Trump has been a terrific president

This will raise a few eyebrows:

Trump Cheers ‘Terrific’ Rise in COVID Cases During Off-The-Rails Vaccine Summit . . .

But after a few minutes of touting the success of Operation Warp Speed, his address morphed into an unspooling of grievances over the election outcome as well as an unfounded assertion that the rising number COVID-19 cases across the country was, in fact, a “terrific” development.

“I hear we’re close to 15 percent. I’m hearing that, and that’s terrific,” Trump said of the percentage of Americans who have contracted COVID-19.

Yes, it’s “terrific” news that the death rate from Covid has shot up to 3,000/day right before the vaccine is being rolled out.

“Horrific” hasn’t changed over the centuries. It was first recorded in English in 1653, the OED says, and still has its original meaning: “causing horror, horrifying.”

But “terrific” is a different story. This adjective originally meant “causing terror, terrifying; terrible, frightful; stirring, awe-inspiring; sublime.”


Tags:

 
 
 

37 Responses to “Trump has been a terrific president”

  1. Gravatar of xu xu
    9. December 2020 at 11:49

    More Medical Tyranny propaganda from Scott “CCP” Sumner.

    1. 1% fatality rate (or less).
    2. Mostly elderly and fat fucks are at risk

    Do we shut down schools, force businesses to go bankrupt, and hold the hands of fat fucks and elderly when the flu season arrives each winter?

    No, we don’t. And we should never permit loser apparatchiks and academics to use medicine as a means to tyranny.

    Fat people are not my problem.
    Old people are not my problem.

    Trump is both old and fat. He survived.

    If you are old, and disgustingly fat, then your fatality rate is slightly higher than 1%. You should take the necessary precaution and keep your fat old ass at home. Take novel drugs if you must. But don’t issue mandates telling others what they must do.

    Empathy is NOT always a good thing. Too much empathy destroys liberty (overprotective).

    The solution cannot be worse than the problem folks.

  2. Gravatar of henry henry
    9. December 2020 at 12:46

    https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1322982816401952768

    James Woods speaks the Truth.

    Biden will never be President. WE THE PEOPLE will never permit that to happen.

    I love Texas. Home of the Alamo. Home of Davy Crocket, Jim Bowie, and Sam Houston. They have never stopped fighting for freedom.

    Everything is BIG in Texas. Even the lawsuits!

  3. Gravatar of sarah sarah
    9. December 2020 at 14:02

    I admire Texas’s courage and leadership, but this is not just Texas. 17 states have now filed an amicus brief.

    And for every CCP funded constitutional attorney receiving air time, claiming this is all just a publicity stunt, there are 10 more constitutional attorney’s receiving no air time that say the case has merit.

    The states were the original signatories to the electoral college. As such, they have “standing” that individual voters and parties don’t have. Furthermore, the Supreme Court doesn’t have to get involved in alleged fraud – they can simply focus on the constitutional merits of Article I, Sect IV, and Article 14.

    The case has already been placed on the docket which is a great sign.

  4. Gravatar of jayne jayne
    9. December 2020 at 14:30

    GOD BLESS TEXAS!

  5. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    9. December 2020 at 14:42

    Trumpistas, You guys are great!!!! Y’all come back here next Monday, and we’ll celebrate Trump’s BIG WIN in the Electoral College vote.

  6. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    9. December 2020 at 15:18

    @ssumner: It’s not y’all. It’s one Trumpy troll.

  7. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    9. December 2020 at 15:31

    Xu, I know you’re not arguing in good faith anyway, but it should still be said: Comparisons between the flu and COVID make no sense and we can see this in practice: we have flu season every year and yet it doesn’t kill hundreds of thousands of people and never strains the capacity of the healthcare system.

    We can argue about so many other points here (e.g. your complete lack of empathy, ignoring the fact that a massive % of the US is obese, the fact that completely healthy people can still have very serious outcomes, that economies suffered in places that didn’t mandate any form of social distancing because people were afraid and took matters into their own hands, etc.) but the reality is that we are again nearing ICU capacity all over the US and in many countries.

