>>>Nothing stops people from China from flying to Europe and then the US.
What portion of the traveling population is willing to take trans-continental detours like that? Some controls are better than NO controls.
>>>Yes, it was racism. Yes, it was pointless.
Are you saying that strict controls on population movements originating from the source geographic region of a virus should never be implemented as an early step to containment?
>>>I'm saying that calling it the "Chinese flu" and combining it with Trump's nationalist rhetoric and other outright racist remarks is racism, yes.
That's moving the goalposts. We were discussing the government act of implementing travel restrictions, as a policy. Rather than debate whether that is sound policy, you've retorted with "well he also said racist stuff...which is racist". This is why we can't make progress. Rather than address individual implementations on their own merits, all too often people are now lumping everything originating from the same decision-maker together and discarding the whole package.
>>>And what is the point of stopping flights from China only? When there were global outbreaks?
There was no spontaneous, independent outbreak of COVID appearing contemporaneously in Italy or the UK. A complete international travel ban probably WOULD have been the best idea (along with 90 days of Wuhan-style internal lockdowns). Short of that, a ban on the source nation of (again, at that time) 100% of the fatal cases seems like an appropriate compromise to not completely collapse confidence in the steady trajectory of the US & global economy.
>>>"Obama did it too" is not an argument.
It establishes precedent. Both for the policy itself, and that the deafening lack of "Racism!" criticism as proof of the hypocrisy inherent in the accusers today.
It's context. You want to ignore the fact that Trump was blaming China as a whole for coronavirus?
It's racism to blame the coronavirus on Chinese people.
So you want to tell me you are surprised when people see racism by the racist guy who does and says racist things pretty much constantly?
I'm not going sit here and line by line debate you. I lived during it. I know what happened. It was a nonsense policy like basically the whole of the Trump administration's response. It was a complete joke. There was no federal response to the domestic crisis here. We had no supplies. We had no leadership.
It's just a funny thing to point to this as some shining example of Trump doing the right thing when ever other indicator is saying otherwise.
>>>You want to ignore the fact that Trump was blaming China as a whole for coronavirus?
I think it's valid to blame the CCP government for the pandemic going global. Especially when the CCP instituted a strict DOMESTIC travel lockdown without a matching INTERNATIONAL one. Why did they let people continue to fly internationally from Wuhan?
>>So you want to tell me you are surprised when people see racism by the racist guy who does and says racist things pretty much constantly?
I'm saying that people are so wrapped up in their emotional response to Trump the person that it is interfering with their ability to accept sensible government policies. Policy decisions which are not distinctive from previous responses to global pandemic risks over the past 20 years. I see it all the time in my own (black American) community.
>>>I'm not going sit here and line by line debate you.
You asked if I wanted to continue the debate. Every one of my posts links to policy implementations in living memory, with citations. Your posts have no references, and you've doubled down on arguing about racism rather than debate policy, before bowing out of the conversation? So...concession accepted? This is why we can't have nice things...like a functioning government.
>>>There was no federal response to the domestic crisis here. We had no supplies. We had no leadership.
The US has known for a decade that it was unprepared for a pandemic[1]. Lack of supplies cannot be dumped solely on the feet of the most recent shitty Commander-in-Chief, in a long line of turds holding the office. As for leadership, half of the country spent the previous 3 years undermining the Executive Branch's authority because Orange Man Bad, and then was surprised when the massive (yet understaffed of key leadership positions near the top) Federal bureaucracy wasn't able to coalesce and pivot on a dime to tackle an emergent crisis? And you are SURPRISED at this? I'm not.
Nothing stops people from China from flying to Europe and then the US.
Nothing.
Yes, it was racism. Yes, it was pointless. Do you want to continue this discussion further?