I haven’t been following the house races…are those “leaning” any particular direction?
edit: see https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/12/house-midterm-elections-00066615
C-22 is “toss up”. The other four are “lean R”.
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They take office in January. Having to wait all the way until mid-Nov to know the results seems pretty timely to me.
What’s wrong with Nancy Pelosi? I would be surprised if Republicans win the House. Then again, I am surprised it’s this close. Republicans can’t be allowed to have control over House Committees. In particular, we really don’t need them discussing possible origins of SARS-CoV-2. Two more years of January 6th Committee is what the country needs instead.
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It might it might not be useful for American politicians to discuss which politicians led a political insurgency in America. But what possible gain is there from a bunch of politicians talking about epidemiology?
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Exactly. We need to prevent another insurrection. But there’s no way to prevent another pandemic and so understanding the origins is pointless, right?
we still don’t know the origin of HIV. So yeah, it does seem to be pointless.
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Political gains for demonizing vaccines and the Chinese. These are issues important to the new GOP.
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More generally, it will give them the opportunity to put will to power ahead of truth, as they have done under trump again and again.
trump could make up another bumper sticker phrase, like “wuhan flu” (which he is good at! it’s catchy!) and they can repeat it again and again.
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Especially with all the scientific discussion on this, by people actually interested in the truth!
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While those two things can both be important at the same time, one is political and one is not.
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Do you actually think politicians are better situated to help with that than scientists? And do you think uncovering the origin of this pandemic will help to prevent the next one?
Anyway, we already know how to better mitigate respiratory pandemics. Just compare Asia with the rest of the world. Everyone should don a mask at the first hint of a novel infection, and ventilation in public places should be improved. Those measures kept the death rates in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, at less than 20% of our death rate.
Look at the third graph (countries, normalized by population) and compare the US, or any western nation that bought into “6’ will protect you, don’t need good masks” to nations that immediately encouraged the use of modern masks. (And, to be fair, actually had a supply of modern masks to use.)
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I just tried to hire a Japanese guy to do a gig in the US. He replied
Hope you are doing well!
Me, doing fine, but the corona situation is totally diffferent here in Japan,
we are still wearing face masks and try to keep away from Covid-19,
and not in the mood where we can easily fly abroad for vacation.
Their death rate remains very low.
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I’m all for understanding the origin, but the closer any politicians get, the more the question is tainted.
Especially these days, where politics is dense with conspiracies based on nothing more than hate. But even at the best of times, politics depends too much on emotional appeal, diplomatic necessity, and “winning”.
So the outcome of a few races are left to decide the house, but i don’t think 218 is a magical number to come to a conclusion about the 22 election. Democrats have offered an unexciting message of stability and progress in contrast to the chaos of trumpism. Did Republicans run terrible candidates, or is the electorate moving on?
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Why not both?
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yes.
your question suggests there is a MAGA candidate most reasonable people wouldn’t see as terrible
Now that trumpists are in the minority of the GOP, it’s time to openly cancel all that remain so that they have no future in all aspects of life.