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LDKCP t1_is0f9f2 wrote

I don't think schadenfreude was the feeling. I wouldn't describe it as pleasure.

At the time Trump had been downplaying the virus and spreading harmful rhetoric that was going against medical advice.

Trump then being diagnosed and hospitalized was a demonstration that this virus was serious and it may be worth listening to qualified people about.

So I personally thought it was a good thing he got it because it weakened his harmful rhetoric which hopefully led people to make better choices while we were waiting for vaccinations.

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mrlolloran t1_is0h3sm wrote

If you don’t think people felt pleasure at Trump getting Covid then you and I have very different social media feeds

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Romanempire21 t1_is0s9h2 wrote

Warranted pleasure

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mrlolloran t1_is0snzr wrote

See, this why I don’t get the above comment. What fantasyland do they live in?

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[deleted] t1_is0zo0v wrote

[removed]

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Evaj468 t1_is14c70 wrote

I agree! It was almost like he had a pandemic playbook handed to him that would’ve averted much of the illness, including his own!

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mrlolloran t1_is10ow5 wrote

That’s great, how is your thoughts on the matter a reflection on what millions of people think tho? I also personally wasn’t celebrating but I can read and go the internet. People were definitely happy he got Covid and hoped for the worst.

I didn’t wish anything bad on him publicly or privately, but I don’t have the hubris to think I can speak to the feelings of hundreds of millions of people, especially when I can see what they’re writing about the subject

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Swarna_Keanu t1_is13bwp wrote

I didn't say everyone thinks that way; nor do I think that is what the original comment was trying to say. I am aware most people think differently.

Seems more like a personal reflection of their unique emotional response. Which is - not really best placed in a discussion of the scientific aspect, obviously. I just expanded on that.

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[deleted] t1_is0u92h wrote

[deleted]

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LDKCP t1_is0vn93 wrote

He was hospitalized for 3 days.

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JoshuaACNewman t1_is0xe87 wrote

And emerged totally high on emergency steroids.

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Aardark235 t1_is6zo0e wrote

And threatened nuclear war while on roid rage.

Doctors don’t pump patients full of those drugs unless it is a very serious infection. Also, Presidents don’t get flown to Walter Reed for experimental treatments for mild “flu-like” illnesses. The dude almost got a Herman Cain award that day.

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dr-freddy-112 t1_is0w1ow wrote

Nobody is hospitalized for a cold unless their immune system is completely shot. Trump was in a hospital for 3 days.

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iamlejo t1_is19q3b wrote

It was absolutely pleasurable, and had it finished the job orgasmic.

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ggrieves t1_is0d7uf wrote

When Hilary got sick and fell that had an outsized effect on her campaign too.

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kerred t1_is0ep1t wrote

In the game 1960 Making of a President i recall it mentioning Nixon's injury had swayed some votes.

But Nixon had said he would visit all 50 states if I recall that correctly too, which he wasn't able to do.

I guess the first big televised debate is what did him in, sadly not because of what he said but just because of how he looked.

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lavenderjellyfish t1_is0rycf wrote

I remember being a little shocked at people downplaying to outright denying she was unwell for political purposes.

Like guys this is a woman in her sixties campaigning very strenuously, it just looked silly to have people accusing others of being conspiracy theorists to suggest it was taking a physical toll.

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Verbicide t1_is13670 wrote

But that’s revisionist history. “Taking a physical toll” is different from “one foot away from dying” which is what some people were making it out to be. I can’t help but notice we are 6 years out from that and she’s still alive, so perhaps people can admit now how over played that was.

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ADDeviant-again t1_is1paqe wrote

Well, she had something, like the flu(?) at the time. It was weird nobody could just say she had the flu.

When I have an actual influenza A, I'm useless for at least 4-5 days. I don't hold that against anybody.

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CrocCapital t1_is1hm1z wrote

She passed out and dropped like a pound of rocks and was thrown in a van. It didn't really look great.

Hindsight is 20/20. 6 Years later and shes still strutting her stuff and talking to french clowns, having fun and being proven right every day. But she did not appear to be healthy and the media and her campaign didn't do a great job addressing what was happening. That's not a revisionist take.

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SueSudio t1_is137hn wrote

This is some serious revisionist history. People were claiming everything from MS, to a stroke, to the fact that she was on her deathbed.

There was absolutely a cornucopia of conspiracy theories.

