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peppertree

(21,526 posts)
1. This sounds like capitulation to Repug caterwauling over "freedumb-choking masks"
Thu May 13, 2021, 05:33 PM
May 2021

The CDC knows knows a lot about public health - but has much to learn about politics.

Repugs bitch non-stop about masks, social distancing, virtual schooling, vaccines, and every other pandemic abatement measure because they want it to spread.

As much as possible, as deadly as possible.

Why? They're counting on that, to go to voters next year and say: "See? See? Biden failed! He lied, and your loved ones died!"

(insert ad with sweet old lady clutching her dying husband's hand in a hospital, an ominous voice in the background)

As harsh as it sounds, that's what RW politics look like today (here and in many other places): scorched earth, and 'war by other means'.

 

Drunken Irishman

(34,857 posts)
2. Not really.
Thu May 13, 2021, 05:36 PM
May 2021

Republicans have been pushing to not wear masks and social distance long before Biden was president, back when it could impact the last guy who was running for president.

They oppose masks because they established early on a narrative that it wasn't a big deal and they could never divorce themselves from that narrative. It didn't just start with Biden winning.

peppertree

(21,526 posts)
3. It started that way, yes - but once they saw that death counts can be weaponized, they were ON it
Thu May 13, 2021, 05:48 PM
May 2021

You see this same strategy in far-right parties in other countries, if they're in the opposition:

1) Get in the way of abatement measures as much as possible (mainly by railing against said measures, encouraging non-compliance);

2) Wait until case - and death - numbers begin to climb again (celebrate discreetly);

3) Go on RW media to wail and gnash teeth about the "mounting bodies at the administration's doorstep!"

4) Use personal anecdotes for added effect ("Mrs. O'Reilly, 89, who baked cookies for every kid in her block, and whom everybody loved - yet another statistic to this president!" ).

This shit works.

 

Drunken Irishman

(34,857 posts)
4. Disagree. This is just the way they are.
Thu May 13, 2021, 05:50 PM
May 2021

You'd have a point if they didn't spend all of 2020 basically saying the same thing now. Nothing has changed with their rhetoric.

peppertree

(21,526 posts)
5. That they are - but this goes well beyond mere "defiance"
Thu May 13, 2021, 05:58 PM
May 2021

With today's Repugs, you have to consider the possibility of bad faith.

Almost without limit, really.

 

Drunken Irishman

(34,857 posts)
6. I don't disagree with bad faith. But they'd be doing the same thing if Trump had won.
Thu May 13, 2021, 06:03 PM
May 2021

I don't think they're tying this to sabotaging Biden - it's just an extension of what they've done for a year now. They're selfish assholes. But at the end of the day, if the CDC believes the virus won't spread significantly with this move, I trust them.

peppertree

(21,526 posts)
7. Well, I hope you're right.
Thu May 13, 2021, 06:18 PM
May 2021

Because since Bush (at least), Repugs' attitude on large body counts - if they can be used politically - has been a simple one:

IronLionZion

(45,255 posts)
8. Most educated sensible people are vaccinated and will continue masking
Thu May 13, 2021, 10:26 PM
May 2021

it's the idiots who would lie about vaccination and choose not to mask. So those folks would get herd immunity the way they have been asking for all along, by getting infected and see who survives. So infection numbers might increase among those types before it goes down again.

So Walensky is likely doing this to encourage any remaining hesitants to get vaccinated with a show of confidence that it works. It will be a crunch for some working families who scramble to get their teenagers or whoever vaccinated. But it's doable.

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