Is DeSantis worse than trump?
Smedley said:
Just playing devil’s advocate here - is there even the remotest possibility in your mind, that rather than governing purely just to roast Fauci and own the libs, DeSantis may have at least considered the tradeoffs involved when setting Covid policy?
No, none. Nothing in his statements at the time suggest that.
And “own the libs” underlies other actions (ex: flying migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, the “Stop Woke Act”).
nohero said:
Smedley said:
Just playing devil’s advocate here - is there even the remotest possibility in your mind, that rather than governing purely just to roast Fauci and own the libs, DeSantis may have at least considered the tradeoffs involved when setting Covid policy?
No, none. Nothing in his statements at the time suggest that.
And “own the libs” underlies other actions (ex: flying migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, the “Stop Woke Act”).
Nice selective quoting to avoid the tough questions.
What do you think about FL scoring a higher overall average than NJ/NY/CA? Does that support the left’s knee-jerk narrative that Florida’s Covid response was ghastly?
Smedley said:
Nice selective quoting to avoid the tough questions.
What do you think about FL scoring a higher overall average than NJ/NY/CA? Does that support the left’s knee-jerk narrative that Florida’s Covid response was ghastly?
I addressed a question you asked and gave my opinion.
I couldn’t address the other one without reading the material at the link and figuring out how it relates to your question. And since I’m just being lazy with the TV on and my phone in my hand, that’s not going to happen.
Smedley said:
What do you think about FL scoring a higher overall average than NJ/NY/CA? Does that support the left’s knee-jerk narrative that Florida’s Covid response was ghastly?
This was what Politico said about those year-old averages: Giving every category equal weight “assumes each priority was of equivalent importance, a policy choice in itself.” On health, NJ/NY/CA scored 50/59/70. Florida scored 33.
Florida’s highest score (76) was in education. This was what Politico said about that category, which it called “the most difficult policy area to assess”: “Schools, districts and state officials have few tools at this point in the pandemic to assess how their students have fared; federal data won’t be available until sometime next year at the earliest.”
Smedley said:
Just playing devil’s advocate here - is there even the remotest possibility in your mind, that rather than governing purely just to roast Fauci and own the libs, DeSantis may have at least considered the tradeoffs involved when setting Covid policy?
I assume you can at least acknowledge the existence of these tradeoffs, ie that in the end it isn’t only about Covid deaths and hospitalizations and cases? That human suffering can exist in other forms?Politico did an interesting “pandemic scorecard” that took into account health, as well as economy, social well-being, and education.
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2021/covid-by-the-numbers-how-each-state-fared-on-our-pandemic-scorecard/Florida scored lower in health compared with NJ/NY/CA, but higher in the other metrics, and higher in the overall average.
What do you think about FL scoring a higher overall average than NJ/NY/CA? Does that support the left’s knee-jerk narrative that Florida’s Covid response was ghastly?
I think I already made the point that DeSantis made a tradeoff between more deaths and what he considered freedom.
If he campaigns on that, I'm cool. But I doubt he'll ever agree that there was any such tradeoff considered.
nohero said:
Smedley said:
Nice selective quoting to avoid the tough questions.
What do you think about FL scoring a higher overall average than NJ/NY/CA? Does that support the left’s knee-jerk narrative that Florida’s Covid response was ghastly?
I addressed a question you asked and gave my opinion.
I couldn’t address the other one without reading the material at the link and figuring out how it relates to your question. And since I’m just being lazy with the TV on and my phone in my hand, that’s not going to happen.
Well I look forward to your response when you’re feeling more industrious. This thread will be open for a while I’m sure.
DaveSchmidt said:
Smedley said:
What do you think about FL scoring a higher overall average than NJ/NY/CA? Does that support the left’s knee-jerk narrative that Florida’s Covid response was ghastly?This was what Politico said about those year-old averages: Giving every category equal weight “assumes each priority was of equivalent importance, a policy choice in itself.” On health, NJ/NY/CA scored 50/59/70. Florida scored 33.
Florida’s highest score (76) was in education. This was what Politico said about that category, which it called “the most difficult policy area to assess”: “Schools, districts and state officials have few tools at this point in the pandemic to assess how their students have fared; federal data won’t be available until sometime next year at the earliest.”
And your point is?
ml1 said:
Smedley said:
Just playing devil’s advocate here - is there even the remotest possibility in your mind, that rather than governing purely just to roast Fauci and own the libs, DeSantis may have at least considered the tradeoffs involved when setting Covid policy?
