Trump's Civil War analogy?

[kentuck]

He likes to quote the 600,000 deaths from the Civil War, as a way to minimize the present deaths from the CV-19. It's a rhetorical trick he possesses.

However, it might be more appropriate to compare it to the Vietnam War. People remember how that scarred our nation. There were 58,220 deaths in that one.

It was a tragedy.

[gordianot]

1. Physicians were still bleeding patients during the American Civil War.

Limited anesthesia, sterilization, no antibiotics, yes more died. Trumps lack of knowledge of history is real “It is something the likes of which we have never seen before, people just can’t believe it.”

[catbyte]

2. Trump is an idiot. Approximately 2% of Americans died in Civil War. That translates into 6.6M today

based on the latest estimate of the American population of 328M. Ask that fucking numbnuts if losing 6.6 million people would be acceptable.


I hate that I hate him so much. It's not good for my health.

[zonemaster]

3. Comparing a number or percentage is really immaterial

Trump just wants to use some sandbagged measure like that so he can say how great a job he did.

The only thing that matters is what and when Trump did something effective to minimize the inevitable impacts on Americans - physical, financial, whatever. Doesn't matter if the virus started in a Chinese wet market, a laboratory, or in old leftovers in the back of some dude's fridge. Doesn't matter if it started last September, last November or last week. If, from the very first whiff of there being the possibility of an emerging pandemic, he and all of his administration weren't working on all cylinders with 110% effort towards the goal of minimizing the effects to the American populace, then he's a flat out failure as a leader.

[Baked Potato]

4. Yep, ever the salesman selling his shtick.