    Ignoring any concerns for others or even one’s older relatives, if I get into a car accident tomorrow (unlikely since I rarely have anywhere to go) or have another form of accident (more likely since such a high % happens at home) I would like there to be an ICU bed for me, which will not be the case if this continues. But more fundamentally at that point it becomes almost impossible for governments and people not to take action and just watch the healthcare system fall apart.

    Finally, I have talked to enough overwhelmed doctors and while I don’t necessarily trust their views on every single aspect of this pandemic (they are not experts on that) I certainly do trust them about their experiences with the disease and how exhausted and overwhelmed they are.

    It is infuriating we are still using lockdowns to address this virus and that we’ve failed to take all the other measures that could’ve kept it under control while allowing a greater semblance of normal, but that doesn’t make any of the other claims true.

  8. Gravatar of John John
    9. December 2020 at 15:35

    I never comment but enjoy reading your posts. As msgkings says, your blog comments appear to have been taken over by some form of troll or bot recently. It’s stifling actual discussion which is a shame (I enjoy the comments, not just the blog). Would be great if you can find a way to block it.

  9. Gravatar of rinat rinat
    9. December 2020 at 15:42

    All of these cases were brought before the election, but were turned away by due to “laches”. Laches were used to circumvent the law, despite the trial court ruling in favor of the Trump campaign (October).

    When the lawsuit was brought again afterwards, the communist democrat party claims that he is now trying to “steal the election” and therefore laches should be evoked again.

    If you cannot bring a lawsuit before or lawsuit after, then when can one bring suit?

    This Amicus brief filed by constitutional attorneys is beautifully crafted. States have standing. And the supreme court MUST hear the case.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22O155/163248/20201209163606702_TX%20v.%20PA%20Motion%20and%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf

  10. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    9. December 2020 at 17:02

    “Yes, it’s “terrific” news that the death rate from Covid has shot up to 3,000/day right before the vaccine is being rolled out.”

    Scott, why lie? 1,500 deaths a day but closer to 1,000 deaths a day if the CDC didn’t redefine what a death is.

  11. Gravatar of bob bob
    9. December 2020 at 17:28

    American patriots will never surrender to the communist regime of Scott “CCP” Sumner, Joe “corrupt” Biden, and Cabala “Communist” Harris.

    Sumner is already hearing the footsteps of lady liberty.

    He’s rattled. He’s nervous. And he’s lashing out.

    We refuse to be collective cyborg entities, controlled by micro chips.

    We’re Human. And we’re coming!

  12. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    9. December 2020 at 18:21

    Scott,

    Wow, once again, Trump AND the comment section swiftly self-annihilate, metaphorically speaking. The bot named Xu in particular has a real gift for that.

  13. Gravatar of micha micha
    9. December 2020 at 20:13

    Many important philosophical questions must be answered if the United States is to recapture its unity and past glory.

    If we believe in the individual and the community, which historically has been true, then mandates from afar will be viewed unconstitutionally. If we believe in the collective, and set aside all motions for individualism, then such mandates will be viewed more favorably.

    Most of these current state mandates do have devastating economic consequences. One can view these as necessary for the health and safety of the citizenry, or, one can view such policy as infringing on basic liberty.

    If one get’s the virus and dies, who is responsible? Is the individual responsible? Is the government responsible? Is the virus responsible? And what role should a government play during times of crisis? Should governments simply ascertain and provide medical information, as opposed to acting on such information.

    What is just?

    Trumps comments are no different than the comments made by many medical scientists, 10,000 of whom signed the Great Barrington Declaration. Are 10,000 medical scientists wrong? Are you qualified to tell them they are wrong? Do you think if 10,000 scientists advocate for a position that Trump supports that this makes Trump “terrible” or “evil”.

    These are important questions that people need to answer before blindly advocating policy positions. They are deeply philosophical, and incredibly complex.

  14. Gravatar of bob bob
    9. December 2020 at 20:31

    Sumner is secretly part of the Bilderberg group. The new globalist regime will force humanity to transform into a Borg collective, while new kings live bacchanalian lives with their underage sex slaves.

    They are secretly emasculating men through Atrazine witch even turns the frogs gay. Biden’s “build back better” is the WEF term for Klaus Schwab’s great reset that will introduce a communist future and orwellian dystopia.

