Everyone in South Dakota needs to read Vox reporter German Lopez’s explanation of why coronavirus is almost five times as bad in the Dakotas right now as it is in the rest of the United States.
Yes, you can blame Kristi Noem:
…by not instituting government policies and allowing the public to act recklessly, North and South Dakota kept themselves vulnerable to the coronavirus. That vulnerability took a while to expose itself in two sparsely populated states with relatively little travel in and out — but once it appeared, Covid-19 has exploded, rapidly spreading across both of the Dakotas [German Lopez, “Why North and South Dakota Are Suffering the Worst Covid-19 Epidemics,” Vox, 2020.10.27].
We can also blame our own Trumpist wishful thinking:
…While touting their messages of personal responsibility, many Republicans have also downplayed the threat of Covid-19. Trump has deliberately done this — telling journalist Bob Woodward, “I wanted to always play [the coronavirus] down.” Even after his illness, Trump has tweeted, “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.” He’s even mocked masks and claimed — falsely — that they’re ineffective. (In reality, the evidence for masks keeps getting stronger.)
For Trump, the goal here is obvious: If he manages to convince the public that things are okay and normal, it could boost his reelection chances. Republican lawmakers, in many ways beholden to Trump’s supporters, have by and large followed the president’s lead.
In North and South Dakota, that has seemingly translated to a predominantly Republican public going out, too often without masks, and spreading the coronavirus across the states [Lopez, 2020.10.27].
We are reaping the bitter fruits of our Trumpism, our unwillingness to put aside partisanship and political celebrity and deal with real problems and real threats to our life and liberty.
Related Reading: A big bunch of South Dakota organizations involved in healthcare, business, and government are campaigning to get all South Dakotans to mask up to reverse the coronavirus outbreak as an act of neighborly conscience. When Fargo Inforum reporter Jeremy Fugleberg asked Governor Noem’s office if the Governor will support this campaign, “Noem spokesman Ian Fury repeated the governor’s stance on masks but didn’t directly answer when asked whether the governor would join the Mask Up South Dakota campaign.”
Bcb referenced the newest Atlantic article “[When] Trump Refuses to Concede” cited here, considering Trump’s all encompassing Republican plan to jack the election.
“State by state, they have sought—with some success—to purge voter rolls, tighten rules on provisional votes, uphold voteridentification requirements, ban the use of ballot drop boxes, reduce eligibility to vote by mail, discard mail-in ballots with technical flaws, and outlaw the counting of ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive afterward. The intent and effect is to throw away votes in large numbers.” Of course hamstringing the USPO has also had serious consequences. Trump has claimed the only way he looses is via fraud.
Bush v. Gore allows states to bypass voters and select their own electoral college electors (Jason Ravnsborg is one). “…the Supreme Court affirmed in Bush v. Gore that a state “can take back the power to appoint electors.” How and when a state might do so has not been tested for well over a century. Trump may test this. According to sources in the Republican Party at the state and national levels, the Trump campaign is discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority. With a justification based on claims of rampant fraud, Trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly. The longer Trump succeeds in keeping the vote count in doubt, the more pressure legislators will feel to act before the safe-harbor deadline expires”[ (December 8, 2020). States switch from counting ballots to preparing for the electoral college.]
“The state legislatures will say, ‘All right, we’ve been given this constitutional power. We don’t think the results of our own state are accurate, so here’s our slate of electors that we think properly reflect the results of our state’”. Yikes!
“Republicans control both legislative chambers in the six most closely contested battleground states. Of those, Arizona and Florida have Republican governors, too. In Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the governors are Democrats.”
“If Democrats win back the Senate and hold the House, then all roads laid out in the Electoral Count Act lead eventually to a Biden presidency. The reverse applies if Republicans hold the Senate and unexpectedly win back the House. But if Congress remains split, there are conditions in which no decisive outcome is possible—no result that has clear force of law.”
Dusty becoming a lynch pin is perhaps one of hundreds of scenarios.
“There are reforms to consider some other day, when an election is not upon us. Small ones, like clearing up the murky parts of the Electoral Count Act. Big ones, like doing away with the Electoral College. Obvious ones, like appropriating money to help cash-starved election authorities upgrade their operations in order to speed up and secure the count on Election Day.***
If you are at relatively low risk for COVID-19, volunteer to work at the polls. If you know people who are open to reason, spread word that it is normal for the results to keep changing after Election Night. If you manage news coverage, anticipate extraconstitutional measures, and position reporters and crews to respond to them. If you are an election administrator, plan for contingencies you never had to imagine before. If you are a mayor, consider how to deploy your police to ward off interlopers with bad intent. If you are a law-enforcement officer, protect the freedom to vote. If you are a legislator, choose not to participate in chicanery. If you are a judge on the bench in a battleground state, refresh your acquaintance with election case law. If you have a place in the military chain of command, remember your duty to turn aside unlawful orders. If you are a civil servant, know that your country needs you more than ever to do the right thing when you’re asked to do otherwise.
An election cannot be stolen unless the American people, at some level, acquiesce.”
