
Americans losing faith in what Trump says about the coronavirus: Reuters/Ipsos - throwaway888abc
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll/americans-losing-faith-in-what-trump-says-about-the-coronavirus-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSKCN22A3CK
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eutropia
If extrapolated literally, 6.6 million US citizens think it's not a terrible
idea to inject bleach to fight coronavirus.

Explains the more than doubling of poison control center calls after those
reckless comments..

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forgot_my_pwd
No one was saying to inject bleach. And Trump was probably just crudely
restating some experimental treatment he had heard about in one of his many
briefings. Speculative disinfectant treatments have been mentioned.

It's a very minor issue and clearly grasping for a smear by the President's
opponents.

Anyone who tried to drink bleach because of Trump's offhand comments that in
no way endorsed doing so is beyond help or hope.

~~~
_bxg1
Maybe it was an offhand remark, maybe it was sarcasm, etc. But that misses the
point.

If you are the most powerful and widely-heard person in the United States,
_you don 't get to improvise your press briefings or give dubious advice "as a
joke"_. People often defend him with "well we've all said something stupid",
or "maybe he just didn't think it all the way through". But he isn't you or
me. He is _the leader of the free world_. He carries _enormous responsibility_
, and he's demonstrated time and again that he can't be bothered to give a
_flying fart_ about it.

~~~
Gollapalli
Gosh, I don't want to get into another argument on another site about Trump,
but here goes...

People like the man because he improvises his press conferences. They like him
because he speaks off the cuff. Why, because it makes them like him. It makes
them trust him (believe it or not). They don't trust the responsibility of
leading them to someone who is slickly packaged by political consultants. Like
that or not, that's democracy. So the question is who can the American people
trust? Who DID they trust? (apologies for the all caps, not sure how to do
italics). The answer is they trusted Donald Trump. Why? Because he speaks off
the cuff. For some reason that's assuring to people. So if a few dozen people
drink bleach due to misinterpreting a press conference, but the majority of a
350 some million person country are reassured by his making comments off the
cuff, then what serves the greater good?

~~~
akhilcacharya
The majority, of course, aren’t reassured by these antics and this is why he’s
wildly unpopular including in the poll linked above.

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biolurker1
The fact that 47% after all these lies and misinformation still doesn't get it
hurts my brain

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ericzawo
I can't honestly believe how many smart, empathetic and otherwise responsible
people continue to defend the man.

~~~
ars
It's because he's so open about what does and thinks. He doesn't act like a
typical politician and hide it.

He'll say things like "We are in Iraq for the oil".

Everyone _knew_ that, but no president would admit it.

He's also incredibly self-centered, and he acts only in order to get re-
elected, and/or praised. But that means he does what the people want, rather
than what is best.

There are a lot of people who believe a politician should represent the will
of the voters, rather than act in the best way they know.

Obviously you can argue which is better course of action, but at least you can
understand why people vote for him.

Also: You would do well to ignore what he says, and pay attention only to what
he does. He says everything and anything, just to gauge reactions. His actions
are then based on what reaction he got. (Remember he's very self centered and
wants praise.)

I've found that people who _really_ hate him pay way too much attention to
what he says, thinking that what he says has some bearing on what he's
actually going to do.

~~~
Dylan16807
The frustrating part is not that he says whatever he wants with no regard to
truth or keeping promises. It's that people keep believing his words, and
defending them, with no acknowledgment that he's doing so!

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adelHBN
How is this news?

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matttproud
Put me in the bucket of Americans who lost faith in the American people.

Absolutely unconscionable.

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debian3
“And 98% of Americans said they would not try to inject themselves with bleach
or other disinfectants if they got the coronavirus, including 98% of Democrats
and 98% of Republicans. That is a near-unanimous rejection of an idea that
Trump floated at a time of widespread anxiety about the virus.”

Why is that 2% haven’t been eliminated by evolution.

~~~
krallja
One problem with polling is that people answer contrary to their own actual
beliefs. They didn’t hear the question right, or they misspoke and are too
embarrassed to correct it, or they’re trolling the pollster.

~~~
Gibbon1
Yeah it's like the false positives that plague attempts to measure rates of
covid19. If you ask about briefs vs boxers the errors cancel. Run with
scissors yay or nay, it doesn't.

