If I can’t play, I’m taking my ball and going home Mickey Morandini Former MLB ball player and testicular cancer survivor
Quick question for y’all. Is it just me, or are you somehow or other just in a better mood these days? Maybe, when you get up in the morning, you’re noticing that that shawl of despair isn’t immediately dropping over your shoulders? And you don’t so much dread turning on MSNBC or CNN at work to catch up on the news?
A part of it is thanks to social media. It is so uplifting to no longer have to look at Twitter as your mortal enemy, dreading the next 3 am poop tweet from Glorious Bleater. And no more Facebook posts, Instragram or YouTube videos from Traitor Tot. It’s a brave new world.
But it is much more than that. Removing the toxic Trump content from the web is a great start, but it goes deeper. You could spend 4 years doing everything you could to insulate yourself from the nonsensical bullshit coming from Trump and his cadre of losers, but information was going to come out from the government, and be covered in the media, whether you liked it or not. And the messaging is critical. Because the simple fact of the matter is that The messaging controls the message!
Cast your mind back to March of last year. The coronavirus was rampaging, states were in the process of laying the groundwork to shut their entire states down with stay-at-home-orders, and shuttering all non essential businesses. And what was the Trump administration saying? That the coronavirus was all bullshit, a Democratic hoax! Trump bragged that the virus would magically disappear, and swore that the nations churches would be open for full services for Easter.
Look at the dichotomy here. On the one hand, you have the media reporting honestly on a totally out of control epidemic. New cases ballooning, hospitalizations up, ICU’s full, and an out of control death rate. And as the virus spread, more people in the country became personally familiar with the virus, either through a family member, friend, or co-worker. And on the other hand, you have the United States government, the only behemoth capable of properly dealing with this crisis, and they refuse to even admit that the problem exists, and that if it does, it’s up to the states to deal with it. Meanwhile, you can’t even get a pound of ground beef at the store, and forget about toilet paper. No wonder desperation and despair took over.
Even with the arrival of multiple vaccines, shown in clinical studies to be almost other worldly effective, just after the election, which should have been the ultimate feather in the cap of the Trump administration, was botched! After more than 9 months as a functioning unit, not only did the Trump administration not have a rollout plan to distribute the vaccine, they didn’t even take the simple steps to ensure the purchase of enough doses to make any real impression on the damage.
Here’s a little local news coverage from Las Vegas for ya. Today marked the fourth straight day that Nevada reported less than 1000 new cases of Covid-18, and deaths are down as well. And we haven’t seen numbers like that here since Noah took up shipbuilding. And it’s good news!
And why is it good news? Because the current Biden administration is messaging the administration’s response in such a way that allows it to be presented as good news! And that works because that’s the way that Biden set it up.
From day one, Biden never underestimated the damage of the virus, nor it’s potential to do even greater damage. But he also refused to act as if it were something over which we had no control. From day one, Biden promised to get this under control. And day after day, he presented clear, simple, concise plans and programs on how to deal with it. And he had facts and figures to back it up. And every time there is something worth reporting, Jen Psaki is reporting it from the podium during the daily briefing.
And that’s why we can feel good about the numbers we see coming out. I wrote a bit more than a week ago that with the end of the Christmas holiday travel surge, and with no major travel holidays until the end of May, and with the onset of spring, with people venturing outside again, to a safer space, the death and hospitalization numbers would go down. And with an effective vaccine program, and better distribution, the lines would close on crossing. And that’s happening.
But it only becomes positive news because the Biden administration has packaged the messaging to allow it to be positive news. Like The Limu Emu, the Trump administration stuck its head in the sand that refused to even admit that the problem existed. The Biden administration not only acknowledged the severity of the crisis, but offered solid, concrete, understandable ways of dealing with it. And they exuded confidence in every utterance. And that is the keystone. The message is always a part of the messaging.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also like to check out President Evil, and the sequel, President Evil II, A Clodwork Orange . They comprise a pretty much daily report from the front of the 2016 GOP primaries, as well as the general election
Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35
Nice to have a functioning government instead of feeling like a kidnap victim locked in the trunk wondering when the nightmare will end.
It’s also great to have someone at the helm, actually doing something about it! What a simple concept! Also helping to equip healthcare workers and teachers, instead of saying it’s everyone for themselves.
Nice to know that there is a safety net of sanity for one. That the government (federal first of all) has a decent sane and competent crew at the helm. And then the particular organs of that govt do what they are supposed to do. Of course DOJ might be busy with corruption for awhile, but that is okay. Lawyers need jobs too.
But Jan 20 was a breath of fresh air. One of the gloom and doom weights was lifted. Thus being able to focus on defeating one of the others. The pressing one. But geesh, so nice to multitask. And fix some other issues, problems, and needs.