It is going to get weirder. :-/
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
I am ashamed to to say that I whizzed right by the the Atlantic piece that Leslie so wisely cited.
My browser is so polluted with click bait that I get overwhelmed on occasion, at any rate it is a perfect example of American journalism at it’s best. I highly recommend that you all give it a careful read.
I also suggest that if you are able to watch, (Whose Vote Counts) Frontline PBS, please do. The program focuses on the Wisconsin 2020 primary election which seems to address a lot of the issues we will be confronted with next week.
Please wear a mask you may save the life of someone you love, vote Biden Harris and stay safe.
Silver lining? In the midst of a runaway pandemic the vast majority of election day voters will presumably be republicants, given the spinelessness of that particular heard of sheep maybe they will be too scared to show up.
It so deeply saddens me that South Dakota gramas and grampas are dying due to Kruel Kristi, Insane Imbecile and the GOP.
Cancer survivors are lauded, fundraisers held, but now that many of them are immune compromised they are confined to their homes for months or they die. Why? Their neighbors can’t be bothered to simply slip a mask over their faces to protect that survivor.
I don’t wanted hear that BS about how wonderful SD neighbors are and how they’ll do anything for you, how nice and friendly they are. They’re proving it’s not true. They won’t even put on a lousy mask for their neighbors.
South Dakota, the Selfish State!
(This is not the South Dakota I grew up in. People were kinder then.)
“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” George Carlin
Breaking news trump never had the virus , it was pure theater. Fake news…. maybe?
It’s the angry white man syndrome, Debbo. White middle aged men that have been left out of the global economy has disheartened them and they feel insecure so they turn to their guns to make them feel manly again. The loss of good union manufacturing jobs because of NAFTA and the cost of living skyrocketing with wages so low has made the middle class virtually disappear. The System actually wants there to be race wars. If I could I would leave the US for a more peaceful country. Who can be happy here with all the strife going on? I feel bad for our kids with the mess we have left them. Establishment Democrats are amost as much to blame. If we got the money out of politics and term limits in Washington, I think that would help. Old people that are still there should have retired years ago.
Skull and Bones – the System was purposely made this way so the artistocrats could keep their power. Why do you think there is an Electoral College? This isn’t a Democratic System!
South Dakota is Washington DC in a smaller setting.
The US is a very racist country and always was. The ancestors that founded most of the country were of ignorant low class upbringing. I’m serious! This is why there is so much racism and stupidity. It makes sense. The rich weren’t going to leave their riches in Europe and go to an unkown land. It’s in much of America’s DNA to question everything with great ignorance and to support slavery for a couple hundred years and to supress minorities voting to this day. America is very ignorant and uneducated. The more uneducated states like SD breed the most kooks and look what you got SD – a governor that is against what doctors recommend.
Things seem horrible right now, like never before, so it may be worth remembering we’ve had very turbulent periods, and not that long ago (written in Oct of 2018): “Compared to the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. has gotten significantly less violent, … While the U.S. saw 2,500 bombings in an 18-month period between 1971 and 1972, the number has decreased by the hundreds in the decades since… According to a report from the U.S. Bomb Data Center, there were 335 bombings in 2017, a 24% decrease from the prior year.”
Bombings from the 60s and 70s, and probably those from 2017 are not even in our consciousness. We are focused on the immediacy: Covid, the economy, civil unrest, Trump’s reckless and criminal behavior that we forget the country has had many low periods before, as has Europe and every other part of the world. Granted, in our lifetimes, we’ve never had a man so recognizably flawed and unstable as Trump. Then again Nixon was paranoid, Reagan senile, LBJ racist, JFK a womanizer. The expression darkest before the dawn may apply. Vote!!!
https://time.com/5434756/letter-bombs-us-violence-terrorism/
Masks work. Masks work. Masks work.
______________________
The Vanderbilt analysis compares Tennessee hospitals based on how many of their patients come from counties with mask requirements.
In hospitals where at least 75% of patients are subject to a local mask requirement, COVID hospitalizations are at about the same level now as they were July 1.
In hospitals where fewer than 25% of patients are subject to a local mask mandate, however, hospitalizations are more than 200% higher than their July 1 levels.
From 538
is.gd/WX0RAf
To manipulate the election, criminal SD politicians enable raw weaponization by GOP to 1.) kill people with pandemic infection; and 2.) create official government hearings, as a high-profile venue, for Sen Cruz and others to play-act shouting with profanity at fact checking by googles, youtubes and Facebooks eTc, in order to get free mainstream media coverage of thier “its unfair” whining that censoring liar Trump for poisoning the voting process with false claims and squirming over being TAKEN OF THE AIR WHEN LYING. Today, NPR hearing coverage (thundering hearing presentation by Cruz: “Who the hell elected you to fact check/censor the president!!??)
Republicans unfairly refused to hear and give or withhold constitutional advice and consent accordingly to centrist Judge Merrick Garland in 2015 but the heard, advised and consented to “8 day” Judge Barrett. Feminist Gloria Steinham SLAMMED Barrett’s hypocrisy!