I assume you can at least acknowledge the existence of these tradeoffs, ie that in the end it isn’t only about Covid deaths and hospitalizations and cases? That human suffering can exist in other forms?Politico did an interesting “pandemic scorecard” that took into account health, as well as economy, social well-being, and education.
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2021/covid-by-the-numbers-how-each-state-fared-on-our-pandemic-scorecard/Florida scored lower in health compared with NJ/NY/CA, but higher in the other metrics, and higher in the overall average.
What do you think about FL scoring a higher overall average than NJ/NY/CA? Does that support the left’s knee-jerk narrative that Florida’s Covid response was ghastly?I think I already made the point that DeSantis made a tradeoff between more deaths and what he considered freedom.
If he campaigns on that, I'm cool. But I doubt he'll ever agree that there was any such tradeoff considered.
geez suddenly everyone has turned into mt, unable and/or unwilling to answer a direct, straightforward question.
Smedley said:
nohero said:
Smedley said:
Nice selective quoting to avoid the tough questions.
What do you think about FL scoring a higher overall average than NJ/NY/CA? Does that support the left’s knee-jerk narrative that Florida’s Covid response was ghastly?
I addressed a question you asked and gave my opinion.
I couldn’t address the other one without reading the material at the link and figuring out how it relates to your question. And since I’m just being lazy with the TV on and my phone in my hand, that’s not going to happen.
Well I look forward to your response when you’re feeling more industrious. This thread will be open for a while I’m sure.
Having skimmed the (not current) article, I wouldn't draw a conclusion either way based solely on its contents.
Smedley said:
DaveSchmidt said:
Smedley said:
What do you think about FL scoring a higher overall average than NJ/NY/CA? Does that support the left’s knee-jerk narrative that Florida’s Covid response was ghastly?This was what Politico said about those year-old averages: Giving every category equal weight “assumes each priority was of equivalent importance, a policy choice in itself.” On health, NJ/NY/CA scored 50/59/70. Florida scored 33.
Florida’s highest score (76) was in education. This was what Politico said about that category, which it called “the most difficult policy area to assess”: “Schools, districts and state officials have few tools at this point in the pandemic to assess how their students have fared; federal data won’t be available until sometime next year at the earliest.”
And your point is?
I think the point is obvious.
Smedley said:
geez suddenly everyone has turned into mt, unable and/or unwilling to answer a direct, straightforward question.
Your theory can be tested when you find one that anyone said they wouldn't answer.
Smedley said:
geez suddenly everyone has turned into mt, unable and/or unwilling to answer a direct, straightforward question.
do I need to answer the same question over and over? Here's my response again to the overall scores among those states:
FL did poorly on cases and deaths long after mitigation efforts were known and understood. NY and NJ got hit very hard by COVID early before we knew what we were dealing with. (You can look back at my previous response quoting Krugman). Scores for the entirety of the pandemic obscure those differences.
Smedley said:
And your point is?
I gave your source my attention. That’s what I took away from it. I thought my observations might shed some light for others. My knee didn’t even twitch.
GOP Primary:
DeSantis 56
Trump 33
General Election:
Biden 47 – Trump 40
DeSantis 47 – Biden 43
https://theintellectualist.com/members/the-intellectualist/activity/14431/
DaveSchmidt said:
I gave your source my attention. That’s what I took away from it. I thought my observations might shed some light for others. My knee didn’t even twitch.
Another observation I had was that NJ pretty well out-pointed FL on "health" and "social well-being" but got crushed on"economy". Which has been more or less my point all along, that DeSantis prioritized businesses being open over more stringent COVID mitigation.
And again, if that's how he and the media report it, fine. But the narrative seems to be more that FL had "freedom" at little to no consequences regarding infection rates.
I think DeSantis has also been doing long-term damage to public health by turning opposition to health measures into a culture war tactic. Now it's not just on covid, but on public health measures in general that many of his supporters will be skeptical or even rejecting, meaning many more people will get seriously ill and die than otherwise would have.
ml1 said:
Another observation I had was that NJ pretty well out-pointed FL on "health" and "social well-being" but got crushed on"economy".
Right. If Smedley believes that health, social well-being, the economy and murky measures of education all warrant equal weight, there’s some evidence in that article to support Florida’s policies relative to NJ/NY/CA.
If someone else adjusts the averages to favor, say, health and social well-being over the economy and education, Florida doesn’t come out as well.
DaveSchmidt said:
Right. If Smedley believes that health, social well-being, the economy and murky measures of education all warrant equal weight, there’s some evidence in that article to support Florida’s policies relative to NJ/NY/CA.
