Do you feel sorry for Trump?

[The Righteous Tip of the Abundance Spear]

If you believe certain people are "deserving" of getting COVID-19, then this kind of thought pattern is ultimately where you end-up.  Such moralising condescension is the tune of America's elite media (NYT was smart enough to change the headline to something less provocative on their website, but the editorial text is the original.)

Everyone is a "victim of circumstance" during a pandemic because catching a virus is a probabilistic event.  A reduction in risk exposure is its own reward, not a moral signal of one's "worthiness" to be infected/spared.  If you believe it is, then what does that imply if Trump is able to recover fully and quickly?

Note:  I'm not coming at JD specifically, but the moralising epithets are quite tiresome and inane. 

I still have no idea what you're talking about. I said that I don't feel bad for Trump because he deliberately spread misinformation about this virus for months. This means he was not a "victim of circumstance," because a great deal of the circumstances contributing to his infection were totally within his control. What about this is difficult for you to understand?

[Free Speech Enjoyer]

I would not and do not wish this disease on anyone, though it is hard to have sympathy for an official whose initial public response was to treat COVID like the flu and misinform the public with phony preventatives and cures. Granted, his response wasn't as bad as Bolsonaro's, whom I'm pretty sure truly believed that this was a flu outbreak and therefore took no precautions whatsoever, but Trump did very little to protect himself and the people around him and now this is where we are.

Do I wish for Trump, or anybody else, to suffer? No, and if I could wave my magic wand and save him (and hundreds of thousands of others) from enduring the same kind of suffering that countless other people were forced to experience as a result of his mishandling of the pandemic, I would. But I also struggle to "feel sorry" for someone who should have known that they were playing with fire.

Hopefully Trump learns from what he's going through and we can expect a better response from him until he leaves office, whether that's January of 2021 or 2025.

[Del Tachi]

If you believe certain people are "deserving" of getting COVID-19, then this kind of thought pattern is ultimately where you end-up.  Such moralising condescension is the tune of America's elite media (NYT was smart enough to change the headline to something less provocative on their website, but the editorial text is the original.)

Everyone is a "victim of circumstance" during a pandemic because catching a virus is a probabilistic event.  A reduction in risk exposure is its own reward, not a moral signal of one's "worthiness" to be infected/spared.  If you believe it is, then what does that imply if Trump is able to recover fully and quickly?

Note:  I'm not coming at JD specifically, but the moralising epithets are quite tiresome and inane. 

I still have no idea what you're talking about. I said that I don't feel bad for Trump because he deliberately spread misinformation about this virus for months. This means he was not a "victim of circumstance," because a great deal of the circumstances contributing to his infection were totally within his control. What about this is difficult for you to understand?

A great deal of the circumstances contributing to anyone's infection (I suppose) could be totally inside of their control, so the fact that Jahana Hayes, Joe Cunningham, Mike DeWine, Kwame Raoul or Keisha Lance Bottoms (the subject of my OP) aren't being similarly ridiculed about getting COVID-19 demonstrates a double-standard.

You can have an issue with President Trump's COVID response, but him getting the virus himself doesn't *prove anything about the merit of his policies in itself.  If you (like many posters here do) act like Trump deserves his COVID-19 diagnosis, then you're evil and have read the pandemic to act as some kind of God-like, redistributive moral equalizer rather than a random natural event.   

[Calthrina950]

No, I feel contempt for Trump, but for a different reason:

If Trump, who is already being hospitalized as I type this, does in fact succumb to covid, then that would make the US the only wealthy nation whose head of state has died from this epidemic. That will be an indelible international humiliation of the US, and it would be entirely his fault.

Moreover, we haven't had a President die in office in almost sixty years, since JFK was assassinated in 1963. So that would be an alarming historical milestone, in and of itself. This whole situation has truly revealed to me that this country contains a large number of ignorant, uncaring, and evil people-who will willingly jeopardize the lives and fortunes of others, and who will not respond seriously to crises of this magnitude. And Trump, unfortunately, is one of them.

Did you know, LBJ actually spent the last two weeks of his presidency in bed with a bout of pandemic influenza?  Probably not, even though the 1968-69 flu pandemic killed over 100k Americans (maybe >3 million worldwide).  Good thing we have no historical precedents for COVID-19

I actually did not know this, although I'm aware of the Hong Kong flu pandemic, and I'm aware of the arguments which have been raised concerning this. Again, I know that you believe the response to this pandemic, as it has been conducted by Trump, has been a fine one, and that we have overreacted to this. I would agree that the media has sensationalized many aspects of the virus (which isn't surprising, given the profit motive that they have), and I've been critical of the measures taken by several of our Governors-such as Whitmer-in response to this. But I also don't subscribe to the line of thought that we should have done absolutely nothing in response to this, and I certainly don't think that Trump has taken this seriously enough.

