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DID YOU JUST LEARN SOMETHING?
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Bad shit show
Date: 2020-Sep-30 Author: Barry Shatzman
I'm not proud that i labeled the first 2020 presidential debate a shit show before it even took place. Turns out there was a lot to be learned from it.
Destroying health care is a popular thing
We learned that the president of the United States thinks that laws should be based on popularity... "The individual mandate was the most unpopular aspect of ObamaCare ... We guaranteed pre-existing conditions, but took away the individual mandate," he said without regard to feasibility.
Trump refused to say how he would do it. So let me quickly explain how this all works.
Health care for people with things like cancer or diabetes can be really expensive. ObamaCare requires insurance companies to insure them, and at the same price as everyone else. Where do insurance companies get the money to pay for the costs of caring for sick people? From people who don't need expensive health care today, but might tomorrow.
Trump did not say how insurance companies would get the money without the mandate. I will. There only are two other ways. One is to charge sick people more. Hardly protection. The other is for the government to kick in the extra money. That actually is what happens... but do i need to tell you how the government gets its money?
Don't believe me? Just ask the Trump administration, which argued that exact point in the current lawsuit threatening the law.
It must be really hard to disavow racism
Trump was asked possibly the easiest question ever asked in any debate ever. Would he condemn white supremacists and say they need to stand down and not create more violence?
He couldn't.
Instead, the president of the United States said "Proud Boys - Stand back and stand by."
Stand by for what? (Maybe i'll tell you later. We'll see.)
The following day, he claimed he doesn't know who the group is.
On the one hand, that simply isn't true. On the other, if it were true, then it would demonstrate extreme incompetence for a president running on a "law and order" platform.
Or it would be just plain weird that he would say that to some organization he knew nothing about.
So we learned that Donald Trump is either a white supremacist, incompetent, or really weird. They are not mutually exclusive, of course.
Masking the truth
We learned that Donald Trump thinks "masks are okay". Yet when Biden mentioned that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said wearing masks through the end of the year could prevent 100,000 deaths, the president of the United States said "And they've also said the opposite."
Aside from the fact that there's no evidence of the CDC presently saying the opposite, what exactly is "the opposite" of that anyway?
And we learned he has even more magic powers than we previously thought. We already knew he could be running the government all by himself if he didn't need to play so much golf.
And, as he said, "I'm the one that brought back football.... It was me and I'm very happy to do it."
But now he's also gonna bring us all a coronavirus vaccine before year's end, even though the nation's top experts say it won't happen at least until the middle of next year. But we learned that Trump has "spoken to all of the people that you have to speak to," and the only thing delaying it is "people like this would rather make it political than save lives."
When you point 1 small finger at someone, 3 are pointing at you
The president of the United States refused to acknowledge that global warming is to blame for the rash of fires that have been burning in the west. We learned from him that the problem is California's forest management because "the forest floors are loaded up with trees, dead trees that are years old."
Apparently he hasn't learned - among other things - that well over half of California's forest is owned by the federal government. California owns only 3 percent. The rest is privately owned. Oops.
Blame goes for judges, too
We learned that Trump was unhappy with the Obama administration because "when you leave office, you don't leave any judges... if you left us 128 openings you can't be a good president."
One thing we did not learn from this president of the United States is the reason why.
Watch out for election, Trump warns
And then we learned what Trump was telling the Proud Boys to stand by for. When asked if he will urge his supporters to stay calm while the election results are being tabulated and certified, the president of the United States replied that he's urging them "to go in to the polls and watch very carefully ... they're called poll watchers, a very safe, very nice thing."
What exactly are they going to watch? Actually, it's called intimidation, and it's illegal. And safe for who?
They say Trump's a bully. He taught us they're right
Lastly, we learned that those who call Trump a bully aren't doing it because they suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome. They do it because the president of the United States is a hateful baboon who came to hurl his feces at a man who actually came to explain his case as to why he would make a better president.
We know of the countless interruptions, such as "Tell that to Nancy Pelosi", "If Pocahontas would have left two days early you would have lost every primary", "You probably play more (golf) than I do, Joe", and "He just lost the left".
He tried to compare their educations...
"But you agree. Joe, you're the liar. You graduated last in your class not first in your class. (Biden didn't mention Trump's education).
Speaking of discharges, he made sure to compare families also, taunting Biden that one of his sons was discharged from the Navy at least in part because because of a drug problem. The president of the United States did not mention how he was discharged from serving in the military.
And let me ask you something. If a fellow parent told you their child had drug problems, would your first inclination be to mock them? And what if you actually had some power to determine whether they received the mental health care they need?
Here's my suggestion
Maybe you still think Trump has better policies. That's fair to discuss.
But maybe you have no issue with his dishonesty, or worse. Maybe you even find his racism and threats of violence to be American. Maybe you even like he's a hollow shell of a clown.
If that's the case, then i really have just one thing to say to you. "Shut up, man."