(04-01-2020, 04:00 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The next mismatch is that Trump used the Washington State University model for how many Coronavirus cases and deaths will occur. The model assumes that the states or federal government folk who have not yet adopted isolation will do so in about a week. Presenting the model without starting the isolation tends to make the model results invalid.
That, regrettably, is largely a Red-Blue divide and thus much of the 3T-4T divide in America. There is the blatant exception of Ohio, in which the Republican Governor DeWine is legitimately scared of outbreaks in CORVID-19 in Ohio.
The Washington State model cannot readily distinguish the choices of Governors Mike DeWine (R, OH) and Ron De Santis (R-FL) until they make such choices. DeWine, like most D Governors, recognizes that business-as-usual may be impossible for a few months. De Santis recognizes that business-as-usual is good for taking advantage of restrictions elsewhere. The institution of Spring Break, in which kids from other parts of America go on hedonistic binges on Florida beaches and spend huge amounts of money, is good for Florida business. This time. A few months from now the virus from some asymptomatic carrier can wend its way into a senior community in Florida and cause mass death. Considering that much of the prosperity of Florida comes from Northern retirees taking assets with them from Up North and spending those in Florida so that they can escape real winters you can imagine what choice I would make if I (and I am born in 1955 and a Democrat) would make. I would be more concerned about keeping those retirees well and not scaring the next generation of well-heeled retirees from New England and the Great Lakes states. A blizzard of inconvenient snow is far less dangerous than a blizzard of life-threatening viruses. (OK, I know what a logarithmic scale and a semi-logarithmic scale are and how they differ from a non-logarithmic scale; that could be the difference between Mike DeWine and Mike De Santis, too.)
One distinction is that Mike DeWine is born in 1947 and has practically no hope of any higher office. Ron De Santis was born in 1978 and may be gambling that by going along with the 3T ethos with his state not getting hit particularly badly that he will be in a good position for a higher office than Governor of Florida. He has time that DeWine lacks. (If you are wondering about Donald Trump and age -- Trump is simply a science-denying fool who can't understand a statistical model and the difference between a numerical scale and a logarithmic scale). I cannot tell whether DeWine acts as he does because he is smart, because he has a concern for a lasting image in history books, or whether at his age (I do not know about his religiosity) whether he sees himself accountable before God when the judgment of him awaits him. I can't imagine anything more fearsome than Hell -- and I don't mean Hell, Michigan.
De Santis is taking a huge gamble, and we can all see how that can pay off in a calamity. If there is any lesson from the last Crisis, it is that taking the immoral side in a Crisis is not good for personal survival even if such is attractive at some point.
Except that it is about power and not about juvenile love... back in the 1950's (when Sam Cooke sang this) people of limited education and curiosity could do fine in a manufacturing plant. Someone with that level of lack of learning, curiosity, and self-awareness did not go far in any hierarchy in those days. Today such a person is President. Trump may be juvenile in intellect and morals, but he has been playing a game completely unsuited to someone with a juvenile mentality.
In view of the dangers of COVID-19 I prefer leaders who, if they must be presented data on a semi-logarithmic chart, can understand the significance of things operating on a logarithmic scale.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.