It starts with Biden being willing to tell the truth about Covid19, facing the unpleasant facts that things will get worse before they get better. He did not pretend it would be easy, and made it plain that it would require sacrifices from all of us. Like FDR during the Great Depression, he gave us the bad news along with a plan to.make things improve. Trump.cared more about Wall.Street than Main Street. He was banking on here immunity long before a vaccine was created, because (1)it wouldn’t cost anything even though experts told him.several million Americans would die before the goal.would be achieved and (2) he was counting on the people dying being poor and Black or Latina who wouldn’t voted FOR him.anyway. Because he cared more about winning the election than about America and Americans.
The irony is, as Trump’s own pollster has said, had he bothered seriously tackling COVID, he’d have cruised to reelection. Instead, he underestimated how bad the disease was, how non-lethal AND lethal it turned out to be and the united determination that it brought out in people.
As for Uncle Joe’s more fact-based approach, well, I practically jumped for joy when he said how we didn’t get here overnight nor would get out of here overnight. That’s EXACTLY what I said about Trump in the beginning and it’s doubly true of the virus.
Imagine that! Policies based on fact and logic actually deal with reality better!
The Democrats secret weapon.
It’s such a relief to not see constant video clips of tRump and have to hear that horrible voice, or be subjected to his noxious, vile tweets. Now if we could just get the media to back off of covering everything MGT like they’ve covered tRump for the last 4+ years. She’s just a rerun of him, same lies, same self-aggrandizement, same tired schtick. Enough already.
She really licked into a giant gaping void of dumb.
Lucked. What is wrong with autocorrect? Well, given the videos Rachel played of her, she’s probably been licking voids of dumb too.
Is “licked” a word in your dictionary? It is in mind (well, at least as the “past tense” form of “lick”). More importantly, is “licked” in whatever dictionary your autocorrect uses?
If so, then you can’t rely on autocorrect to change the word.
Autocorrect CANNOT “automatically” correct a VALID word. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Is eye right the rung wort, butt thee wort hiss uh reel wort, if well leaf if a loan. (You might have noticed that word salad makes absolutely no sense but it shows the limitations of autocorrect. The sentence should be read as “If I write the wrong word, but the word is a real word, it will leave it alone.” Not a single word in the sentence was spelled wrong so “autocorrect” had nothing to do.) Most autocorrect programs do not have a feature that understands CONTEXT. Such a feature would’ve likely caught the error since the verb “lick” isn’t usually followed by a preposition. Then again, “lucked into” might be too informal or colloquial for a context feature to catch.
And after that lengthy bit, I just noticed I wrote “mind” instead of “mine” in that first paragraph. Since “mind” is a valid word, it didn’t show up as wrong and I didn’t catch it until the comment posted.
One might say, as others have, she’s a failed TV spinoff minus the qualities of the original that made the latter work. I expect that she’ll fade from this point on. Don’t be surprised if she’s eventually expelled from Congress.
Yeah, I remember March of last year alright, Murf. I remember thinking that it was bad enough that the state of TN had been passively trying to kill me or run me off for the entirety of the 2010s. Now they were trying to get a little more PROactive about it by way of negligent homicide. I’d long since absorbed the message that I was on my own, barring a few awesome individuals whose support through this last year I can never thank enough. But to see it go to its logical extreme was heartbreaking.
And so that is why I embrace where we are now with all its imperfections. Uncle Joe got with Uncle Sam and sent the cavalry at last. We’ve a lot to do but as long as I can see the light (thank you, John Fogerty!), we’ll get where we need to be.
I think you left out spring break. States like Florida, Arizona, Texas and southern California can expect a herd of entitled young people celebrating their “freedom.” Spring break differs between states, so the partying may go on for a month or more.
And about Taylor Greene (about whom the less said the better), she declared her intentions in a tweet the day after the House removed her from committees. She’s not there to work for her district; she’s there to work for Tr*mp and troll Democrats.
SoCal is still requiring masks – the students might be welcome in Huntington Beach, but not many other places. (It isn’t a big thing here, like it is in the eastern states.)
I’ll be glad when teachers around here can start getting their shots. I talked to my niece (the daughter I never had) last night and she was so excited. Because yesterday, I got MY first one. She hasn’t had one yet. I worry about her and her two teenage sons, and she teaches K-5. I know they’re having trouble with supply, but still, I think teacher immunization should be more of a priority than it is. BTW, that quote is an old saying, but I never heard of that baseball player, or the quote in that context before. It had me and my husband (also a testicular cancer survivor) cracking up!
HUBBY JUST READ from @cdc.gov how and why #vaccinated people must still wear masks.. because they can be sub clinical (eg no symptoms) CARRIERS of ACTIVE #COVID if they have been exposed to it! AND CAN GIVE IT TO OTHERS.. IT may be we will ALWAYS BE IN MASKS though I hope not.
Sorry first one hung up when sending you can delete this one.
THANKS TO MURF.. for thoughtful blog. ONE DOWNER though.. HUBBY JUST READ from @cdc.gov how and why #vaccinated people must still wear masks.. because they can be sub clinical (eg no symptoms) CARRIERS of ACTIVE #COVID if they have been exposed to it! AND CAN GIVE IT TO OTHERS.. IT may be we will ALWAYS BE IN MASKS though I hope not.