Republicans will kill grandma (Rounds/Daugaard infamously criticizing Tribes-remember?!) and blaspheme being fact-checked to win. And they scream and cry when caught cheating. And spend your money to lawyer out of accountability and consequences. Pigs. Grdz-grdz.
And Trust Dusty??? Who are his teachers?
Things get worse every day drumpf and Noem nothing stay in power.
United States
Coronavirus Cases:
9,112,541
Deaths:
233,049
Moar milestones reached today.
This is sad and pathetic and frightening at the same time…
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/10/jared-kushner-bob-woodward-doctors
drumpf’s pandemic plan had nothing to do with saving lives except his own political life according to Kushner.
Let’s be accurate: MASKS HELP. That is all. If not N95 they give about 30 to 50 percent protection to the wearer, but 70 to 80 percent to others. There are multiple factors that contribute to the severity of infection like the amount of viral load a person comes in contact, so wearing one is prudent and responsible. In New Mexico my family assures me there is almost 100% compliance with mask-wearing in public, yet just a couple days ago their health systems announced urgent calls because they see a breaking point. Masks are not a singular answer. What happens when you go home? Do you eat around the table together, hug your children, make love to your spouse? Social distancing does not happen at home.
From article: Monday doctors from Presbyterian, Lovelace, and the University of New Mexico Hospital said if the state continues to see the high number of cases and hospitalizations that we’re seeing now, the coming months could be “catastrophic.”
https://www.koat.com/article/new-mexico-doctors-covid-hospitalizations-up-coming-months-could-be-catastrophic/34486664#
New State Ad
‘Masks they’re on us’
I hope I used the correct version of there, their, they’re. If I didn’t, I apologize.
You did, Mr. Schaffer. Now you just need a little logo with the ugly yellow shading on the shape of South Dakota with a happy little mask on it somehow. And viola, you’re a millionaire!
grudznick
I would take half that in cash.
Wrong. New state ad: “Masks Are Not On Us.” Calling yourself Libertarian or Republican is not an excuse for not caring about others. Quite the opposite, it is about respecting boundaries. Trump and his minions falsely use a slight portion of that idealogy to justify greed and self-interest.
This was in Katie Couric’s morning newsletter, “Wakeup Call.” It’s electronic and goes out to millions.
“Outbreak: Almost half of South Dakota’s prison population has tested positive for Covid-19.”
I guess Kruel Kristi didn’t mandate positive pants for the inmates.
[comment transferred by CAH at GB request]: As those wiser than I have said, it’s better to sandbag before the flood, instead of during the flood. Likewise, those who refuse to mask up are equivalent to the holes in the sandbag defense. Just common sense.
They are continuing to find very high rates of correlation for infection and mortality to Vitamin D, especially for people of color whose darker skin doesn’t absorb it from sunlight as quickly and have higher rates of obesity and diabetes, which they think are all linked to an inflammation reaction. There also may be a link to home oral care only about one third of people floss every day. Too much bacteria in the mouth contributes to inflammation, overall poor health, and worse. SD has an almost 8% rate of infection the prison system 50% obviously we’re not doing something right. Only about 50% in our grocery store wear masks it’s much worse other places unless posted mandatory by the merchant.
Masks
Social distancing
Hand washing
Vitamin D supplements (5000)
Floss and Brush every day.
Pneumonia: If you don’t brush your teeth and have an overgrowth of bacteria in your mouth, it’s possible to inhale them into your lungs where they can create problems such as pneumonia. Researchers reported that improving oral hygiene among hospital patients reduced cases of pneumonia by 40 percent.Feb 25, 2017
So why are we waiting for leadership from elected government officials? Local businesses can make masks mandatory, advertise the precautions they are taking to protect their employees and customers, designate hours for elderly shoppers, call in order system, phone apps showing sale flyers, order forms, delivery service. Can’t get an ordinance passed, make your business shopper friendly during the pandemic. It is not going to disappear any time soon, nor with the cavalier approach many are taking, can it. I was serious about my ad suggestion as something to use to let people know, a community is taking this seriously.
Minnesota stores did those things months ago, as did many other states. Kruel Kristi is sabotaging such efforts by the stores and they worry about boycotts. Isn’t Menard requiring masks? They are here. How is that working out for them in SD?
Debbo,
I haven’t been to Menards more than 3 times since this started, yet everyone I saw in the local Menards has been masked. Local Dollar General as well. So it can work.
No covid bugs in the people’s republic of Minnesota, no doubt.
You can’t stop the virus. The science tells us that. Except in Minnesota.
You could lower the rates of covid spreading as fast as it is if people weren’t so stupid. My god, people are dumb. The Constitutionalists are claiming mandating masks is uncontitutional. It is NOT UNCONSTITUTIONAL FOR A BUSINESS OWNER to have a mask rule. Are the NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE signs unconstitional also? What idiots!
So NO MASK, NO SHIRT, No SHOES NO SERVICE all you South Dakota Idiots.
Kristi can’t cover that beautiful face. She’s actually helping younger South Dakotans collect their inheritance much earlier.