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Kienn12 t1_is3j8ce wrote

You’re calling it a fact that she was on her deathbed…

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SueSudio t1_is3mi9i wrote

No I'm not, but English is tough so I understand your confusion.

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Macrophage87 t1_is0k6p6 wrote

I'm not sure I felt schadenfreude about his diagnosis. I was mostly hoping that if he died then his supporters might have taken it more seriously. Instead, he survived and somehow used it as him passing some form of mythical 'trial by fire'.

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stellarlove8 t1_is1crk7 wrote

Yes the only problem with how that all went was he survived. Would have been difficult to paint him as a martyr. Self inflicted buffoonery.

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ADDeviant-again t1_is1pjet wrote

I wanted him to survive it, but be as sick as I was, my patients were, and some of my family was. I wanted it to change him, change his mind.

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thisUbEaccount t1_is37b1w wrote

So you mean a mild cold to zero symptoms, like every single person I personally knew who got it?

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Sparkyseviltwin t1_is3d5is wrote

Me too. There's a few dead in there as well, but we'll not worry about what they might have said.

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thisUbEaccount t1_is3e9o5 wrote

Yeah those old age homes that actively packed in sick people and aerosolized their breath to pump throughout the rest of the buildings, they were hit pretty hard. But let's pretend that this happened because some people didn't get a vaccine that didn't stop you from spreading the virus...

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allegate t1_is3l8g8 wrote

Glad everyone you know made it. I know a couple people who didn’t and even more people who know someone further along the anecdote trail who didn’t.

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thisUbEaccount t1_is3o17o wrote

Yep and I know people who know people who have died of the flu. Death is awful, but so is allowing authoritarianism to thrive and truth to be labeled as dangerous violent misinformation that must not be allowed to be uttered in public.

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LeonardSmallsJr t1_is0iapd wrote

My understanding of schadenfreude has always been a more general idea of pleasure in misfortune of unknown others. Like seeing a passerby trip and fall, I equate it with a brief respite from self-pity. Trump causing so much harm from anti-vax messaging and then getting sick is more like direct “just desserts”. When a bully goes around punching people and finally gets punched back, is that schadenfreude or just that specific guy getting what he deserves?

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SueSudio t1_is13s5r wrote

I was just wondering that myself. "Just desserts" is an apt analogy, and I think there is a slight difference between that and schadenfreude.

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troubletlb1 t1_is1yj40 wrote

"just desserts" isn't bad, that extra 900 atk could be a game changer.

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MilesCW t1_is1pdnq wrote

> My understanding of schadenfreude has always been a more general idea of pleasure in misfortune of unknown others.

This is what it actually means. Schaden means "damage" loosely translated, with "freude" obviously "pleasure". Taking pleasure of other's damage/misery.

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throwawayLindaLavin t1_is1agum wrote

It's spelled "deserts" when used in that sense. I figured I'd mention it because everything else is well written and this is an odd one.

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travelling-through t1_is1cuj6 wrote

a needed correction, people will start and continue using it this way if nobody ever points this out

and that would annoy the likes of me

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UnshelteredInstincts t1_is3jc62 wrote

Schadenfreude is the feeling of joy you get from someone else's pain, as you and someone else said. Trump getting COVID wasn't schadenfreude, but many people (myself included) experienced schadenfreude from the knowledge that Trump was getting his just deserts.

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thisUbEaccount t1_is36vpz wrote

Yeah, kinda like how good it felt when those people demanding we strip away peoples rights and demonize anyone who didn't believe the obvious lies, when they still needed up getting and spreading covid to people who were fully vaxxed and boosted. Oh how the smugness fell.

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[deleted] t1_is2zpom wrote

These vaccines don't prevent people from getting sick though. That's why Democrats literally changed the definition of 'vaccine' in the formal sense. These vaccines only lessen the symptoms, supposedly, and may come with severe side effects or even death down the line. It's kind of a pick-your-poison scenario, imo.

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cthechartreuse t1_is380oz wrote

The definition of vaccine has not been changed. There is a formal definition which has been pretty consistent since the discovery that inoculating people with cowpox could boost the immune response against smallpox (cow <-> vaca -> vaccine)

It's worth noting that the flu vaccine does not stop all variants of influenza either. The notion that a vaccine will magically stop any and all variants of a virus is naive.