[The Righteous Tip of the Abundance Spear]

If you believe certain people are "deserving" of getting COVID-19, then this kind of thought pattern is ultimately where you end-up.  Such moralising condescension is the tune of America's elite media (NYT was smart enough to change the headline to something less provocative on their website, but the editorial text is the original.)

Everyone is a "victim of circumstance" during a pandemic because catching a virus is a probabilistic event.  A reduction in risk exposure is its own reward, not a moral signal of one's "worthiness" to be infected/spared.  If you believe it is, then what does that imply if Trump is able to recover fully and quickly?

Note:  I'm not coming at JD specifically, but the moralising epithets are quite tiresome and inane. 

I still have no idea what you're talking about. I said that I don't feel bad for Trump because he deliberately spread misinformation about this virus for months. This means he was not a "victim of circumstance," because a great deal of the circumstances contributing to his infection were totally within his control. What about this is difficult for you to understand?

A great deal of the circumstances contributing to anyone's infection (I suppose) could be totally inside of their control, so the fact that Jahana Hayes, Joe Cunningham, Mike DeWine, Kwame Raoul or Keisha Lance Bottoms (the subject of my OP) aren't being similarly ridiculed about getting COVID-19 demonstrates a double-standard.

You can have an issue with President Trump's COVID response, but him getting the virus himself doesn't *prove anything about the merit of his policies in itself.  If you (like many posters here do) act like Trump deserves his COVID-19 diagnosis, then you're evil and have read the pandemic to act as some kind of God-like, redistributive moral equalizer rather than a random natural event.   

Haha, religious people are so bad at thinking outside of the framework of spiritual morality and faith. Saying that I don't feel sorry for Trump because he was in a unique position to do something about the virus does not entail treating the virus like a cosmic moral equalizer. This is a really bad argument and I don't understand why you're persisting with it.

[Del Tachi]

If you believe certain people are "deserving" of getting COVID-19, then this kind of thought pattern is ultimately where you end-up.  Such moralising condescension is the tune of America's elite media (NYT was smart enough to change the headline to something less provocative on their website, but the editorial text is the original.)

Everyone is a "victim of circumstance" during a pandemic because catching a virus is a probabilistic event.  A reduction in risk exposure is its own reward, not a moral signal of one's "worthiness" to be infected/spared.  If you believe it is, then what does that imply if Trump is able to recover fully and quickly?

Note:  I'm not coming at JD specifically, but the moralising epithets are quite tiresome and inane.  

I still have no idea what you're talking about. I said that I don't feel bad for Trump because he deliberately spread misinformation about this virus for months. This means he was not a "victim of circumstance," because a great deal of the circumstances contributing to his infection were totally within his control. What about this is difficult for you to understand?

A great deal of the circumstances contributing to anyone's infection (I suppose) could be totally inside of their control, so the fact that Jahana Hayes, Joe Cunningham, Mike DeWine, Kwame Raoul or Keisha Lance Bottoms (the subject of my OP) aren't being similarly ridiculed about getting COVID-19 demonstrates a double-standard.

You can have an issue with President Trump's COVID response, but him getting the virus himself doesn't *prove anything about the merit of his policies in itself.  If you (like many posters here do) act like Trump deserves his COVID-19 diagnosis, then you're evil and have read the pandemic to act as some kind of God-like, redistributive moral equalizer rather than a random natural event.  

Haha, religious people are so bad at thinking outside of the framework of spiritual morality and faith. Saying that I don't feel sorry for Trump because he was in a unique position to do something about the virus does not entail treating the virus like a cosmic moral equalizer. This is a really bad argument and I don't understand why you're persisting with it.

Lol, maybe this sort of attitude doesn’t apply directly to you but takes like the Bruni article and a lot of language around the pandemic proves it does exist.  If people think Trump “deserves” to get COVID-19, then the virus becomes this weird moral equalizer (and what logically follows from that view when Trump probably makes a full recovery?)

