The pandemic absolutely pickled their brains, the percentage of Republicans who say MMR vaccine risks outweigh the benefits has more than doubled since 2020.
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The recent @taylorlorenz.bsky.social video argues that the early days of the pandemic demonstrated to a majority of us that cooperation amongst ourselves and progressive social programs were viable solutions to the crisis. But it also must have been an existential shock to the conservative worldview
It's at least twice that I can think of when world-altering situations that COULD have been used to improve humanity, 9/11 and COVID, were instead used to sink us further because a Republican was president when those events happened.
Liberals participating in mainstreaming anti vaxxer ideas since COVID began - like that it’s good for kids to get sick, illness builds the immune system, public health is an individual practice, and it’s fine for ppl who are weaker to die- helped get us here
I feel like I'm the only one who remembers when the former director of the CDC Walensky said that it was "reassuring" that disabled people are dying. That's eugenics, whether or not you agree with it. 😢
Don’t forget the role of Oprah in promoting antivax nonsense for decades. She created an army of quacks, most of whom turned out to be Christian Nationalists.
Yeah! You know who’s REALLY responsible for the Holocaust? The Judenräte who helped police the ghettos in the early days…. (This is sarcasm, by the way)
Can we - now hear me out - can we just let them contract whatever disease they refuse to inoculate against and then deny them healthcare because they refused to take basic safety measures to protect themselves and others around them?
... or is that too unethical and make us no better than them?
the brutal irony of influencers (in the broadest sense) immediately turning against science bc of an actual pandemic, and then so many people following as an outlet for their anger and fear, is like Greek tragedy in scale.
also, this dynamic is exactly why NIH/HHS was funding a bunch of studies on combating vaccine misinformation online. Which these criminal maniacs have just illegally canceled.
Yep. Because those clowns were also funding a bunch of their own “science” saying that vaccines were bad, actually. Then letting the info be open access, training AI on the data and letting it run wild.
They paid influencers to spread it, sat back and watched it unfold.
I'm ready to bet that there is a strong correlation between "being a Republican who says MMR vaccine risks outweigh the benefits" and "being a Republican with no understanding of epidemiology or even basic math"
I am very glad I got a reup on my MMR. My records didn't seem to say I got both shots, and I was born in 81. Seemed better to just get one. Unlike these idiots, I like science keeping me alive.
Nope. As long as its somebody else's kid they don't care, and if it happens to their own kid the guilt will be too much and it'll just radicalize them even more rather than accept they killed their own child.
I’ve never seen a breakdown of party vs deaths from Covid. Well before they called for an end to testing or reporting in red states. Why would the do that?
I wouldn't even make this about Republicans. 26% in total believe this. Nuts. What is also remarkable is how this is an increasing trend.
For me Covid is a fainting memory. But I am increasingly afraid - and surprised tbh - that is has had a profoundly negative and lasting impact on democracy.
My husband listened to his MAGA coworkers and put off getting vaccinated for Covid. I got vaccinated while he was “thinking about it” - he decided to get vaccinated while hospitalized for Covid. Too late. I lived. He died because a coworker came to work sick with Covid. The coworker didn’t die.
and more evidence that "political independents" are just a confused group that plots in the middle because of statistical averaging and not a savvy group weighing their votes on issues close to them that they carefully assess
Is “thinning the herd” an appropriate comment at this point? We aren’t going to change these people’s minds without restructuring government agencies and reinstating a state sponsored program for education and implementation of vaccination programs without corporate intervention.
The ones who will suffer the most are the ones totally innocent of these conspiracy theories, so no, it isn't. They're taking vaccines away from *everyone* not simply opting out themselves.
Well stats show repubs are not intelligent. As long as the vaccine is available to those who want it, we can just bring back the refrigeration trucks to dump the infected repubs into it after they die of the next virus.
The problem is they are working overtime to ensure it is not available to those who want it. Plus the small percentage who will get vaccinated, catch it from local MAGAs anyway, and then suffer life-ending consequences
Ffs. Spare me another diner interview talking about the economy. These people aren’t worried about inflation - they’ll believe whatever is put in front of their faces.
Would be quite curious to see this data broken down at the city and county level and filtered for Baptist belief. Baptist + Trump == Conspiracy Theorist.
We live in an idiocracy, where idiocy is pushed down to the masses by idiots via social media and RW propaganda networks, and much of the country buys into it.
Yeah, I really don't think the people have changed, I think the real problem is the system of information distribution has been completely hijacked and hollowed out for monetary and political gain. Hence our current situation.
I saw a post the other day quoting the number of deaths from the covid vaccine that was actually more than the total number of deaths for ALL causes and not just one year. It would have taken several years to reach that number.