  15. Gravatar of janice janice
    9. December 2020 at 21:46

    Here is low IQ John Brennan this evening:

    ||||| “Those who continue to deny & fight against the election of Joe Biden are advocating for authoritarianism. They want their bully dictator to remain in power. Full stop.

    Yes, democracy is messy & at times uncomfortable, but, as oft quoted, it beats all the alternatives.” |||||

    Since when is fighting for election integrity authoritarian? Apparently low IQ Brennan fails to grasp that authoritarians tend to do shady things during election – like, I don’t know – have vans drop off ballots at 3am?

    Wanting election integrity is not authoritarianism folks. Election integrity preserves democracy.

  16. Gravatar of nick nick
    9. December 2020 at 22:02

    https://twitter.com/redwins3_first/status/1336556480003182593

    Michigan senator threatens American patriots who voted for Trump. Asks the military on Facebook – who btw is majority republican – to kill us all.

    Interestingly, Facebook won’t ban her for that video, but will ban people like Alex Jones for his “conspiracy theories”.

    Democrats are mentally ill. Not sure if it’s little red books in school, corporate classes, or a combination of MSNBC, CNN and NYT, but they are not thinking clearly.

    Neither is Bob by the way. Bob, I’m pretty sure Scott Sumner is not part of the Bilderberg group or turning frogs gay, lol.

  17. Gravatar of J Mann J Mann
    10. December 2020 at 06:34

    In church, I occasionally hear “awesome” or “dreadful” used in their old timey meanings, typically in old translations or songs. It’s always a bit of a shock.

    The article suggests that Trump meant that increasing infection rates are bringing us closer to herd immunity. The idea that we want to reach herd immunity the hard way just a few months before we get a vaccine is, well, awesome and dreadful.

  18. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    10. December 2020 at 12:01

    msgkings, I am referring to their multiple personalities.

    John, Let’s see if they show up after Trump loses.

    Todd, LOL, still in denial.

    mbka, It’s possible that all of these commenters are actually Trump himself. The style is quite similar.

  19. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    10. December 2020 at 12:10

    The Texas filing is excellent—it won’t change who is president but it will attempt to lessen the probability of us becoming a banana republic. I cannot believe that the biggest election story in our life time and longer is merely considered Trump’s tail.

    As far as flu is concerned–we don’t die of flu anymore. CDC has had a fixed number of 6800 for months—what is that about?

    In NJ, if you leave for more than a day you are quarantined for a week.Yet its death rate is 1/7th its 2 month peak in the spring

    Deaths are rising no doubt—at the current rate 12 month death rate will be 12% above “expected” fo year ending 2/1/20. That seems like a lot. But whatever we should be doing—we are not doing it.

    Since we are not doing it—–why do we keep screwing with the 8% of the work force—and just make it worse for them? I wonder what the over under on approving the vaccine will be? meaning trying to do max.

    What happens when Trump and Covid are gone? I hope we have not just created a vaccum which needs to be filled.

  20. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    10. December 2020 at 12:25

    “Todd, LOL, still in denial.”

    About what? You wrote that there are now 3,000 Covid-19 deaths a day when the previous seven days were:

    2,700
    2,400
    2,300
    1,100
    1,700
    2,600
    3,100

    That average is 2,200 a day. In late March, The C.D.C. expanded its decades old recommendation to doctors how to fill out a death certificate, and we know based on audits in Colorado and Florida that there has been over-counting these deaths by at least 25% so closer to 1,400 to 1,600 a day the past seven days.

  21. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    10. December 2020 at 12:28

    @Todd K:

    You’ve been minimizing and downplaying Covid for months. Just stop.

  22. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    10. December 2020 at 12:36

    Anonymous wrote: “we have flu season every year and yet it doesn’t kill hundreds of thousands of people and never strains the capacity of the healthcare system.”

    This is at the Scott level of ignorance. Almost no one knew about the 80,000 Americans who died in the 2017/2018 season, which would be much higher if tested and classified as Covid-19 has been, until later in 2018 if they heard about at all. Time magazine did report on hospitals being overwhelmed as happens in many flu seasons but don’t make the national news. (In the UK, it has often been a national story.)