You’re suffering from the #1 problem that atheists and libertarians exhibit, JD - learn that not everything is about you

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

Trump was always an underdog in the 278 blue wall even before Covid, D's won them back in 2018 and KS Gov, Covid expanded the battleground

[The Righteous Tip of the Abundance Spear]

Lol, maybe this sort of attitude doesn’t apply directly to you but takes like the Bruni article and a lot of language around the pandemic proves it does exist.  If people think Trump “deserves” to get COVID-19, then the virus becomes this weird moral equalizer (and what logically follows from that view when Trump probably makes a full recovery?)

You still are not making sense. Why does arguing that Trump deserves to get COVID necessitate a belief in the virus as a moral equalizer? Literally nobody has made that claim. You're simply projecting your own superstitions onto others without realizing that not everybody thinks the way you do. One can say that somebody "deserves" something without believing in universal moral laws, God, or other illusions.

[Free Speech Enjoyer]

Trump is back at the White House now and so he clearly is not suffering, or at least not suffering enough to want to continue his treatment at Walter Reed instead of acting as a human super-speader and getting photographed.

So no, no I do not feel sorry for Donald Trump.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Nope and especially not after this latest stunt where he is putting WH staff at health risk

[Del Tachi]

Lol, maybe this sort of attitude doesn’t apply directly to you but takes like the Bruni article and a lot of language around the pandemic proves it does exist.  If people think Trump “deserves” to get COVID-19, then the virus becomes this weird moral equalizer (and what logically follows from that view when Trump probably makes a full recovery?)

You still are not making sense. Why does arguing that Trump deserves to get COVID necessitate a belief in the virus as a moral equalizer? Literally nobody has made that claim. You're simply projecting your own superstitions onto others without realizing that not everybody thinks the way you do. One can say that somebody "deserves" something without believing in universal moral laws, God, or other illusions.

No, because that's literally what "to deserve" something means, even under a rudimentary dictionary definition.  Situations or circumstances that befall "deserving" individuals are necessarily morally-restorative rewards or punishments.  So, if you don't believe in God or some other kind of prescriptive morality then this idea of Trump "deserving" COVID doesn't make any sense.  Inherent in someone "deserving" something is a moral judgement.  Why are you too dense to concede that?

Now, ever since the dawn of this pandemic we've been subjected ad nauseum to takes on the special ethical or moral considerations imposed by COVID-19:  "your mask protects me, my mask protects you;" the ethics of sharing/distributing PPE, ventilators, a vaccine; etc.  These ethical judgements originate in our understanding of the pathogen itself, subjective value criteria on who/what is worth protecting from the pandemic and its associated fallout, and the scientific (as well as political) process of organizing knowledge for policy.  These considerations have been summed into a coherent "philosophy of life" for living in the COVID age, and the Bruni article is especially reeking of it.  It articulates the (I suspect widely) held belief that if Trump and his supporters had simply followed the virus' "rules" that they (and the rest of us) would be better-off for it.  That sort of belief does, like God, put the virus (or at least our subjective, political perception of it) into a position to dictate moral terms.   

[pbrower2a]

Lol, maybe this sort of attitude doesn’t apply directly to you but takes like the Bruni article and a lot of language around the pandemic proves it does exist.  If people think Trump “deserves” to get COVID-19, then the virus becomes this weird moral equalizer (and what logically follows from that view when Trump probably makes a full recovery?)

You still are not making sense. Why does arguing that Trump deserves to get COVID necessitate a belief in the virus as a moral equalizer? Literally nobody has made that claim. You're simply projecting your own superstitions onto others without realizing that not everybody thinks the way you do. One can say that somebody "deserves" something without believing in universal moral laws, God, or other illusions.

Putting unsuspecting, innocent others at grave risk through behavior widely seen as dangerous is often a violation of criminal law. Switching labels on medicines, gases, or chemical reagents would be in that category. The chemical laboratories are full of white powdery substances, colorless liquids, and clear gases. Giving nitrogen to someone who needs oxygen would be a serious and possibly fatal mistake.

[The Righteous Tip of the Abundance Spear]

Lol, maybe this sort of attitude doesn’t apply directly to you but takes like the Bruni article and a lot of language around the pandemic proves it does exist.  If people think Trump “deserves” to get COVID-19, then the virus becomes this weird moral equalizer (and what logically follows from that view when Trump probably makes a full recovery?)

You still are not making sense. Why does arguing that Trump deserves to get COVID necessitate a belief in the virus as a moral equalizer? Literally nobody has made that claim. You're simply projecting your own superstitions onto others without realizing that not everybody thinks the way you do. One can say that somebody "deserves" something without believing in universal moral laws, God, or other illusions.