Don't bother replying I know there were a lot more deaths by gun violence than the vaccine, let alone underlying causes but counted as vaccine deaths because the people who died *gasp* got the vaccine and it's pure happenstance
bunch of dumb shits I’m sure that they will change the data base to show no one died of covid, hey any one out there a republican whose parent died of covid want to step forward? Say something Or did your love one just for in vein, while they were struggling to breath to pander to fucking idiots
I really don’t know what you are supposed to do when there is such a well funded and concerted effort to break the minds of so many people. Now they’ve captured state apparatus it can only spiral further out of control. Even if a Dem is allowed to win again; what do they do? Reeducation programs?
I genuinely don't know how we come back from this without a left-wing dictatorship forcing every institution this shit is being pushed through to close. You can't govern a country where a quarter of its population is immune to basic logic.
Meanwhile, reactionaries are *still* saying that partisan lopsidedness in higher education is a failing of... higher education.
Whole conferences are dedicated to the "problem" of higher ed not attracting enough people who (checks notes) tend to reject the knowledge that higher ed produces.
One question I've never gotten a straight answer to from this crowd is how they're defining "conservative" and "liberal," especially when the economics and poli-sci departments would likely become very upset at being called "liberals" and yet are often classed as such.
How do they explain the billions of us who got vaccinated who didn't die (especially those of us in countries with low death rates unlike their mismanaged one)
I mostly hate Americans, other countries aren't out there trying to disprove climate science that goes back over 100 years, CO2e impact was discovered by the 1950s, it has been established around the world since 1980, updated daily globally, here comes the US with manipulated statistics.
Anti-vaxx views were a lefty fringe obsession long before it got trendy on the right during Covid. Scary though how much and how quickly it seems to have spread.
I remember when the COVID vax became available DeSantis was making it available to donors first because it was in such high demand. Now everyone claims they were always against them and deny ever getting them.
As someone who had a psychotic break about 20 years ago...it is hard.
I truly have to sometimes just check in with my therapist to be like "am I going crazy again because my normal forms of reality checking are not working anymore".
Our local weatherman’s fb comments are a disaster site of boomers saying all the extreme weather we have been having in the Midwest is the result of some government manipulation, chemtrails, etc. and not the very obvious consequences of climate change.
This one always makes me laugh because 1. If anyone could control the weather why wouldn’t they make it nice and stable all the time and 2. How can these fiendish weather manipulating government people escape their mighty trump. Like is trump weak or stupid or something
I always feel insane when I encounter these people in Iowa. We used to have snow on the ground all winter long as little as 15 years ago. Last winter we had snow on the ground for less than two weeks. But these people will still act like everything is fine and normal.
I'm really curious at what point do these conclusions start grinding against reality? Like, eventually the city of Miami is going to be abandoned. Are they just going to pretend it never existed? That sea level rise is just vibes?
The attitude when you can actually get them to admit it's happening seems to be 'it's all just nature and there's nothing we could do about it anyway".
I’m in Australia. I’ve also seen examples of residents in states that have been so smashed by floods/drought etc to the point where the unstable weather cannot be ignored, blame it all on government manipulation of the climate”
I tried arguing with my dad about this. It has always been hot in Texas but it didn't used to be car killing hot (I've had to get a new car battery twice since moving from Florida).
These are the people who thought the hole in the ozone layer fixed itself, not because a ton of people actually did something about it, and saying "See? Everyone was all gloom and doom but it wasn't a problem!" as they climb into an oven at 375° to prove the heat isn't bad.
I see this in comments on posts by weathermen I follow. People will literally deny that, say, 101 in May in Texas is odd. Or that our current heatwave here in Florida is extreme. They'll claim it was always like this, which is provably untrue.
Local news is starting to talk more about climate change. And specifically emphazlsizing the uniqueness. The Houston meteorologists all went on for a bit about how unusual the temps are.
It’s so crazy because in the Midwest the best evidence is our winters. As a kid we would have snow covering the ground all season, now we get snow it melts we get new snow it melts like 3-4 times. They are not excepting the evidence in front of their eyes.
And it's just everything. We're going through one of the worst droughts in decades (albeit not unprecedented), and people will pop up and say, "It's always like this." No, it's not! What's wrong with you?
Of the various things that I've underrated in my life, the ability of people to adjust reality to their beliefs--rather than beliefs to reality--is probably tops.
I think this is what we need to leverage - knowing people work like this, figure out how to use it to a positive advantage. What can we get them to adjust to?