    “Hospitals Overwhelmed by Flu Patients Are Treating Them in Tents”

    Time, Jan 8, 2018

    “The 2017-2018 influenza epidemic is sending people to hospitals and urgent-care centers in every state, and medical centers are responding with extraordinary measures: asking staff to work overtime, setting up triage tents, restricting friends and family visits and canceling elective surgeries, to name a few.”

    https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/

  23. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    10. December 2020 at 12:40

    “@Todd K:

    You’ve been minimizing and downplaying Covid for months. Just stop.”

    Yeah, b.s. I haven’t downplayed a thing. There is something known as “reality” about Covid-19 that neither you nor Scott have had a handle on this year. In general, the per capita death toll and average age of death has been similar to the pandemics in 1957/58 and 1968/69. I don’t down play those either, but my guess is that you had no clue that 80,000 Americans were dying of the flu in 2017/2018 in the spring of 2018.

  24. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    10. December 2020 at 14:25

    Todd Kreider, I still find the idea of someone commenting on a blog and regularly insulting the author to be very strange. If you find Scott to be ignorant why are you here?

    Anyway, as far as flu vs. COVID how are we STILL having this discussion? The number you cite for the flu a) seems to be the highest it had been in decades, b) is a tragedy, c) looks to have actually been slightly lower, d) is roughly ¼ of the COVID deaths we’ve had so far and that is with pretty extreme measures in effect. (Source for a and c: https://www.capradio.org/articles/2020/05/05/tom-mcclintock-claimed-the-flu-killed-80000-americans-last-year-heres-why-thats-misleading/) Also the hospitalization rate for the flu is much lower and the fatality rate goes up massively as hospitals get overwhelmed, though we do fortunately have it under control much more.

    I like to be a contrarian about as much as the next person who regularly reads a contrarian blog on monetary policy but while there are lots of things that should’ve been done differently (better travel bans early on, masks worn earlier, different approaches to vaccine testing, much more testing, higher quality masks emphasized, etc. etc.) I don’t buy the argument that we should’ve just all pretended that everything is fine and this is no big deal. However, if you do have such a view it’s absurd to call people who disagree with that view ignorant of reality.

  25. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    10. December 2020 at 15:22

    “If you find Scott to be ignorant why are you here?”

    Just about the pandemic!

    The 80,000 number is low because there was no “with the flu” death counting then as Nobel laureate Michael Levitt pointed out.

    The hospitalization rate isn’t the same because the definition of a hospitalization changed as well and recently changed again. A person who gets into a car accident yet has tested positive for Covid-19 is a Covid-19 hospitalization, and there are a huge number of false positives because states are PCR testing way beyond the recommended sensitivity (37 to 43) of 25 to 32. From October, “observations” where there was no hospitalization are considered hospitalizations. You are missing some important details about the pandemic.

    “I don’t buy the argument that we should’ve just all pretended that everything is fine and this is no big deal.”

    An obvious straw man. Try not to be a Cathy Newman.

  26. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    10. December 2020 at 15:33

    As Levitt pointed out, in the EU, there have been 33% more Covid-19 deaths this year than influenza deaths during the 2017/2018 season yet only Covid-19 has had mass lockdowns twice. Lockdowns haven’t worked as Fauci said earlier this year.

  27. Gravatar of bob bob
    10. December 2020 at 15:56

    Total domination of communist libtards coming soon at US supreme court.

    And Nick, all you have to do is google atrazine. Many studies show it turns frog gay. Its in the tap water. Sumner is part of a grand communist conspiracy to turn us into human cyborg slaves. He is in bed with Klaus Schwab and the great reset.

  28. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    10. December 2020 at 16:05

    Todd,

    You are actually claiming that there are significantly more than 80,000 flu deaths a year and that we just aren’t noticing? This seems like a surprising claim that is worth investigating. The COVID section on Michael Levitt’s Wikipedia article does not inspire a lot confidence.

    Claims of deaths being misattributed to COVID have been going around for a while and there’s been little evidence of this being a widespread phenomenon rather than isolated incidents. Do you have a link that shows that describes what is supposedly going on with hospitalizations? Otherwise it’s hard to even begin evaluating this.

    I had no idea who Cathy Newman was until I googled her and it doesn’t seem relevant. I am not familiar with your suggestion on what it is we should be doing about COVID – I assume it’s described in comments on other blog posts here – but so far the “facts” you’ve mentioned seem highly dubious and outside the mainstream so some (epistemic) humility seems appropriate.

