Saturday, May 29, 2021

Naked Anti-Semitism

Here's more of the filth of the Republican party, inspired by Marjorie Taylor Greene's comment that having to wear a mask on the floor of the House of Representatives is akin to the Holocaust. Unbelievable. This is the smile of rank bigotry and stupidity. Her name is GiGi Gaskin.

6 comments:

Layzej said...

Meanwhile, in Manatoba: "Death bed denials, pandemic 'hoax' accusations common in southern Manitoba hospital patients, doctor says" - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winkler-doctor-hospital-vaccine-hesitancy-1.6044904

"We hear this almost every day, and I know that's startling," said Dr. Ganesan Abbu. "It's difficult ... to know that almost 100 per cent of our admissions have not been vaccinated."

Ned said...

It's really something the way that Republicans have suddenly turned against vaccines and the concept of public health, as a way to express tribal solidarity.

This doesn't explain Layzej's quote about Manitoba (unless conservative southern Manitobans are following the lead of their neighbors across the border), but in the US perspective, the chain of events seems to be:

(1) In 2020 Trump adopts an attitude of denial towards the virus (it won't get here, there will be only 15 cases, it will be gone by Easter, it's no worse than the flu, it can be magically cured by HCQ or sunlight or disinfectant) because he's used to being able to just deny and jawbone his way out of problems, and he didn't know how to handle something that can't be talked away.

(2) When denial didn't work and the death toll soared, Trump (and his followers) were made uncomfortable by masking etc because it was a visible reminder of the reality of the pandemic and of the fact that Trump wasn't making it go away. When you're trying to deny something, it's really awkward to have literally in-your-face reminders of it every single time you interact with another person.

(3) The fact that the first vaccinations didn't start until after Trump's election defeat, and mass vaccination didn't really get going until Biden was inaugurated, just solidified the tribal behavior of Republicans on this topic. Opposition to masks (and all other public health measures) expanded to include opposition to vaccines. Getting vaccinated implies that covid19 is both real and dangerous, and for a political subculture that has spent the past year pretending that covid19 is a hoax or insignificant, that's unacceptable.

So now opposition to vaccines is rapidly becoming a marker of Republican tribal identity. Ugh.

I'd be interested to know more about the situation in Canada ... should probably read more about that.

Ned said...
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Ned said...
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Ned said...

Off-topic ... but this latest report on how the GOP lost its brain after the election is really something:

"In Donald J. Trump’s final weeks in office, Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, repeatedly pushed the Justice Department to investigate unfounded conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, according to newly uncovered emails provided to Congress...

"Mr. Meadows asked Jeffrey A. Rosen, then the acting attorney general, to examine debunked claims of election fraud in New Mexico and an array of baseless conspiracies that held that Mr. Trump had been the actual victor. That included a fantastical theory that people in Italy had used military technology and satellites to remotely tamper with voting machines in the United States and switch votes for Mr. Trump to votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr."

Ooh, Italian military satellites used to tamper with voting machines and switch votes from Trump to Biden!

Meadows Pressed Justice Dept. to Investigate Election Fraud Claims

Layzej said...

Canada is now #1 in the world for first dose administered with 65% of the population having at least one dose. We inched past Israel on June 9th. They have 63%. UK has 61% and US 52% : https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations


We still lag considerably for total doses, (78% vs US 93% and Israel's 123%):

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccination-doses-per-capita?country=CHN~DEU~IND~ISR~GBR~USA~CAN