The pandemic effect on voters

[Anonymous]

The wholesale blame heaped on Biden and the left is not well supported by facts.

The pandemic, the first nationwide shutdowns, the economic collapse, and the initial school closures all occurred under President Trump in 2020, long before Biden took office in January 2021. In March and April 2020, the Trump White House released the federal “15 Days to Slow the Spread” and “30 Days to Slow the Spread” guidelines, which explicitly recommended closing schools, limiting gatherings, and restricting business operations. States—red and blue—followed those federal recommendations because the scientific community still knew very little about the virus. The deepest economic contraction, highest unemployment spike, and most stringent lockdowns all occurred in spring and summer 2020, under Trump.

And those early decisions weren’t partisan, they were based on legitimate caution and best available information at the time. At the time, scientists had no vaccine, no treatments, and no understanding of how contagious or deadly the virus was. Studies and contact-tracing from 2020 and early 2021 consistently showed that schools, indoor dining, houses of worship, and crowded workplaces were in fact significant transmission sites in the pre-vaccine era. Many states, including conservative ones like Texas, Florida (initially), and Oklahom closed schools or businesses in 2020 because the alternative could have resulted in even more mass casualties before vaccines arrived.

Key facts that show the blame is misdirected:

All nationwide shutdown guidance originated under Trump (March–April 2020).

Nearly every state closed schools during Trump’s presidency, regardless of party.

The worst economic impacts happened before Biden took office.

Contact-tracing data from 2020 showed schools were major transmission hubs, especially before masking, ventilation upgrades, and vaccines.

Biden inherited the pandemic; he did not cause it, and he reopened schools and the economy with vaccines already rolling out.

In short, people may be frustrated with the memory of pandemic disruptions, but redirecting that anger toward Biden or “the left” ignores the actual facts and timeline. The hardest shutdowns and the most painful decisions were made in 2020 under Trump, based on limited information and the need to protect public health before life-saving vaccines existed.

[Anonymous]

COVID caused brain damage. The US life expectancy hasn't rebounded like other countries. Mental acuity has taken a similar hit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:COVID caused brain damage. The US life expectancy hasn't rebounded like other countries. Mental acuity has taken a similar hit.

Part of this is demographics - we have a massive aging population who become more susceptible to lies, propaganda, and emotional manipulation as they age. This is why financial scammers usually target the elderly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:COVID caused brain damage. The US life expectancy hasn't rebounded like other countries. Mental acuity has taken a similar hit.

Part of this is demographics - we have a massive aging population who become more susceptible to lies, propaganda, and emotional manipulation as they age. This is why financial scammers usually target the elderly.

The pandemic expanded the pool of gullible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Disagree that 2 weeks in we knew. At that point the hospitals near me were still at the breaking point. But I’m in a town that didn’t get the kids back to school full time for more than a year and I will never forgive the teachers union for that. The head of the state teachers union now wants to be the democratic candidate for governor, which honestly enrages me.

Teachers were high risk for getting Covid and spreading Covid. You are angry that thousands more teachers did not volunteer to die or kill their family members for your convenience?

Exactly. All of these enraged moms with COVID PTSD are annoying as F.

Hope you are enjoying the demise of democracy because your kids missed some school. It was a worldwide pandemic with a novel virus. Mistakes were made. You wouldn't have been any better. Now you've tanked our country because you were angry that stuff happens that no one can control.

Honestly you people still talking about the pandemic as though you learned something make me want to puke. People like you will be the reason many will die if we are unlucky enough to have another one, because you'll fight all public health initiatives because you "know better". You guys suck.

No other country closed public schools for as long as blue states in America did. It was a dumb move to do that. Kids are paying for it years later. And it's a big reason why Trump is president today. So it was very consequential, and people are right to be angry at the progressives that shut down public schools while keeping private schools, bars, restaurants etc open. It's indefensible and we have Republican rule as a consequence of progressive fanaticism from that era.

So, yes, it is worth revisiting. Progressives were the disaster that brought us the Trump disaster.

Please recall that Trump was president when schools closed and remained president until January of 2021, when scholls remained close. So roughly 10 months. By the May of 2021 (merely 4 months into Biden's term), only 1% of schools remained closed.

Yes, it hindsight, Trump should have done more to reopen schools and prepared for that during the summer of 2020. Of course, he was quite busy manufacturing plans to launch the "big lie" and plotting to overthrow the government. I guess it is understandable why Trump didn't do more to help the kids.

Every single poltical debate doesn’t have to devolve into some tired defense or attack against Trump. People who resort to this have RFK Jr. level brainworms and aren’t serious people.

The many PPs blaming all “progressives” for all the ills of the world are no different. Oversimplifying and scapegoating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Disagree that 2 weeks in we knew. At that point the hospitals near me were still at the breaking point. But I’m in a town that didn’t get the kids back to school full time for more than a year and I will never forgive the teachers union for that. The head of the state teachers union now wants to be the democratic candidate for governor, which honestly enrages me.

Teachers were high risk for getting Covid and spreading Covid. You are angry that thousands more teachers did not volunteer to die or kill their family members for your convenience?

Exactly. All of these enraged moms with COVID PTSD are annoying as F.

