fucking hate him and complain about how stupid and terrible he is. Republicans don't care if it doesn't affect personally them etc.

Why do all politicians wear windbreakers when they are in emergency mode?

xxp no doubt, there are also right-wing Chirstians of color at Liberty, something like 20%

It being Liberty U, I'd be surprised if there were any white food workers.

xxp

There's been a massive increase in hot air

Please do not take medical advice from a man who looked directly at a solar eclipse.

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 24, 2020

loool

haha

Schumer... gettin shit done?!?

The federal government will pay the full salaries of furloughed workers for up to four months under an emerging stimulus deal expected to get a vote as soon as Tuesday.

Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.), who is negotiating the agreement with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, called the bipartisan agreement on unemployment benefits “unemployment insurance on steroids.”

The proposal would allow furloughed workers to continue to collect health benefits from employers and a salary from the government.

“You can keep getting them, but, and most importantly, the federal government will pay your salary, your full salary for now four months,” Schumer said on the floor.

“We had asked for four months, and four months looks like what we’re going to get when we come this agreement,” he added.

Schumer also said he believed a deal was imminent, describing negotiators as being on the 2-yard line after they were on the 5-yard line on Monday.

He said there are a few outstanding issues but predicted, “I don’t see any that can’t be overcome within the next few hours.”

Republicans over the weekend proposed three months of beefed-up unemployment benefits.

The assistance will apply to nonprofit and government workers in addition to private-sector employees, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.

Schumer said Democrats are also pleased with funding for hospitals, which sources say will be $100 billion, and an inspector general and oversight board for a $500 billion corporate credit program that will be run by the Treasury Department and allow the Federal Reserve to inject more than $4 trillion into the economy and credit markets.

“We all know there was a load of dissatisfaction with TARP,” he said, referring to the controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program Congress set up during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

Markets are up Tuesday on the news that a deal in the Senate could be imminent.

Schumer also said he believed a deal was imminent, describing negotiators as being on the 2-yard line after they were on the 5-yard line on Monday.

In yo FACE, virus!

You can cancel sports but you can't cancel sports metaphors.