Lockdowns went into effect March of 2020. Here's what I realized going back and looking at which Party controlled what part(s) of government at the time:
Senate: Republicans House of Representatives: Republicans Governorship: Republicans Judiciary: Republicans Presidency and Executive Branch: Republicans
The GOP held a majority in every relevant branch, at every layer of government. A clean sweep. And because states were still represented by the 2016 general, and 2018 mid-term elections, the majority of all states in lockdown were red.
Operation Warp Speed brought us the vaccine, rollout, and diagnostics, cost $10B and was the brainchild of the Trump Administration, which they bankrolled by raiding the fund for hospitals and health care providers affected by Covid-19.
The Cares Act worth $2.2T was passed by a majority Republican Congress, signed into law by Donald Trump's own hand in March 2020. This wasn't the last Covid bill of 2020 either. Greatest debt expansion in history.
In hindsight, it's not as rosy as some fanboy bitcoiners claim? My opinion is that the best arrangement for the US government is having a:
  • Liberal President
  • Conservative Supreme Court
  • Liberal House
  • Conservative Senate
  • Liberal Governorship
An arrangement that allows the government to do the least domestically at this point is best; or a government forced to compromise at each turn. What made Trump one of the worst Presidents is that he had a clean sweep of the government, so much could've been done, but he couldn't compromise (or concentrate long enough) with his own Party to broker what could've made him an absolute legend. And I say that as a person that didn't vote for him. What a missed opportunity. Should he get imprisoned, the inbound President will look quite powerful commuting him.
Plus add to it that Trump was and is a laughing stock figure internationally and you got fun times :).
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I agree that it's worthwhile to remember that national Republicans completely failed to protect Americans' civil liberties (What else is new?).
However, you're missing that the vast bulk of covid tyranny was implemented by local Democrats. Also, to the extent politics is downstream of culture, the popular support to lockdown came overwhelmingly from the left.
As far as the best US political arrangement, I'd say it's just a conservative court + gridlock. I completely disagree on the governor point. People are fleeing Blue America by the millions every year as crime, taxes, and cost of living skyrocket. The ideal situation in my mind is to live in a college town in a Red State; you get the best of both worlds that way.
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Yes, although I'll counter that the majority of violent crime is actually Republican states. 8 of the top 10 are Red. As far as gridlock, I like that. No American should ever want a single Party controlling everything, even if they're part of that Party. But how do you get that across to people?
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Almost all violent crime is in the cities, almost all controlled by the left and with large black population
Rural areas don’t have high rates of crime.
Public defenders work in cities
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Rural areas don’t have high rates of crime.
Usually, but there is a lot of crime in Appalachia.
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No. It was all a lie, no matter who is/was in the power. covid was a total psyop to push people into full communism. THERE'S NO VIRUS! You were all fooled.
I am just waiting for all those that got the clot shots to die. More sats for me. They get what they fucking deserve!
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House was controlled by Democrats. Nancy was speaker. Republicans lost the house in 2018 elections
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The COVID mandates were a bipartisan affair. All 24 Democratic governors and all but 6 Republican governors (26 - 6 = 20) signed lockdown orders.
Lockdowns only started after Trump and Pelosi talked to the governors from their respective parties. Most states were in a debt crisis due to falling tax revenues (people were spending less in fear of COVID). Trump/Pelosi promised to re-negotiate their debts if the governors signed lockdown orders.
Trump wanted to sign a national lockdown order, but all the Democrat voters would have disobeyed Trump's Lockdown. Getting state governors to issue lockdown orders was a brilliant move; they got a nearly nation-wide lockdown and none of the negative consequences were tied to anyone's political careers.
We will see if the Federal government can manage to make the next round of lockdowns bipartisan.
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