Right-wing "perspective" on 300,000 deaths: not as bad as the Black Death

[KayF]

https://hughhewitt.com/some-perspective/

The news is now consumed with the fact that covid deaths have exceeded 300,000 in the United States. My heart aches for everyone that has lost a loved one. That is deeply saddening.

But while we are breathlessly reporting that news as if it the worst news possible, I think some historical perspective is important. 300,000 is roughly 0.09% of the population of the United States.

Now consider this regarding the Black Plague:

Europe suffered an especially significant death toll from the plague. Modern estimates range between roughly one-third and one-half of the total European population in the five-year period of 1347 to 1351 died, during which the most severely affected areas may have lost up to 80 percent of the population.

[Doodley]

1. And yet the right made sure Ebola was the number one story in 2014, in which two died in America

after contracting it overseas.

[Arkansas Granny]

2. Hugh Hewitt. UGH!!!

[LakeVermilion]

3. The Right spent a lot on Trump.

The sold out their claim to "The Right to Life," they pissed away their concern over deficits, as well as their concern for the military and law and order.

Of course, it doesn't matter, we won't capitalize on those errors, because we've always known that they were just talking points.

[genxlib]

4. Better than the Dark Ages

That's quite the high bar he is setting.

Maybe that's why Trump wants to remain President so badly. He hasn't taken the #1 spot yet.

[intheflow]

27. Right?

It's like, "Hey, back in the day when 99% of everyone was illiterate, we were using leeches to bleed people with slight head colds, no one knew what hygiene was, and 'science' declared witches and devils to be real, supernaturally-powered entities among us, a lot of people died of a virus. It's just natural, people die of viruses. What's the big deal?"

[Maraya1969]

5. He has to go back to the 1300's to find something worse than what is happening now.

[obamanut2012]

6. Why are you posting Hewitt here?

This excerpt from him literally isn't "keeping an eye on the enemy" or furthering discourse in any way. Same with folks who loooove posting Freeperlinks, and who used to post JPR stuff alllll the time.

[PJMcK]

18. I disagree

It's always important to know what the opinion makers on the "dark side" are telling their followers.

It's rarely pretty but it's always informative.

I'm mature enough to read something without losing my shit. In any event, that's my opinion.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. Going Back Before Germ Theory...

...and the scientific method to make a point?
Pretty desperate.
Not surprised, given how dumb Hewitt is.

[ananda]

8. Gee...

And here I was all upset with the murder-suicide cult allowed to run amuck
and cause so much harm and death, comparing the 300,000 + death rate
to those of the worst wars in history.

Color me unschooled........

[Chainfire]

9. I am seeing post from the deniers

that NO ONE has died of Covid......It is all fake news, that people are dying of cancer and heart attacks and the doctors are reporting it as Covid....This was all part of the plan to steal the election from Trump who really won in a landslide.. To many of these folks, Covid is "just a cold."

They have been so indoctrinated by the belief that all of the mainstream news is fake that they trust no one from the established media providers, while at the same time, they will accept the most outlandish claims from their "trusted sources." The ability of people to deny reality is astounding to me. Years of brainwashing has paid off.

[marble falls]

10. But worse than a Sharknado.

[llashram]

11. somehow this seems

an attempt to cover for the administration and their mini-fuhrer...not so bad as the EuriopeanPlaugue in the 13th century. Our technology in communications is light years from that time. Ours is instantaneous, whereas they had to rely on word of mouth. Except for the maskless wanting to die cult of the mini-fuhrer, our levels of ignorance over the transmission of this current pandemic is even more specific. 300,000+ deaths may not mean much from your historical perspective but I hope the media keeps blaring out this news. Maybe, just maybe the news will penetrate the granite skulls of the trump troglodytes.

[treestar]

12. It seems we have higher expectations of the 21st century

who would have thought it?

[Miguelito Loveless]

13. Yes, that last Bubonic Plague outbreak in the US was catastrophic,

Oh wait...

[area51]

14. Will Hewitt be putting out the same crap once Biden is sworn in?

I'm guessing it'll turn to "ZOMG! Uncaring Biden presides over massive death toll !!!"

[lame54]

30. He wrote that op-ed a month ago...

Just waiting to release it

[paleotn]

15. Tell that to the families of what amounts to a medium size city wiped out.

And we're no where near done yet. We're not entering the time when respiratory viruses rule. Vaccine roll out is spotty and disjointed. We'll hit 1M before Feb. 2021. But the reich wing assholes will downplay that as well.

