It’s funny how some people assume people that wear a mask *must* be on the left.
— Stephen Punwasi (@StephenPunwasi) June 27, 2020
Because only the left doesn’t want to spread disease? 🤷♂️
pic.twitter.com/LQZ0dv2tsC
Knowledge of the world seems to be deteriorating in America, abetted by a president—ignorant of the world himself—whose formula for political success depends on more people becoming less informed.Despite all that has been responsibly reported about Russian interference, Trumpian malfeasance and his daily record of gross incompetence, a recent Abacus poll yielded some disheartening results:
If Trump loses, most Republican voters say they will believe the election was rigged. If he tries to stay in office after losing, they wouldn’t want the military to enforce the election results. In other words, their trust in or need for him is so powerful they don’t stop to think what sort of precedent it would set to leave the country in a state of impasse.It would appear that those polled have little insight into their country's relations with the rest of the world:
As many Americans think Russia is America’s best friend as think France, Italy or Germany is. This despite America having spent decades in a military alliance with France, Italy and Germany to protect against Russian military ambition, despite proven Russian use of cyberwarfare to disrupt American social peace and elections.
Under Trump’s time in office, Republicans are four times more likely to say relations with Canada have improved (41 per cent), than think they have worsened (8 per cent). This is mindless partisanship—the facts of the last few years were almost constant tension around NAFTA, dairy subsidies, steel and aluminum tariffs, the idea of Canada as a security risk, the G7 Charlevoix summit friction. But for Republican voters everything seems to be going swimmingly.In a time when the world sees the U.S. for what it has become, 80 per cent of Republicans think Trump has made America greater.
Less than 12 per cent of Republican voters think U.S. relations have soured with Great Britain, France or Germany. This despite almost constant friction in these relationships, on topics from trade to NATO to climate change to refugee and immigration policy. Trump has by all accounts a terrible relationship with President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. He was on bad terms with U.K. Conservative Prime Minister Teresa May and launched scathing attacks on London’s Mayor.
Half of Republican voters would go along with abandoning NORAD, roughly a third would support building a wall and putting troops along the Canadian border. Happily, most Americans are against invading Canada to get at our resources. But stop and think about the fact that only 56 per cent of Americans strongly oppose the idea.As children, almost all of us indulged in fantasies of one kind or another. It now appears that many Americans have entered a second, much darker childhood.
Dream City Church, the north Phoenix megachurch set to host a Donald Trump rally on June 23, claims it has solved the pandemic problem in its auditorium, making it safe for anyone who wants to attend.
In a video posted on Sunday, Senior Pastor Luke Barnett and Chief Operations Officer Brendon Zastrow announce happily that the church has installed a new air-purification system that kills 99.9 percent of the coronavirus. The technology, they say, was developed by members of the church.
A megachurch is hosting Trump's rally on Tuesday in Phoenix. These two con-men falsely claim they've installed a system which kills 99.9% of COVID-19.
— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) June 22, 2020
Arizona's Coronavirus numbers are surging. Madness...pic.twitter.com/6mgM8BLhO9
"COVID-19 REPORT: Lab tests confirm that CleanAir EXP eliminates 99.9% of coronavirus from the air in less than 10 minutes.*"Faith, it has been said, can move mountains. As of this writing, it remains to be seen if faith in an unproven technology can conquer Covid-19.
The footnote states, "* Biosafety lab analysis performed on active coronavirus 229E test surrogate."
Coronavirus 229E is one of the viruses responsible for the common cold that's often used in virus studies.
But even if the technology can eliminate the surrogate virus in 10 minutes, such studies are done in controlled laboratory settings. They don’t necessarily apply to something like the interior of a megachurch. How much air a system can process in a set time would play a role. Clean Air EXP's website states that its home system takes a few hours to purify the air: "Most homes see a 90% reduction of particulates and contaminants within 4 hours, and 99.8% reduction in 6 hours or less."
A larger, commercial system can purify more air than a home unit, presumably. But it's hard to see how 99 percent of COVID-19 could be eliminated from the church auditorium before people arrive. Also, saying attendees would be "safe and protected" when they come to the rally overstates the ability of any air-purifying system to prevent transmission by infected people in a crowd.
These are the type of people who should be pepper sprayed, not peaceful protesters pic.twitter.com/hibwzJfLh1
— Rob Gill (@vote4robgill) June 20, 2020
do — Courtney Jaye (@TropicaliJaye) June 20, 2020
