TNS
Protesters gather to protest Pennsylvania's social distancing protocols. Protests like this have popped up across the country.
The right-wing COVID denial regime that seeks to downplay and dispute the seriousness of the virus didn’t materialize out of the mist.
Rather, it was an easy transition for the climate change denying conservative class that relies on ignorance and pettifogging to muddy the waters on scientific discourse.
Ongoing protests around the country have cropped up almost simultaneously, seeking to relax or end the social distancing enacted by various states.
These “movements” are assuredly part of an election year program to divide the country further, in hopes of invigorating Trump’s base.
This is not to say that all these people are paid protesters or anything of the sort but the fact that they aren’t is perhaps more disturbing.
Why are so many Americans so easily pushed to support anti-science positions?
The so-called “facts, not feelings” right-wing crowd relies on the veneer of empiricism and provable fact.
They also rely, ironically, on Christian evangelical support to elect whichever corporate PAC-funded puppet can enact or, perhaps more importantly, block legislation from passing.
This devilish mix of faux empiricism and the willful ignorance of a zealous religious base causes clear issues when faced with a global pandemic.
Issues like the 27% shrink in insect populations over the past 30 years is an easier problem to shut your eyes to but when people start dying all over the country in a short span of time, it’s hard to sweep that under the rug.
Despite the push to turn these protests into a “Tea Party” style electoral wave, most Americans reject this hard headed approach to protecting people’s health during this crisis.
The argument that people want to go back to work is a strawman.
Sure, people would like to be able to leave their homes again and I’m sure those who like their jobs want to return to them.
However, peopling claiming to want to return to work to support their families are protesting issues with capitalism, not social distancing protocols.
An economic system that leaves workers hanging high and dry at first sign of a crisis isn’t fixed via putting lives at risk by sending them back to work.
But the solutions to the problem these people are decrying are inconceivable to them.
Policies like Universal Basic Income or universal healthcare would undeniably help millions of people survive this pandemic with some semblance of security.
These policies have been lumped into the “culture war” waged by conservative “thought” leaders across the country.
Supporting or even considering these potential solutions is out of the question.
The only solution left is to downplay death itself and offer up sacrifices to the all-powerful, ever-hungry “economy.”
Trump supporters are in a death cult. The dear leader declares a disease a hoax and social distancing tyranny so they must respond with force and in numbers. Better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep, right?
If you recoil in disgust or exasperation at the mindless protestations and support for a “leader” that is clearly incompetent, prop science and verifiable knowledge up.
Rather than a real virus killing workers for an economy serving the rich, we need an information virus to infect every American.