Oh man this is so true. It’s absolutely batshit to think that more people died from the vaccine than from Covid but once they are convinced all the evidence in the world won’t make a difference
In the US I think it coincides with the belief that all people have access to the information they need to decide for themselves. Unfortunately most don’t have the ability to discern ‘good’ info from ‘bad’ info and are easily swayed by snake oil salesmen who tell them what they want to hear
Exact same thing in Phoenix. MAGA cries like little babies in the reply section of NWS Phoenix.
Love how they claim the environment is too large for mankind to affect the weather but then complain about the urban heat island effect (manmade). It's getting hotter everywhere, not just large cities.
it's actually quite impressive: to be able to ignore the physical world, the suffering of oneself and others, perhaps even death. Our mind is so powerful if applied vigorously.
It’s weird, since it’s the exact opposite of how we react to inflation. Why things used to cost a nickel, why did the price change? But no memory of weather past.
I don’t know what to do with my feelings about folks who willfully chose idiocy. I cannot feel sympathetic to folks given the option to understand who simply refuse. I hate them for their laziness and how they are ruining literally everything for everyone, especially our kids.
I don’t like feeling this way but I don’t no what to do. They know better, have resources to know better, and just chose to be fucking idiots and endanger everyone. What am I supposed to do with that?
I feel sorry for people who grew up in a shithole culture that devalues education while promoting religiosity and conformity. They are taught to reject the things that could improve their lives, and that’s very sad. But they’ve made themselves an existential problem that has to be solved somehow.
They celebrate ignorance. It's their tribal identity in the culture war. Much of which has been pushed by Putin via his troll farms to destroy public discourse and bring the USA to its knees from division and disinformation. Of course it spreads out from there.
It's so much worse, because they're stupid and industrious (yes, I know I'm paraphrasing the Nazi general). They work extremely hard to bring about the dumbest and most dangerous of their fantasies.
Just as Republicans forget who was president during the strictest lockdowns they also forget who was the president who initiated Operation Warp Speed to develop these vaccines
And also got worse. Barely for Democrats, but it still did. Shows how right wing disinformation is even grabbing some people on the left, though who knows how centrist they were already.
This is probably not the centrist wing. Anti-vaxx was a far-left thing before it got trendy on the right. The anti-vaxxers I know (Covid and otherwise) are all far-left.
I feel like a lot of stuff that used to be popular with hippies somehow got coopted by the Right- homeschooling was a hippie thing, skepticism of mainstream institutions, belief in/reliance on alternative medicine, etc.
Anti vaxx sentiment has always been concentrated on the right. Left wing anti vaxxers just get a lot more media attention because they’re ‘interesting’
How do we come back from this? A large chunk of America has chosen a different reality, where it really sucks. And they're going to fuck up ACTUAL reality in order to fix the problems they imagine.
They’ll claim that any mention of dead bodies is a liberal invention, while at the same time insisting that there are millions dead because of the vaccine.
I'd offer an alternative analysis. Some of these people aren't dumb. Some of them are high level engineers, hell I know a couple.
What we're being killed by is cripplingly insecure, isolated, and bored people. People unfulfilled by a boring, normal world, they internalized a more exciting fiction.
When I was a kid, and even a teen, a lot of people would make excuses to not wear a seatbelt. "What if the seatbelt jams, and then the car explodes? Which eventually turned into saying "seatbelts kill more people than they save," which is a complete lie. It shows how untrue things can take hold.
I knew someone about 12 yrs ago who was in bad accident sitting in backseat of a car w/out seat belt along w/3 others w/belts able to pull him out of car before it caught fire, but he died within an hour due to massive head injuries. I got there after EMS took him & now wear belt always. No brainer
I remember being told seatbelts kill more people than they save when I was a kid. It led me to never wearing my seatbelt until I slowly wised up to reality.
Well eventually I grew up. Like I was told that when I was 6 years old so I just believed it. But as I grew up and started realizing a lot of things I’ve been told have been wrong, I started fact checking things that people tell me. And also just thinking about it critically.
funny how many people are wearing masks cuz they’re terrified of RSV OR INFLUENZA A. BUT cuz Fauci disagreed with tRumPee, they believe Covid was a hoax. Can’t fix stupid and now they want to study us for trump derangement syndrome???? Cultists don’t know they’re in a cult.
Rupert spreads delusion
No you shouldn't believe in fox anymore
Murdoch is for children
fantasy for babies
feeding their nightmares.
Newsmax sells you poison dreams
Wrapped in stars and war machines
Preaching fear with every breath
Oh ffs. Fine sheeple, die of a disease in which we have a safe and effective vaccine. Can't fix stupid. At least the gene pool of these idiots will die out soon.
What risk? Please, tell me what risk there is that could outweigh suffering. I *couldn't* get the MMR when I was a kid, so got measles at 4 that came with traumatising physio and rubella as a young adult which has left me with joint problems. How is that better?!?
