This is just straight up fascist great replacement theory

These are literal far right talking points

Sadly, I fear that we will avoid confronting the more profound meaning. Because to admit we were brought low by the prejudices of large segments of Americans will be too much for some to bear.

But it is inarguable, and I can prove it.

A combination of racism, classism, ageism, and ableism — all connected in that they all rely on a hierarchy of human value — and the indifference to the suffering of certain groups’ members is at the heart of our failures.
---
From there, the horses were out of the barn, as the saying goes, and there was no bringing them back. Concern about COVID was associated with liberalism and Democrats, which means those perceived as the constituencies of the Democratic Party: Black folks and other peoples of color, and people who live in large metropolitan areas.

So a combination of racial indifference (and class indifference, as it was also disproportionately impacting low-wage workers), along with regional prejudices, tied in the minds of the right to political party cleavages, caused much of the nation to demand taking our collective foot off the brake.

Rolling the dice became easier for millions because the people who were, in their minds, at-risk were unlike them in critical ways.
---
Because like racism and classism, ageism reflects a hierarchy of human value. And in the face of a deadly pandemic, the elderly are at the bottom of that hierarchy.

In addition to off-handed remarks about the dead being mostly old, those opposed to distancing and masking were quick to suggest that if you didn’t have some pre-existing condition, you had nothing to worry about.

But what was the message here? First, the implicit subtext was, they were already sick, and that was their own fault. They should have taken care of themselves. Sorry about the diabetes, but you should have eaten better. Sorry about the cancer, but I bet you were a smoker. Sorry about the high blood pressure — should have done yoga or CrossFit, lazy.
---
And whereas the first months of the pandemic saw a clustering of deaths in large cities, by the end of 2020, the dying was disproportionately happening in whiter and rural areas.

So although age-adjusted mortality is still disproportionate for Black and brown folks, the overall death percentages for whites roughly mirror the white population now.

What all this means is that there are hundreds of thousands of white families who have buried their loved ones because large percentages of Americans — especially people like them — didn’t take COVID seriously when it was seen as a Black and big-city problem.


Sadly, because the political battle lines are hardened, even as white death spreads across the country, and younger death — the result of a variant wreaking havoc on people much healthier than last year’s victims — those who staked their claim to denial and “muh freedoms” are backed into a corner, too ideologically rigid to admit they were wrong.
But hopefully the rest of us can learn the lesson, even if the anti-vax fanatics refuse to do so.

And that lesson is this: Indifference is toxic, and it seeps into the soil upon which we all stand.