Also, since you did no homework, here's the definition of vaccine:

https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=vaccine+definition

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[deleted] t1_is3uctk wrote

The CDC did change their definition of 'vaccine' and 'vaccination'.

&#x200B;

"Social media is calling bluff on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for modifying its definition of the words “vaccine” and “vaccination” on its website. Before the change, the definition for “vaccination” read, “the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.” Now, the word “immunity” has been switched to “protection.” The term “vaccine” also got a makeover. The CDC’s definition changed from “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease” to the current “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.”

&#x200B;

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article254111268.html

&#x200B;

https://www.journalinquirer.com/opinion/chris_powell/vaccine-definition-was-changed-as-covid-19-virus-shots-weakened/article_e36de93e-7226-11ec-a67f-e3b8d07df769.html

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cthechartreuse t1_is3yw9s wrote

This is interesting information.

I did a little deeper digging to see what I could find about vaccines and breakthrough infections. It turns out there are a number of diseases which have breakthrough infections including, but not limited to, COVID-19, influenza, mumps, and chickenpox.

Most recently, a smallpox vaccine has been used to stimulate the immune system to fight monkeypox, which has seen breakthroughs in France.

I wonder whether COVID-19 was the genesis of the change, or simply the final straw.

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chrisdh79 OP t1_is09k8a wrote

From the article: A recent study examined Americans’ feelings of schadenfreude and sympathy toward Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis in 2020. The findings, published in the Journal of Social and Political Psychology, revealed that Democrats expressed more schadenfreude and less sympathy toward Trump’s diagnosis compared to Republicans. Democrats were also more likely to think that the diagnosis would sway people’s votes in the upcoming election.

Schadenfreude, a German word that has been adopted by the English language, describes a feeling of pleasure at another person’s misfortune. This emotion tends to occur within competitive environments, often when there is a conflict between two groups. Study author Joanna Peplak and her co-authors wanted to explore the role of schadenfreude within a particularly heated intergroup context — the latest U.S. presidential election.

“I have been interested in schadenfreude (i.e., feeling pleasure in others’ misfortunes) for some time now and have been primarily conducting research on individual and development differences in children’s and adolescents’ experiences of schadenfreude in social interactions,” explained Peplak, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California-Irvine.

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Fieos t1_is0exdg wrote

Please don't feed the psypost trolls. They are not deserving of your clicks. Your confirmation bias is just feeding a soulless corporate machine.

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AdolescenceOfP1 t1_is0xyyb wrote

A soulless corporate machine or not, if the article is good, it deserves to be talked about here.

The problem is that the psypost articles aren't good.

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AdRepulsive7699 t1_is2vkkt wrote

Fortunately he lost the election. Unfortunately he didn’t get what he deserved.

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LaserGadgets t1_is2z3p4 wrote

First it was SUMMER WILL BURN THE VIRUS and the next winter he said something like ITS GONNA FREEZE TO DEATH. What a muppet.

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philodendrin t1_is3trgk wrote

I just saw him contracting it as more evidence of his ineptitude for the job. He couldn't even protect himself, choosing not to wear a mask was one of the dumbest things I saw him do.

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BreandyDownUnder t1_is0vvuf wrote

I doubt that he actually caught covid. He tested positive one day, panicked, and rushed to the hospital for a new experimental treatment. Then tested negative. This beggars the imagination.

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Pechumes t1_is10i4p wrote

Or maybe he just handled Covid well? That’s also a possibility.

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BreandyDownUnder t1_is19f8m wrote

I suspect it was simply a false positive test. If you get covid, your body begins to produce antibodies. Especially if you're handling covid well. It takes at least a week for those antibodies to drop off after you've fought off the virus. You'll continue to test positive during that time. Last December, my accountant called to tell us that he'd tested positive for covid. We got tested and found we were positive too. We had no symptoms because we were both vaxed and boosted. Still, we self quarantined for a little over a week until we were testing negative for a couple of days. This experience made think back on the Trump episode.

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Pechumes t1_is1adkt wrote

You kinda just proved my point, no? He tested positive, he had the virus.

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BreandyDownUnder t1_iscaz1o wrote

We tested positive every day for a little over a week before testing negative. If we had tested negative the day after testing positive, it would have been considered a false positive. It doesn't matter what medications are administered, the antibodies will hang around in your system for a number of days. If there are no antibodies, there was no infection.

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