Ezra Klein: Trumpism, not polarization, drives America's disastrous coronavirus politics

[babylonsister]

Trumpism, not polarization, drives America’s disastrous coronavirus politics
“This outcome is a policy choice. The unnecessary lives lost. The long-term effects we don’t even know about yet on our vital organs. It’s all a policy choice.”
By Ezra Klein@ezraklein Jul 1, 2020, 9:10am EDT


On June 25, the Pew Research Center published a startling poll. The difference between Democratic and Republican attitudes on Covid-19 was growing. Thirty-seven percent of Democrats, but 72 percent of Republicans, said they’d feel comfortable getting a haircut. Twenty-eight percent of Democrats, but 65 percent of Republicans, were willing to eat in a restaurant. Eight percent of Democrats, but 31 percent of Republicans, would attend a crowded party. All in all, the Pew poll found that partisanship was the single biggest driver of attitudes toward the coronavirus — dwarfing the effects of geography, age, gender, or race.

Now America’s coronavirus rate is on the rise, racing into uncharted territory even as Europe, Canada, and Japan hold new case rates to about 100 per million residents, or under. This chart is a stark reminder that the outbreak we’re experiencing isn’t an inevitability of the disease, but a staggering failure of policy and public health compliance:


New cases per capita have risen sharply in the US, compared to Europe, Canada, and Japan.
Our World in Data

Behind those lines lie the obvious mistakes and elite signals: States are reopening despite meeting few of the guidelines to end lockdowns. The president is holding indoor rallies, his campaign aides removing stickers encouraging social distancing at the venue. Masks have become part of America’s culture war. America is headed for a disaster driven not so much by the disease as by the politics that surround it.

“America is the global exception right now,” says Gregorio Millett, director of public policy at amFAR. “Just look at the EU or New Zealand or countries across Asia. These places have vastly different cultures, different geographies, different institutions, different everything — but the one thing they have in common is that everyone is following public health measures. And they’ve all kept this virus at bay. Our leaders decided to politicize a scientific issue and as a result, our curve looks different than the rest of the world’s.”

more...

https://www.vox.com/2020/7/1/21308809/covid-19-coronavirus-2020-trump-election-polls-polarization

[Hortensis]

1. The right is split. Many sensible conservatives isolate and want action.

But it's the minority who regard illness and death as collateral damage in their spite war against everyone else whose leaders hold power on the right. It's of course the minority we see out, and between those and their leaders holding office, we overestimate their numbers, though not their role in this growing holocaust.

[JI7]

6. among Conservatives it's the majority of them who don't care about the death and continue to support

Trump and the disaster .

[Hortensis]

7. Really? What figures and sources reveal that shockingly extreme reality?

Btw, I've been wondering. Do we have estimates for those who are hoping their parents and grandparents will knock off and leave them everything while they're still young enough to blow it in good style? If so, do they break those down by political orientation?

[JI7]

8. Support for Trump among them

[Hortensis]

9. We make that leap because we're angry and frightened,

with all the reason in the world to be outraged at them. But anyone who remembered that their own loved ones and others important to their lives are just as much at risk of dying, even more so because of their behaviors, would realize the huge flaw in the assumption.

I believe the experts who say they're caught up in a mass social psychopathy (which had already swept aside the most basic common sense) and has been worsened by the pandemic. Also that it's been spreading to the left, where many are also being swept up.

[certainot]

21. you hit on a few things. i was thinking same about inheritances. lawyers and

stock brokers and real estate agents get some too. i wonder how many 'dynasties' and rich republican patriarchs are doomed. although they're probably the ones who were getting the ventilators for private use. the old republican scumbag who built a fortune off coal and others with black lung can barely talk to tell his lawyer "it was that little spoiled antifa brat grandkid Buckley who came and coughed on me and i want him out of my...my....wi....wi.....ghaaaaagh...."

mass psychologies that work together: limbaugh and sex on the wrong brain authoritarianism

trump is a neighbor and golf partner of limbaugh and it is clear to dittoheads they are on the same page. limbaugh called COVID a hoax for two months to start this bullshit. on monday he called the russian bounty story a hoax, part of the whole russia collusion 'hoax'. that is the collusion, and it looks a lot like putin figured out at least by 2008 (mccain forced to pick palin to get limbaugh's support) the way to influence american politics is to find a way to feed the guy who leads and polices a chorus of 1500 radio stations. putin soviets hated Voice of America and getting control of messaging on 1500 radio stations is poetic justice. they just took over VOA. brazil's bolsanaro credits the "brazillian limbaugh", who broadcasts from and lives in virginia, with his 'success'. we know rw talk shows get paid callers - are russians calling too? why not? did they get compromat on limbaugh? limbaugh getting payola? in 2009 limbaugh helped create "climategate", which started from a russian hack, with an unusual full week spent on that one topic just in time to derail the copenhagen climate conference and save putin billions in fossil fuel un-regulation.

republicans are going to turn on trump as limbaugh loses more time and croaks, unable to keep the vast right wing media on single message with his masterful lying, excuse-making, rationalizations, and pretzel logic.

trump and limbaugh are (nearly) at the top (putin) of this authoritarian certainty pyramid, working together. sex on the wrong brain explains greed/unregulated capitalism/materialism and the authoritarian and fascist addiction to certainty as a masturbation problem - right handed masturbation diverts impatient reproductive impulses to the left brain which is more involved in logic, math, quantification, critical thinking etc, resulting in greed and the irrational need to end the thinking - with finality, premature conclusion, certainty - the left brain's version of satisfaction, orgasm. uncertainty (nature, diversity, difference) becomes the enemy to be controlled or destroyed.

