The Donald vs Big Tech

[Eoin McLove]

Economic Left/Right: -3.63
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.92

Not sure how accurate that is. For many questions I had no real opinion but just hit whatever felt closest to how I felt at the time of reading, but I'm sure a good argument could have swung me to a different answer. A few of them would have been dead centre of agree/ disagree. I need more nuance 

[Emphyrio]

Economic Left/Right: -7.5
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.28

Lol

We have a winner.

[astfgyl]

Economic Left/Right: -7.5
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.28

Lol

We have a winner.

  and he still speaks to me at times!

[astfgyl]

https://twitter.com/politico/status/1562462330230751232

What they're saying is indeed true but it looks like a shift from Biden did it to Trump did it. Americans are hilarious, Democrats didn't want the Trump vaccine and Republicans didn't want the Biden vaccine but both candidates wanted to take credit for what was in fact the work of the pharmaceutical companies. Well done to all for playing politics with public health and I hope someone somewhere has learned something from the experience.

https://twitter.com/RaheemKassam/status/1464740850412441600 Here's an example of some democrats before the election and I'm certain there's a version of republicans saying the same thing over Biden being the head of the rollout. Unreal it's like they don't know there's cameras and an internet.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

So, Trump put pressure on the FDA to authorize vaccines. We knew that. And certain Democrats at the time said that, as a result of Trump putting pressure on the FDA to authorize vaccines (what was it he talked about, Operation Warp Speed or something like that?), they would have reservations about its authorization and would (to quote Biden from the second link video) need to know it had been okayed by other bodies too before considering it to be above board. FDA gave its approval in December 2020. By that point, the UK had also approved the same vaccine. In other words, a body other than the FDA and one under no pressure from Trump. Canada also approved a couple of days prior to the US. Sure, the UK and Canada approving a vaccine means nothing whatsoever about dodgy dealings regarding Pfizer, but does mean something regarding potential dodgy dealings regarding Trump, no?

[astfgyl]

Do you think that Biden was waiting for non-US approval before endorsing it? That's a bit mad really that he would question the impartiality of the regulatory authorities in his own country then but not since and I'm not really buying that as much as he was simply playing politics US (and soon to be the rest of the world) style. Had Trump won I think you'd have seen exactly the same arguments put forward over the vaccines by democrats as you see from republicans after Biden won. What went on in the rest of the world would likely have nothing to do with it. I'm not getting into questioning the vaccines themselves, just laughing at the US playing politics with them. Trump was all for them and still is, Biden has been all for them since he got in but was quite happy to sow the seed of doubt in his supporters when it was Trump's Warp Speed initiative. I just use this thread for the US left/right thing because I find it all pretty amusing and I haven't cleaned up my twitter enough to not see any of it. I'm sure I mentioned many times on the covid thread how politics should stay out of public health and that's a Trump-themed example of why is all.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

So you're saying it's a bit mad that Biden would question the impartiality of the FDA even though everyone at the time knew what the article you linked to is now officially "revealing": that Trump, the President of the nation, and his administration were putting pressure on them to omit steps, such as "attempts to block the FDA from collecting additional safety data on Covid-19 vaccines in order to get them to the public before the 2020 presidential election."

In that kind of atmosphere, had the FDA been the first body in the world to approve the vaccine, long before any other nation, which is what the Trump administration were pushing for, then questioning such a premature approval would not have been "mad" at all.

[astfgyl]

You'll go to any lengths to defend the democrat perspective. No, Biden was willing to talk any old shite in the run up to an election, same as any politician. You're right Trump wanted to put pressure on because he was going to say the vaccines were his great victory, but with the revolving door between the FDA and pharmaceutical companies it wasn't going to be because of Trump that they'd be so eager to push it forward.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

It's not about defending the Democrat perspective, which I couldn't give a shit about. It's about measuring at its proper weight what the Trump administration actually did, and why, in light of that, all distrust of them regarding the vaccine was wholly warranted at that time, regardless of who was articulating it.

On this subject, it seems fairly clear to me that the MAGA camp should be the ones suffering the most cognitive dissonance, since they were the ones who had significantly higher levels of distrust about the vaccine after numerous international bodies had safety approved it. And yet it was Trump & Co, their idols, who wanted it rolled out even quicker, with even less safety checks in place. That Democrats at the time were saying they couldn't fully trust government bodies for as long as individuals pushing them to cut corners were in power, that's much lower down on any objective scale of dissonance, even if the Democrats were just playing at politics. It was smarter politics than the level of BS the MAGA camp were capable of swallowing and imagining they were shitting out as gotcha gold. The order things happen in matters. It's okay to one day say, "I don't trust that this man is the killer" and then later say "In the light of new evidence, I am convinced this man is the killer." It's just a question of updating one's beliefs. 

[astfgyl]

We're hardly kidding ourselves that there was any chance that those vaccines wouldn't have been approved in quick time no matter who was in charge? That didn't just apply to the US either it was everywhere. Everyone needed an exit strategy to try get things going again after the restrictions and whatnot. I don't think either side was particularly smart in playing to their very partisan crowds. The way I see it, it's orange man vaccine bad, senile man vaccine good but would have been the other way round had Trump prevailed. There's updating one's beliefs and then there's Biden going from sowing doubt to the federal mandate, which is one hell of an update.

[astfgyl]

Here, back to The Donald vs Big Tech specifically, have a look at this clip: https://twitter.com/minds/status/1562927481945980928

Remember that the laptop story turned out to be true, although not as explosive as was flagged at the time either.

Edit: Far more dicey is the daughter's diary story which no one seems to have heard much about. I wonder if that'll turn out to be true or just Russian disinformation.

And here, I'll spare someone the time of giving the same response: https://twitter.com/MetaNewsroom/status/1562968979844411393

[Caomhaoin]

What the fuck was Biden at with that speech?

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

He decided that what Clinton got wrong when she started going on about the basket of deplorables was just the lighting, which needed to be a bit more comic book fascist. I think. That's how it came across anyway.

[Caomhaoin]

The red lights, the army lads in the background. Mental.

Seemed like a skit.

Someone told me that #pedohitler is now trending. Ha ha amazing.

[astfgyl]

That was absolutely fucked up and I'd love to hear a Biden supporters defence of it.

Really really weird and talk about fanning the flames of division after shit talking about uniting people.

I can't believe anyone falls for either side in the US I really can't