MSNBC had an analyst who said COVID wasn't what took Trump down

[DLCWIdem]

The analyst said he won in all the places where COVID is surging. However that analysis is backward and flawed. Couldn't it be the other way around.
. Trump went to those places where he knew he had supporters and he thought he could win them with his rallies and brought COVID with him. And those places are disporportionately not using masks.

[tanyev]

1. FWIW, I agree with you 100%.

[Ms. Toad]

2. The analyst is stupid.

It is absolutely predictable that the Trump cult, which adopted his disdain for masks, will have much higher COVID rates because masks prevent the transmission.

He only visited a handful of places, relatively speaking, so the rallies are a bonus means of spread.

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. Trump won where covid is surging because his base are covidiots

who think wearing a mask infringes on their freedom, so of course they're having more cases.

[M_Demo_M]

4. I think your analysis is spot on

and makes much more sense than MSNBC's. There's a correlation to be sure, but they jumped to the wrong conclusion.

[unblock]

5. Yes if that was their analysis, that's pretty facile.

COVID is surging in states Donnie won for a common reason -- they listen to and support donnie. They voted for him and they behave recklessly regarding COVID.

The real question is what happened in battleground states.

Did covid cost him votes in those states, say, because people who might have otherwise voted for him finally had enough of him due to his lethal incompetence?

Or did covid help him, say because people who might have voted against him weren't able to because they were afraid to vote in person and didn't bother to do the paperwork for mail-in, or they missed a deadline, or they were physically unable due to being in the hospital or, in some cases, actually died from covid.

I think it's some of both, the question is which effect was larger in the key states. I suspect it cost him on the whole, but it's not entirely clear.

Of course, who knows what might have happened absent covid. We might have had a recession anyway, and without the covid excuse, that might have play out poorly for Donnie.

[Disaffected]

6. Said analyst needs

a lesson in correlation vs causation.

[BlueWavePsych]

7. Ditto.

[Hortensis]

8. He told those people what they wanted to hear, that all would

be fine. Biden told them to be ready for dark days. And, as someone pointed out, the grieving people with empty chairs Biden spoke of are very few compared to the whole. Yes, 250 thousand dead, but out of 328 million. It's not coming home to most.

Someone else was pointing out that distrust of both media and pollsters is especially high in those areas. They don't believe what they're told, and they often lie to pollsters IF they answer at all, and higher numbers do refuse to participate, resulting in skewed polls.

Those are a couple I remember from discussion about why Covid didn't cause more people to turn to someone who'd stop the pandemic. Oh, and a lot of people see the pandemic as an unfortunate event that Trump isn't responsible for.

[judeling]

9. Covid didn't take Trump down.

If it wasn't Covid it would have been something else. Covid shaped the campaign but probably didn't effect the election all that much. That is the result of the extreme polarization.

It could be argued that Covid helped Trump as it essentially overwhelmed the issue set.

[snowybirdie]

11. They seem

to have the "C" team on today. All the good guests are exhausted and/or hungover.

[Quixote1818]

12. If he had handled it right it would have helped him because the Nation rallies around the leader

when a tragedy hits. But he fucked it up so it did do a bit of damage ONLY because of his response.

[blogslut]

13. I live in one of those places

It's redder than all of y'all.

We're at a 30% hospitalization rate. 95% of our city services have closed to the public. We've run out of ICU space. I've watched the death toll go from zero, to one a week, to one a day, to 4-5 a day.

I've left the confines of my apartment complex exactly 6 times since March. 3 to vote (there was a runoff) and once on my damned birthday.

My district voted for the monster that did this to them by obscene margins and he didn't even come here.

[Hortensis]

14. He was right that he could shoot someone on the street

without losing votes. He didn't say he could be responsible for a quarter million deaths that didn't have to be, but that turned out to be the case. They chose to believe it was just a natural event he couldn't stop. Against all evidence.

[blogslut]

15. I can't explain it

I just can't. I grew up here just like them and I don't think like that.

[Hortensis]

16. You're not an authoritarian eager for a strongman to

give over the burden of responsibility in a democracy to a strongman. One who'll also gratifyingly smite those who so unreasonably don't respect your decisions. Then there's the little issue of bigotry.

I've read that the percentages who behave that way are fluid, with more looking for a strong leader to protect them in scary times, but that there are this many behaving that way...as you say.

[intrepidity]

17. I don't understand your post title nt

[DLCWIdem]

19. Sorry I just realized i forgot a word. Took Trump down

[Buckeye_Democrat]

18. I agree with your take on it.

Trump supporters' refusal to take the pandemic seriously caused their higher infection rates.

Higher infection rates didn't create Trump voters!