No, because that's literally what "to deserve" something means, even under a rudimentary dictionary definition.  Situations or circumstances that befall "deserving" individuals are necessarily morally-restorative rewards or punishments.  So, if you don't believe in God or some other kind of prescriptive morality then this idea of Trump "deserving" COVID doesn't make any sense.  Inherent in someone "deserving" something is a moral judgement.  Why are you too dense to concede that?

One can make moral judgements as an individual without believing in objective morality, and one can say that somebody "deserves" something without believing in God. Acknowledging the subjective nature of morality doesn't automatically render the concept of ethics irrelevant. Similarly, I could argue that I believe Trump "deserves" prison time based on any number of moral and legal principles that do not involve praying to Jeebus (or whoever). Does this mean that prison is always a system that acts as a moral restorative? No, it depends on when it is used. These are not hard concepts to grasp, and I don't understand why you are still arguing about them. Again, your faith makes it impossible for you to conceive of a thought process outside of the Christian-normative morals you personally believe in.

Now, ever since the dawn of this pandemic we've been subjected ad nauseum to takes on the special ethical or moral considerations imposed by COVID-19:  "your mask protects me, my mask protects you;" the ethics of sharing/distributing PPE, ventilators, a vaccine; etc.  These ethical judgements originate in our understanding of the pathogen itself, subjective value criteria on who/what is worth protecting from the pandemic and its associated fallout, and the scientific (as well as political) process of organizing knowledge for policy.  These considerations have been summed into a coherent "philosophy of life" for living in the COVID age, and the Bruni article is especially reeking of it.  It articulates the (I suspect widely) held belief that if Trump and his supporters had simply followed the virus' "rules" that they (and the rest of us) would be better-off for it.  That sort of belief does, like God, put the virus (or at least our subjective, political perception of it) into a position to dictate moral terms.  

Haha, so just because we have to factor the virus into our daily decision-making, that means it's elevated to the level of God? Ok, Christian. I guess we have to consider other risks that we take precautions to avoid, like muggings, wasp nests, food poisoning, getting our hair stuck in the garbage disposal, and hitting ourselves in the face with a rake as deities too. Wow, this is quite a polytheistic world you're constructing for us! Just how in the heck does letting a potential risk affect our decision-making equate with elevating it to a God-like status?

Gosh, I'm a good Christian, so I think I'd better start driving drunk with no seatbelt on. Can't allow the risk of car accidents to supersede my morals! Better not allow that possibility dictate moral terms to me. Only God can do that!

[Calthrina950]

I'm not going to bog myself down into the complexities of moral argument, but I certainly don't think that the precautions we have been taking, or been advised to take, in response to the virus have been
"virtue-signaling" or "feel good" nonsense. Now, I don't like those people who proudly display their masks in their profile pictures, or who try to talk about mask-wearing or social distancing as becoming part of a "new normal." But I do recognize that taking these precautions will be a vital step to slowing the spread of the virus, reducing fatality rates, and maintaining hospital capacity until we have a vaccine. If we had adopted a completely laisses-faire approach to this, I suspect we would be in a much worse situation than we are currently.

[Wrong about 2024 Ghost]

No. He was always this stupid.


I feel bad for the people he has hurt and killed, and for those who suffer because Republicans made the choice to follow him. He's going to crash and burn and it will be entirely self-inflicted.

He's not going to crash because the virus suddenly came back and hit him hard. It's not going to be because the professionals at Walter Reed failed, or because of how he worked so superhumanly hard watching TV and tweeting. It's not any sort of conspiracy. It's going to be because he's a bullying moron with the world's worst case of Dunning-Kruger. And it's most certainly and terribly not limited COVID-19 and to the mass deaths he's caused.

He was an idiotic failure of a businessman and as a human being. The reality of his reality show show was him being a heavily-edited blowhard. As a campaigner he was awful, and as a President he was far, far worse - incapable, unfit, and uninterested in actually doing the job for which he was elected. He's been stupid and utterly lacking self-awareness his entirely life.

If, as seems likely, this particular round of ignorant idiocy brings either his presidency or life to and ignominious end, it will be completely unsurprising. And every bit of this has been completely obvious to anyone who cared to see at any point.  And in the wake of the Trump Disaster, Republicans will, again, have a choice: to either double-down on stupidity and ignorance, reject humanity and strive to imitate their utter failure of a leader, or elect to rejoin the United States (and the path of human decency).  In any case, one truth will remain: Donald Trump, and all the failures and horrors associated with him, are the inevitable result of choices he has made.

And, on the off chance he doesn't crash in the next 30 days, it's just: