The politicization of Covid

[Loren Pechtel]

Eh? Have you forgotten that Pelosi told people not to be afraid of the Rona and to visit SF Chinatown? DeBlasio did the same in NYC.

The honest answer to the OP is that Covid became politicized when the establishment said it was okay to gather in large groups for protests (so long as these were the approved righteous protests). The "experts" lost all credibility. From then on, all this shit is political.

Have you forgotten the calendar?

She was responding to anti-China sentiment at a time when Covid was not on the radar here and if I had to go to a crowded area my first choice would be Chinatown. I have noticed a dramatic difference in mask handling between Asians and non-Asians. I have yet to see a diaper-wearing Asian and I haven't seen many Asian dick-nosers.

This is not to say they're anything like perfect, but the ones that put on a mask are much better about doing it correctly, and they're more likely than average to do so. I have seen few non-Asian younger children in masks, I have seen lots of young Asian children in masks. There's an obvious difference here between walking into the 168 and Smiths or Albertsons. There's also an economic pattern--the 99 Ranch is in a poorer neighborhood and while still above western stores it's nowhere near the level of the 168.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

One can see why you would try to change the subject away from the extreme and toxic politicization of COVID performed by the conservatives. You want to avoid talking about how you support something so immoral and so incredibly contrary to humane wisdom.

Wut? The wisdom that the "unimportant" people have to wear masks while the "important" people don't? TruSt ThE SciEncE! You may be easily fooled, but the rest of us aren't.

You realize such events generally require pre-event testing and people minimize the time they are unmasked?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No, it does. It demonstrates that the Covid hysteria is theater. If AOC and the rest of these authoritarian twits really thought that Covid was the plague, they'd act like Covid is the plague. But they don't. The lock downs, mandates, etc., are clearly not tied to science. It's pure politics. Which is why the Establishment media will criticize the Florida (Republican) governor when case counts rise; but use kid gloves on the New York (Democrat) governor when cases spike there.

The problem is the Republicans won't comply.

Local observation during the fairly short period of lockdown here: Lots of non-compliance and to the extent I knew the politics of those involved 100% were right wing. And the cops are mostly right wing, also. It's not treated like the plague because there's no way to make it stick.

 

[JohnG]

The first serious outbreaks in the USA were in major cities, particularly New York.

Trump and his cronies looked at that, and made a deliberate and calculated decision to let the infection rip, on the belief that the majority of those killed would be from those urban areas that largely vote Democrat. This is well documented and well known, though (of course) a lot of FUD has since been thrown at keeping it out of the public eye.

In pursuit of this strategy they made workable precautions out to be cowardly, leftist and effete; While simultaneously promoting ineffective precautions and prophylactics such as hydroxychloroquine.

Of course, their big mistake was twofold - firstly they underestimated the potential for the disease to take hold in areas of lower population density; And secondly they didn't account for the fact that their propaganda was going to have far more influence on their supporters than on their opponents.

The US, as the dominant force in social media propaganda, then infected the rest of the world with that foolish partisanship, and spread disdain for effective measures (and support for ineffective ones) globally. Internet propaganda knows no borders.

The Trump administration is almost entirely to blame; They committed premeditated genocide in the mistaken belief that the majority of victims would be their political opponents.

"Horseshoe theory" can get fucked. It's another cynical attempt by the guilty to project blame onto those who might accuse them for their crimes.

Donald Trump would, in an equitable world, face international trial for crimes against humanity including but not limited to genocide, and would be convicted and hanged.

But of course he won't be, because evil cunts usually don't get brought to justice if they're wealthy and influential, unless they lose a full blown war.

And the reason they get away with it is that their crimes are so awful that an honest and factual account of them comes across as hyperbolic partisanship - particularly in an environment where they themselves are constantly engaging in hyperbolic partisanship.

My first recollection of this being a political issue was Trump stating at one of his (much publicized) rallies in the early days of covid that that the seriousness of the virus was a "hoax by the Democrats". Not sure if this was the origin or not.

I'm not totally against the notion of horseshoe theory - it's not an explainer for everything. Qanon is a good example as it includes those of the far (currently mainstream) right and the furthest outer fringe of the "new-age yoga/anti-science" left. A good argument could be made that these people are more Libertarian than left however. I don't really know how to refer to them. There are a lot here on Vancouver Island, Canada and I know your home country has it's share. That group overlays perfectly with the anti-vax right.

 

[JohnG]

it's sort of an easy answer, but also a very complex one involving a lot of history over the last 80 years.
the TLDR version is: america is fucking stupid, culturally. americans are even more stupid, culturally and intellectually. shit like the US response to COVID is what happens when you have a country full of idiots who have elected a King Idiot to rule them.
everything else can be nit-picked over and parsed out and blame assigned to various people and places, but at the end of the day what happened is pure brute stupidity.

the long version would require me to write out a thesis paper, but the basic points are these:
* after WW2 the US was basically the only wholly functioning superpower left in the world, which was one of several factors leading to a huge economic boom alongside a massive increase in US global political power.
* this lead very quickly to the US thinking it was King Shit of the world and that it has both the right and the duty to impose its perception of the world on everyone else.
* when russia recovered in the mid 40s and started experimenting with communism moving into the late 40s, the US lost its absolute god damn mind over the concept of an economic system that didn't mirror predatory capitalism, leading to the decades long anal fingerbang that was the Cold War.
* during the Cold War, some dipshit decided that since Communism tended to lean towards non-theism, the correct response would be to amp up US cultural religious fervor, reversing what had been up to that point the general trend in the US of going the way of Britain: ie, that religion was a thing that you kept to yourself and didn't bother other people with, and it wasn't brought up in polite conversation.
* as the Cold War was coming to a close in the 80s, a new generation of religious zealots at least partially empowered by attitudes fostered by the government during the Cold War starting coming into local power and influence and decided to try to extend that to a national platform.
*a necessary aspect of marrying religious zealotry with politics is the suppression of all thought or expression that contradicts the notion of divine authority, and religious leaders being the only people who have it.
* the way you do this is to demonize and vilify anyone who says anything contradicting strict adherence to your religiously themed brand.
* thus in the early 80s began a decades long propaganda war against being smart, against knowing things, against being an expert - to be educated was to be untrustworthy, to to be pig-fucking-stupid was a virtue.
* this lead directly to a trend in the US of a vast swath of the population disbelieving anything a scientist says, and in fact actively denying anything said by anyone who isn't holding a bible and screaming.
* this reached the peak of its current incarnation in 2000 when people thought a drunk coke addict would be a better president than an elder statesmen, on the basis that they'd "like to have a beer with him"

so basically the US has shat itself into intellectual decay, and now (thankfully) moderate scale population death due to preventable illness just for the sake of protecting the sanctity of vulture capitalism and religious fundamentalism.

everything else we're seeing right now is nothing more than the inevitable result of the cultural zeitgeist of a massive country being bent towards self destructive idiocy.

Yes. You can a see lot of the anti-science noise on social media stems from accounts of people of religion. Another group I have encountered is the "Joe Rogan" white male, always-had-things-go-my-way-until-now crowd. That group also buys into the culture war drama as much as the religious right.

 

[JohnG]

Trump and his cronies looked at that, and made a deliberate and calculated decision to let the infection rip, on the belief that the majority of those killed would be from those urban areas that largely vote Democrat.

You honestly believe they that evil and that stupid?
US did not do particularly worse than the rest of the world excluding China and few smaller places.

Regardless of how they fared compared to everyone else (I would argue they had the potential to do a lot better) the pandemic was in fact politicized. Somebody was wagering on something.

 

[JohnG]

The first serious outbreaks in the USA were in major cities, particularly New York.

Trump and his cronies looked at that, and made a deliberate and calculated decision to let the infection rip, on the belief that the majority of those killed would be from those urban areas that largely vote Democrat. This is well documented and well known, though (of course) a lot of FUD has since been thrown at keeping it out of the public eye.

Eh? Have you forgotten that Pelosi told people not to be afraid of the Rona and to visit SF Chinatown? DeBlasio did the same in NYC.

The honest answer to the OP is that Covid became politicized when the establishment said it was okay to gather in large groups for protests (so long as these were the approved righteous protests). The "experts" lost all credibility. From then on, all this shit is political.

I'm not even sure the protests were meant to be political. They were protesting over-policing of black people. It seems that was politicized as well.