If someone else adjusts the averages to favor, say, health and social well-being over the economy and education, Florida doesn’t come out as well.
And if someone favored putting more weight on the economy and was honest in the tradeoffs, that would come across much differently than waging a political war against public health officials (which I believe is ml1's point).
And if someone actually thinks that Florida public education is comparable to NJ public education, well, that person was probably educated in Florida and doesn't understand what the studies actually show. Maybe there was less learning loss/regression in Florida (where they could have outdoor classrooms year round as a mitigation measure, also) than in NJ.
PVW said:
And if someone favored putting more weight on the economy and was honest in the tradeoffs, that would come across much differently than waging a political war against public health officials (which I believe is ml1's point).
Despite the tradeoffs, Florida got only a middling economic score in the Politico article, which, echoing a point already made in this discussion, reported:
It also appears to matter whether a state was hit hard early in the pandemic. For the most part, states impacted by the first wave of the pandemic — including New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey — were slower to lift lockdown measures and have had a more sluggish economic recovery.
“You basically had winners and losers chosen early in the pandemic,” said Jason Straczewski, vice president of government relations and political affairs for the National Retail Federation.
Naturally this factor, noted in the article, may have influenced Florida’s priorities (and middling score):
States heavily reliant on tourism suffered the worst.
PVW said:
DaveSchmidt said:
Right. If Smedley believes that health, social well-being, the economy and murky measures of education all warrant equal weight, there’s some evidence in that article to support Florida’s policies relative to NJ/NY/CA.
If someone else adjusts the averages to favor, say, health and social well-being over the economy and education, Florida doesn’t come out as well.
And if someone favored putting more weight on the economy and was honest in the tradeoffs, that would come across much differently than waging a political war against public health officials (which I believe is ml1's point).
that is my point.
And being honest about is obviously not a political winner even for DeSantis, who as you pointed out, is turning public health policy into another culture war battle. Because even most extreem right wingers don't really want to die or cause others to die just to own the libs.
ml1 said:
Smedley said:
geez suddenly everyone has turned into mt, unable and/or unwilling to answer a direct, straightforward question.
do I need to answer the same question over and over? Here's my response again to the overall scores among those states:
FL did poorly on cases and deaths long after mitigation efforts were known and understood. NY and NJ got hit very hard by COVID early before we knew what we were dealing with. (You can look back at my previous response quoting Krugman). Scores for the entirety of the pandemic obscure those differences.
My primary takeaway from the Politico report, as far as relevance to a potential DeSantis presidential campaign, isn't cases and death numbers, it’s the high education score. Why? Because that score supports the notion that DeSantis was right in bucking the trend and forcing FL schools to reopen in Aug 2020, and this is an issue that resonates with purple state suburban voters. DeSantis may have been reckless, he may have gotten lucky in that Covid didn’t wreak havoc in schools, whatever — but 2+ years later, with all the evidence in about how remote learning sucks and how reopened schools were plenty safe, DeSantis’s call looks pretty good.
Florida handled schools a lot better than San Francisco did, that’s for sure. Progressives will never credit DeSantis for this, but IMO there are lots of independent / crossover voters who will.
One of the very unfortunate outcomes of the politicizing of the pandemic is that it made nuanced decision making very difficult, as everything became polarized (I'm still shaking my head over how masks became political). Seems there was a push toward a binary "open everything" or "close everything." As I noted at one point, I would have expected that bars be closed and schools open, but we got the opposite.
And as noted, DeSantis has played a big part in this politicization, so that's among the reasons I hope he doesn't end up winning should he be the nominee.
Smedley said:
Florida handled schools a lot better than San Francisco did, that’s for sure.
Horseshit. By what measure?
(Also, relying on Politico as the interpreter of data here is a poor choice.)
Anyway, if you think that "independent voters", (by definition, the least informed and most disconnected) would be swayed by educational comparisons between states, you're kind of delusional.
Smedley said:
ml1 said:
Smedley said:
geez suddenly everyone has turned into mt, unable and/or unwilling to answer a direct, straightforward question.
do I need to answer the same question over and over? Here's my response again to the overall scores among those states:
FL did poorly on cases and deaths long after mitigation efforts were known and understood. NY and NJ got hit very hard by COVID early before we knew what we were dealing with. (You can look back at my previous response quoting Krugman). Scores for the entirety of the pandemic obscure those differences.
