1918 All Over Again

Published at 08:53 on 15 March 2020

At least in respect of how inconsistent the local response to this pandemic is, it is. Some states have closed all their schools and banned large public gatherings, other states have governors acting like COVID-19 is all some liberal hoax designed to make their orange god-king look bad:

Individuals in private positions of authority are in on the politically-motivated science denial, too: “In your more politically conservative regions, closing is not interpreted as caring for you. It’s interpreted as liberalism, or buying into the hype.”

Right-wing congresscritters are also guilty of spreading deadly misinformation.

In another way, it’s likely to be worse than 1918 this time. Then, localities that lived in denial of the threat posed by the Spanish Flu ended up bitterly regretting their denial, and sooner rather than later. I think that the deniers will still end up suffering the consequences of their denial.

But it gets worse: the reality-distortion bubble surrounding the political Right is so great that I think it more plausible the Right will consider the greater severity in right-leaning regions to be evidence that the Left deliberately created and spread the virus for purposes of harming their orange god-king and those who follow him. The denial is likely to serve, not as an object lesson in the existence of the denial and how harmful it is, but to reinforce the reality-distortion bubble which led to the denial itself.

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