Hope you are enjoying the demise of democracy because your kids missed some school. It was a worldwide pandemic with a novel virus. Mistakes were made. You wouldn't have been any better. Now you've tanked our country because you were angry that stuff happens that no one can control.

Honestly you people still talking about the pandemic as though you learned something make me want to puke. People like you will be the reason many will die if we are unlucky enough to have another one, because you'll fight all public health initiatives because you "know better". You guys suck.

Washington, DC still has a 50 percent office vacancy rate and its workers haven’t gotten a COLA in 5 years because of the overreactions to Covid. Hundreds of people were murdered because of the uptick in crime after Covid as well.

There were people, myself included, that said that the overreaction to Covid in terms of overly long office, retail, and school closures would wreck American cities’ economies so much that a lot of them might never come back and that this would cause social ills (poverty, crime) that would eclipse the deaths caused by Covid. We were right and you can see that in DC today.

People who were demonstrably wrong think they have some sort of rationale for not profusely apologizing and never offering their opinions about anything again. They don’t. Be quiet.

1.2 M Americans died of Covid during the official pandemic, and that's surely an undercount. My dad died last year - he had Alzheimers and Covid and never came out of the hospital when he went for delirium. His death was listed as "respiratory infection." What killed him?

Nobody owes you an apology.

Not of, but with. A common deception by the lockdown zealots. Most of the people that actually died of COVID were in nursing homes. Which made shutting down schools even more insane.

That's a LIE. Nursing homes and assisted living facilities accounted for 38% of deaths. At least get your facts straight before you vote for a child rapist felon lady.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:COVID caused brain damage. The US life expectancy hasn't rebounded like other countries. Mental acuity has taken a similar hit.

Part of this is demographics - we have a massive aging population who become more susceptible to lies, propaganda, and emotional manipulation as they age. This is why financial scammers usually target the elderly.

GenX voted for the felon more than any other demographic group. Does anybody care to Google facts before they post?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:COVID caused brain damage. The US life expectancy hasn't rebounded like other countries. Mental acuity has taken a similar hit.

Part of this is demographics - we have a massive aging population who become more susceptible to lies, propaganda, and emotional manipulation as they age. This is why financial scammers usually target the elderly.

GenX voted for the felon more than any other demographic group. Does anybody care to Google facts before they post?!?

50-64 is a combination of young boomers and old genx, either way it's old enough to be targeted by scammers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Disagree that 2 weeks in we knew. At that point the hospitals near me were still at the breaking point. But I’m in a town that didn’t get the kids back to school full time for more than a year and I will never forgive the teachers union for that. The head of the state teachers union now wants to be the democratic candidate for governor, which honestly enrages me.

Teachers were high risk for getting Covid and spreading Covid. You are angry that thousands more teachers did not volunteer to die or kill their family members for your convenience?

Exactly. All of these enraged moms with COVID PTSD are annoying as F.

Hope you are enjoying the demise of democracy because your kids missed some school. It was a worldwide pandemic with a novel virus. Mistakes were made. You wouldn't have been any better. Now you've tanked our country because you were angry that stuff happens that no one can control.

Honestly you people still talking about the pandemic as though you learned something make me want to puke. People like you will be the reason many will die if we are unlucky enough to have another one, because you'll fight all public health initiatives because you "know better". You guys suck.

Washington, DC still has a 50 percent office vacancy rate and its workers haven’t gotten a COLA in 5 years because of the overreactions to Covid. Hundreds of people were murdered because of the uptick in crime after Covid as well.

There were people, myself included, that said that the overreaction to Covid in terms of overly long office, retail, and school closures would wreck American cities’ economies so much that a lot of them might never come back and that this would cause social ills (poverty, crime) that would eclipse the deaths caused by Covid. We were right and you can see that in DC today.

People who were demonstrably wrong think they have some sort of rationale for not profusely apologizing and never offering their opinions about anything again. They don’t. Be quiet.

1.2 M Americans died of Covid during the official pandemic, and that's surely an undercount. My dad died last year - he had Alzheimers and Covid and never came out of the hospital when he went for delirium. His death was listed as "respiratory infection." What killed him?

Nobody owes you an apology.

Not of, but with. A common deception by the lockdown zealots. Most of the people that actually died of COVID were in nursing homes. Which made shutting down schools even more insane.

Some of us live in multigenerational homes. My school did go in person in August 2020. I was terrified I would bring back covid to my mother who suffered from dementia. We all masked up, even at home, to protect her. I would get so angry when I heard of kids having sleepovers, and parents having parties while we were bending over backwards to keep our school community safe. Sure, maybe some protocols were pointless, but at that time, we weren’t sure, and it was better to be safe than sorry.

Some families at our school did loose family members, others got bad cases of covid. We had to re-invent our lesson plans because we often were teaching hybrid lessons. Teachers were burnt out!

Many forget about the low income service workers who kept showing up. They usually lived in cramped apartments. So many of them got sick and died. Often their customers would refuse to wear a mask, sometimes just to make a point. The lack of empathy was grotesque.

I ended up cutting ties with many people, after I realized they were unable to put up with being uncomfortable for a bit for the benefit of the community. They showed their true colors.

Healthy societies put the needs of children before the needs of the elderly. The exact opposite of what you describe. Seniors were also hanging out at bars, playing bingo, and going on cruises while schools were closed. It’s as insane now as it was then.