My primary takeaway from the Politico report, as far as relevance to a potential DeSantis presidential campaign, isn't cases and death numbers, it’s the high education score. Why? Because that score supports the notion that DeSantis was right in bucking the trend and forcing FL schools to reopen in Aug 2020, and this is an issue that resonates with purple state suburban voters. DeSantis may have been reckless, he may have gotten lucky in that Covid didn’t wreak havoc in schools, whatever — but 2+ years later, with all the evidence in about how remote learning sucks and how reopened schools were plenty safe, DeSantis’s call looks pretty good.
Florida handled schools a lot better than San Francisco did, that’s for sure. Progressives will never credit DeSantis for this, but IMO there are lots of independent / crossover voters who will.
if DeSantis chooses to cherry-pick his policy on school reopening out of the entirety of FL's COVID policies, and the press lets him get away with it, that wouldn't be entirely honest. And that's been my point all along. if the governor and the political pundits want to cheer some of his policies, they should be reporting that the tradeoff was more deaths than if the mitigation policies were more stringent.
that's the point I've been making -- the honest telling of this story is that DeSantis made the political calculation that it was better for him to keep businesses and schools open, even if it meant thousands more deaths. That was the reality all over the country. States made those type of calculations and came to different conclusions.
But is DeSantis being honest about that? Not so far as I can tell. And the narrative in the punditry supports his selective telling of this story.
So no, I don't think a realistic telling of the COVID story in FL in its entirety would be a winner for DeSantis. Because if it was, that's the story he'd be telling.
PVW said:
I think you're right that on schools the dice came up in the political favor of the governors who kept more things open -- and those generally were Republicans.
One of the very unfortunate outcomes of the politicizing of the pandemic is that it made nuanced decision making very difficult, as everything became polarized (I'm still shaking my head over how masks became political). Seems there was a push toward a binary "open everything" or "close everything." As I noted at one point, I would have expected that bars be closed and schools open, but we got the opposite.
And as noted, DeSantis has played a big part in this politicization, so that's among the reasons I hope he doesn't end up winning should he be the nominee.
some states and cities made the wrong call on school re-openings, no doubt. But it's not as simple as saying states like NJ should have opened schools in Sept, 2020 like FL did. We don't have the ability to keep all the windows open from November through March as can be done in many warmer climates. The SOMA district in particular was ill-equipped for the pandemic, with old buildings and poorly ventilated rooms. It would have been fairly risky here to reopen before teachers could be vaccinated.
indeed you're right. All nuance on these issues went out the window. And as a result it wasn't discussed that one-size-didn't-fit-all in many instances.
The latest Covid-era data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress:
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/mathematics/supportive_files/2022_rm_press_release.docx
In fourth-grade reading, NJ and NY posted declines from 2019 to 2022, and FL and CA showed little change. In eighth-grade reading, FL was the only one of the four to decline. In fourth- and eighth-grade math, all four declined.
From an NYT article (unlocked so anyone can read the link):
The bleak results underscored how closing schools hurt students, but researchers cautioned against drawing fast conclusions about whether states where schools stayed remote for longer had significantly worse results.
Decisions about how long to keep schools closed often varied even within states, depending on the local school district and virus transmission rates. And other factors, such as poverty levels and a state’s specific education policies, may also influence results.
The picture was mixed, and performance varied by grade level and subject matter in ways that were not always clear cut.
For example, Texas, where many schools opened sooner, held steady in reading but posted declines similar to national averages in math. In California, which stood out for its caution in reopening schools, scores declined slightly less than national averages in several categories — about in line with Florida, which was a leader in opening schools sooner.
drummerboy said:
Smedley said:
Florida handled schools a lot better than San Francisco did, that’s for sure.
Horseshit. By what measure?
Uh ...Schools reopening after 6 months, versus schools being closed for 2 years, culminating in an embarrassing school board recall that made national news?
if you really think it's horseshit that the first scenario is better than the second, then as you would say, I can't help you.
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Just playing devil’s advocate here - is there even the remotest possibility in your mind, that rather than governing purely just to roast Fauci and own the libs, DeSantis may have at least considered the tradeoffs involved when setting Covid policy?
I assume you can at least acknowledge the existence of these tradeoffs, ie that in the end it isn’t only about Covid deaths and hospitalizations and cases? That human suffering can exist in other forms?
Politico did an interesting “pandemic scorecard” that took into account health, as well as economy, social well-being, and education.
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2021/covid-by-the-numbers-how-each-state-fared-on-our-pandemic-scorecard/
Florida scored lower in health compared with NJ/NY/CA, but higher in the other metrics, and higher in the overall average.
What do you think about FL scoring a higher overall average than NJ/NY/CA? Does that support the left’s knee-jerk narrative that Florida’s Covid response was ghastly?