    Also, on the EU flu vs. COVID deaths (which I didn’t check) one of those is without measures taken while the other is with extreme measures taken. One can debate how much worse the situation would be without measures but citing stats like that without taking that into consideration doesn’t really make sense.

  29. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    10. December 2020 at 16:06

    Todd,

    You are actually claiming that there are significantly more than 80,000 flu deaths a year and that we just aren’t noticing? This seems like a surprising claim that is worth investigating. The COVID section on Michael Levitt’s Wikipedia article does not inspire a lot confidence.

    Claims of deaths being misattributed to COVID have been going around for a while and there’s been little evidence of this being a widespread phenomenon rather than isolated incidents. Do you have a link that shows that describes what is supposedly going on with hospitalizations? Otherwise it’s hard to even begin evaluating this.

    I had no idea who Cathy Newman was until I googled her and it doesn’t seem relevant. I am not familiar with your suggestion on what it is we should be doing about COVID – I assume it’s described in comments on other blog posts here – but so far the “facts” you’ve mentioned seem highly dubious and outside the mainstream so some (epistemic) humility seems appropriate.

    Also, on the EU flu vs. COVID deaths (which I didn’t check) one of those is without measures taken while the other is with extreme measures taken. One can debate how much worse the situation would be without measures but citing stats like that without taking that into consideration doesn’t really make sense.

    Here is a fun quote from Michael Levitt:
    TSD: What is your prediction for when the rest of the world will reach a peak number of deaths?
    ML: Something between eight and 14 weeks.

  30. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    10. December 2020 at 16:40

    Michael, That’s a lot of conspiracy theorizing to pack into one post. Do you enjoy doing that sort of thing? How about adding UFOs and the JFK assassination?

    Todd, It would be amusing to see you go to one of those hospitals in the Dakotas and explain to the overworked nurses that it’s not much worse than the flu. They see that every year in flu season! LOL.

  31. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    10. December 2020 at 17:08

    @msgkings

    “@ssumner: It’s not y’all. It’s one Trumpy troll.”

    That’s exactly what I was thinking! Lol. You beat me to it.

  32. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    10. December 2020 at 20:58

    Good one Scott. Be Barbra Walters and tell me to go to a South Dakota hospital instead of looking at science which says Covid-19 is 40 percent worse than the flu.

  33. Gravatar of Todd K Todd K
    10. December 2020 at 21:02

    That is, the CDC claims that the Covid-19 infection fatality rate is 40 percent more than the flu.

  34. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    10. December 2020 at 22:00

    Todd,

    Do you have a link for that claim? Here is a link to a WHO doc claiming 0.1% IFR for the flu. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200306-sitrep-46-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=96b04adf_4

    But more significantly it’s not about IFR, it’s about hospitalization rates which are far higher and lead to overwhelmed healthcare systems. This was another one of those arguments some people were making in February when it made some sense to be unclear about this – but I’m sure you must be aware of it now if you’re interested in this topic.

    If you are so sure that so many people are so fundamentally wrong about this issue then you should be able to properly explain and address their arguments rather than ignoring the most basic critiques.

    And of course one can verify that hospitals are overwhelmed – even if some selective reading of some data says that they shouldn’t be.

  35. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    10. December 2020 at 22:52

    Where are the overwhelmed hospitals? There are 5,000 hospitals in America so which ones are being overwhelmed?

  36. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    11. December 2020 at 14:58

    Todd, I’m sure you’ll find something wrong with each of these but here’s some examples, from a variety of sources:

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/09/us/covid-hospitals-icu-capacity.html
    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/16/pandemic-states-virus-rebound-429753
    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/all-hospitals-are-full-houston-overwhelmed-icus-leave-covid-19-n1233430
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-covid-19-patients-stretch-hospitals-some-doctors-ration-intensive-care-11607022592

    And even in Sweden:
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/10/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/#link-OZH4W5E7VBAXDHOTXIPBDMRTSI

  37. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    12. December 2020 at 14:41

    Todd, You said:

    “That is, the CDC claims that the Covid-19 infection fatality rate is 40 percent more than the flu.”

    Covid would kill a million Americans without social distancing.

Leave a Reply