These people are fucking evil. That's what we're dealing with. All that is vile and evil in our country has congealed into one political movement, and I will not give any one of them, from the local nut job to the high profile, one gram of quarter. They must be destroyed. That's not hyperbole. I'm very serious.

[Hugin]

16. The right-wing wouldn't do anything even if it were the Black Death.

Especially, if they THOUGHT it was killing more Democrats.

My proof? They did do the exact same thing. The problem was they almost starved to death because there wasn't anyone left to feed them. Fun fact: Many of the human and worker's rights grew out of concessions to get laborers after the major plagues.

[Cosmocat]

17. 4 died during the Benghazi attacks

how many investigations, $$$ poured into, whipping their zombies in a lather.

Then again, the Beuruit bombing killed nearly 250 of our Marines, Reagan cut and ran and they were perfectly fine with that, so ...

They fucking full of nuclear grade bullshit.

[genxlib]

29. My mind went to the exact same thing

Benghazi over Beirut.

The outrage is so selective.

[irisblue]

19. Here is the Twitter address of the author, at Art6B, maybe he needs to hear responses

He has a Linkedin profile -https://www.linkedin.com/in/schroederjohn

[keithbvadu2]

20. Trump's personal baseline for comparison is "close to zero".

Trump's personal baseline for comparison is "close to zero".

everything above that is the Trump death count.

In February, when the federal government had confirmed just 15 cases of the virus, Mr. Trump predicted the number would soon be near "zero."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/timeline-president-donald-trump-changing-statements-on-coronavirus/
----------------
On February 26, President Trump boasted that the coronavirus was about to disappear altogether from the United States. “You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero,” he insisted.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-coronavirus-cases-will-go-down-to-zero-ultimately.html

[lame54]

31. He just didn't say how many zeros

[bucolic_frolic]

21. If we could just become a little more ignorant and get A Hundred Years War going, all would be fine

We could match those Black Death totals and then some

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

22. That's like saying the Bataan Death March was no big deal,

Since more people died on the Trail of Tears.

Or saying that Dachau wasn't so bad, because fewer than 40,000 prisoners died.

[PJMcK]

23. Hey, Hugh!

Thanks for your lop-sided opinion. Let me point some things out for you.

Your comparison with the Black Plague is infantile because you ignore far too much.

We don't live in an age of scientific ignorance. It's just you and your followers who deny science.

We live in a global society today. That wasn't the case in the 14th century. Transmission of the disease is far greater than in that time.

Your comment about the "five-year period of 1347 to 1351" is an incomplete analogy since we're only 9 months into this pandemic. Can you accurately predict how many more people will die in the coming 4 years? Have you noticed that the death rates are increasing or are you really that ignorant?

Any analogy between now and 700 years ago is, frankly, stupid. Do you really believe that nothing has changed in that time?

Hewitt, you're an ass.

[CCExile]

24. Maybe the right should be reminded...

that the plague empowered the working class and was the beginning of Labor!

[modrepub]

25. Its All About Power

No matter what, it's always worse when Democrats are in charge. It should be painfully obvious whatever the "problem", it only applies if it can be used to bludgeon Democrats. Deficits, security breaches, pandemics, whatever it is, just amplify it enough to maintain power by saying its worse under the other guys watch.

We really need a restraining order to keep these folks at arms length. Keep taxes local. Fund programs based on "buy ins" (federal matching instead of grants). These folks don't realize how much "socialism" they get on a daily basis.

[BMW2020RT]

26. True, COVID-19 virus is not very deadly when compared with such a large number of plague deaths.

However, medicine as it is practiced today is so far removed from the 14th century as to make it nearly non-existent during the plague. Indeed, blood letting as a treatment for illnesses thought to be simple imbalances in a patient's humors is more a kin to superstition than science. That absence of an effective treatment or mitigation effort meant Europe was effectively pursuing herd immunity with disastrous results for the population.

Conspiracies were common too. One widespread rumor in Christian Europe was plague deaths were caused by Jews and other outsiders poisoning wells.

Just my two cents.

[gulliver]

28. Did they have something science told them they could do to save lives that they refused to do?

That's what Trumpist Republicans are doing. If we want to compare, let's compare that.

[keithbvadu2]

32. The plague disappeared without a vaccine

Yeah! But...