mass psychology: our ancestors started out like chimps at 50-50 right and left handed. over milllions of years increasing populations and conflicts favored the right handed with sex on the wrong brain - lack of empathy, greed, fear, bigotry - over curiosity, cooperation, creativity. 100,000 years ago we got to 90% right handed. the circuitry is burned in early and for many right handed who use their right brain a lot and live in democracies that wayward sex energy is just taking a quick detour.

sowb is now baked into our societies, the norm, what is often called human nature. we use democratic organization to reduce and regulate sowb symptoms

for some, especially descended from older civilizations that have been repressing sex for thousands of years and keeping the secret of authoritarian power (european american vs african and american american heredity - eg columbus meets the natives), sex on the wrong brain can get really bad - then you get trumps and limbaughs so addicted and slavish to certainty and afraid of uncertainty they can't function without psychotic levels of denial. the creativity needed to rationalize and accept the denial and certainty finally draws some of that sex energy to the right brain where it can finally get to the pleasure centers. so being stupid and lying feels good. following leaders with royal certitude who can reduce uncertainty with order and show how to judge the world in black and white absolutes satisfies the need for certainty and feels good.

trump has a very bad case of sowb. talk radio and limbaugh with his royal certitude used to sell lies were perfect for advancing trump and using republican authoritarianism and undermining democracy. does putin know what the secret of authoritarian power is? and instinctively and maybe even by design, authoritarians will prevent the simple sex ed lesson that could defund/starve them.

democracy cannot afford to give 1500 coordinated unchallenged/certain radio stations a free speech free ride. lucky for us that while the left completely ignores talk radio, limbaugh is dying from lung cancer and the time he's missing is a huge loss for trump coordinated messaging. sad that he might die and never get the credit he deserves for this disaster - from reagan deification, corporate fundy supremes, stopping single payer, to bush/iraq, global warming, etc., and now covid denial.

[modrepub]

11. Unfortunately

It appears that most of the COVID-19 spread is due to a few individuals who seem to be able to pass it on to many people (super spreaders). And this is happening regardless of ideology; some folks just appear to have a knack at spreading this for some unknown reason. Now it would help if everyone would follow simple directions but I'm pretty sure some -sshats won't listen.

[Hortensis]

12. Yes. Eye opening to learn most of those studied

who are infected and around others haven't spread it to anyone. That 2.whatever new cases per infection is an average pulled way up by superspreaders.

When we finally test and do contact tracing, we'll be able to contain an outbreak in a workplace by isolating one or a few for two weeks and leaving the rest to go on with their work.

[JHB]

18. "Many"? Sure. But who is the majority and who is the minority is less clear...

...although as excuses for wishful thinking run out the "isolate and action" faction will inevitably become the majority.

However, the last four months have shown that they have had virtually no clout with Republican officials. They haven't influenced policy in any meaningful way, and won't until those officials are scrambling for the lifeboats as the election draws near.

[kentuck]

2. This is such an interesting article!

Thanks to Ezra for reporting on the public's health.

[GusBob]

3. How a contagion became a political football was beyond me. But now I see

The virus was making Trump look bad, deservedly so. So now more people have to get sick and die as punishment
It's like Stalinist Russia or Cambodia under Pol Pot, the citizens are turning on each other because of one man and a deranged ideology

[kentuck]

4. I recall when he did not want to let the people off the cruise ship...

...because he did not want it to drive up the number of cases, which would make him look bad.

[GusBob]

5. The brutal irony is: If he had done things differently early on

He could crow like a golden barnyard rooster. They would be naming streets after him today

A few weeks of delay and then reopening a few weeks too early

[kentuck]

10. If he had been a good person, and thought about the people instead of himself...

...and had put the country first?

The polls would likely be a lot different today.

He could have chosen to unite the people, rather than to divide them.

He could have been honest with the people.

But he chose to do something more comfortable for him, I suppose?

[HotTeaBag]

15. I've been thinking this as well.

Trump was handed not one, but two golden opportunities to rise to the challenge and become a great leader - the virus and the protests for change.

Most presidents don't even get one - the last probably being 9/11 or maybe the recession in 2008-9.

If he were even remotely human and competent he could have altered the course of history for the good, but unbelievably he did every single thing he could (and continues to daily) to make things much, much worse.

I'll never, ever understand it.

[bucolic_frolic]

13. The Trump Plague

Due to incompetence and delay for greed and self-interest, he owns it, and history will judge it so. imo

[Botany]

14. "Our leaders decided to politicize a scientific issue ..."

Yup. And with Reagan's killing off of the fairness doctrine 2.5 generations ago that
politicizing found fertile ground in a large # of Americans.

[dalton99a]

16. Dr. Trump's magic touch

[magicarpet]

17. Doctor Dump performs brain surgery with shit all over his hands and fingers.

[JHB]

19. "Trumpism, not polarization" is a false dichotomy

The Republicans have relied on polarization through grievance, division, and misinformation for over 50 years.

They've consistently shifted the gear up and sabotaged their own ability to downshift. That's what happens when you outsource your messaging to radio and cable TV cranks: The feel no need to limit the Two Minute Hate to a mere two minutes.

[crickets]

20. Well said. nt

[Quixote1818]

22. I think that is what the article is basically saying. It's a chicken or egg thing.

His nutty people would be willing to go along with him if he said stay home and wear masks but he says the opposite which causes the polarization.