Weird, because anti-science propaganda has been an entirely American project for years. The Soviets of their era actually probably had a better understanding of the issue than the average modern American.
Dunno that it was the pandemic so much as a massive and well-funded media apparatus that has been effectively weaponized against the government functioning
there are currently FOUR ongoing epidemics in the US (COVID, Bird Flu, Whooping Cough, Measles) and one of them has been upgraded to International Pandemic Status (Bird Flu) just like COVID still is
Republicans have mastered something about human nature and the addiction to anger and victimhood. And I don’t know if it’s possible to come back from this.
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https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/liberals-joined-conservatives-to
I wanted to follow up on this citation
"a recent study finding lockdown-era babies have healthier microbiomes and fewer allergies"
but the link is broken
https://www.irishtimes.com/health/2024/02/29/covid-19-pandemic-babies-more-likely-to-have-healthier-guts-to-suffer-fewer-food-allergies/
Trump took RFK Jr up on the offer. The anti science, anti vaccine cranks found a home with Trump and became a driver of policy.
Stop the both sidesing.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/01/how-oprah-helped-spread-anti-vaccine-pseudoscience/
... or is that too unethical and make us no better than them?
They paid influencers to spread it, sat back and watched it unfold.
It’s beyond evil.
For me Covid is a fainting memory. But I am increasingly afraid - and surprised tbh - that is has had a profoundly negative and lasting impact on democracy.
Science, data and facts be damned.
https://bsky.app/profile/michaelhobbes.bsky.social/post/3lpmdlye2mk2v
quick search…
eight billion doses of covid vaccine given, 55 cases of death afterward.
And there aren’t gatekeepers or guardrails to prevent that right now
We have to bring those back somehow. Ban Fox News and AI slop misinformation. Take control of media and news
Don't bother replying I know there were a lot more deaths by gun violence than the vaccine, let alone underlying causes but counted as vaccine deaths because the people who died *gasp* got the vaccine and it's pure happenstance
Way too many people: Did he have the vaccine?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification
The key is removing these ideologies from every single position of power and influence permanently
We know they are morons. If they weren’t morons, they wouldn’t have voted for Trump.
Covid made people lose their minds
Just remember not to write about things that are illegal on social media when you live in a police state.
Even if this massive vaccine hesitancy is all as dumb as a box of rocks they are definitely still human
…
. . .
Whole conferences are dedicated to the "problem" of higher ed not attracting enough people who (checks notes) tend to reject the knowledge that higher ed produces.
-- Jonathon Swift
"You can't fix stupid."
-- Ron White
https://direct.mit.edu/daed/article/151/4/98/113706/From-Anti-Government-to-Anti-Science-Why
As someone who had a psychotic break about 20 years ago...it is hard.
Therapist: [gestures around broadly] Not without reason.
He just refuses to accept it.
It' a start, but much too late.
Love how they claim the environment is too large for mankind to affect the weather but then complain about the urban heat island effect (manmade). It's getting hotter everywhere, not just large cities.
https://bsky.app/profile/delthefunk66.bsky.social/post/3lpmez53gw223
🤷♂️🤔
https://www.kff.org/about-us/
Team spirit is a drug.
https://bsky.app/profile/arbiteriapetus.bsky.social/post/3lid3wbbx322e
What we're being killed by is cripplingly insecure, isolated, and bored people. People unfulfilled by a boring, normal world, they internalized a more exciting fiction.
Low in intelligence but high in motivation is a trait combo behind so much human misery.
Before the COVID-19 vaccine the death rate from the virus was equally split red and blue.
After the vaccines release, there were significantly higher death rates in Republican areas.
On average they were 38% higher.
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/red-blue-america-glaring-divide-covid-19-death/story?id=83649085
Seriously, I've been hearing these people for my entire adult life. Their kids never wear seatbelts and it's a terrible cycle.
They lap it up like thirsty dogs.
Obedience to the cult is more important than their own health.
Can we fix stupid?
Or at least protect the innocent children stuck in their alt-reality? Damn these people are delusional.
Rupert spreads delusion
No you shouldn't believe in fox anymore
Murdoch is for children
fantasy for babies
feeding their nightmares.
Newsmax sells you poison dreams
Wrapped in stars and war machines
Preaching fear with every breath
https://suno.com/s/z2A8ID6zBoX8kNMO
#ICEisGESTAPO
(G)love Removal $10K….
* * *
The poison is almost free
You pay for the return to health or… die
They’ll get vaccinated in no time.
1. Trump spearheaded the vax getting out faster (maybe the one good thing he did)
2. The pandemic got knocked out by the vax. It worked!
It was Republican elites who leveraged the pandemic to do this.