Majority Report: Right-Wing Culture War Has Claimed Millions Of Lives Since COVID

[tenderfoot]

The right-wing urge to oppose science and a fanatical sense of individualism has killed millions of people across the globe. COVID-19 impacted everyone but instead of banding together and confronting the threat of a global pandemic head-on, petty partisan politics got in the way. Conservatives viewed any sensible restriction as a personal attack on their freedom and it cost a lot of them their lives.

Sam: Today is officially the two-year anniversary of the world health organization declaring the pandemic. I know that in New York it was march 13th. I believe that we totally shut down. Two years ago. And we're in a very odd place. I just went out and did my first live show in those two years. But at the same time, I also know that in New York in the tri-state area we're starting to see a slight uptick from the Omicron second variant. and you know it's it remains to be seen how much traction that gets because people are going to start being able to go outside more. But also all the masks are off I mean for the most part. This event I went to I'd say about 60-70 percent of people wore masks. but just your thoughts about this? and particularly since we just passed a budget where there's no covid covered money. and they're going to go back to it but we're in a weird place right now.

Digby: Yeah we are, it's kind of depressing really. I wrote about this for the salon this morning. This whole idea that you know we're two years in and what it's told us about our culture is to me really disturbing. I mean it's just disturbing. and you know about our politics to be honest. I mean yes we are in a position now where it appears you know it's obvious that the omicron surge is our latest surge. We've had three of them so far in the last two years. this one you know rose very quickly and has now receded very quickly. which is great. and I think everybody's happy about the idea that we're now going out and being able to, you know, be free more or less again. and I don't think anybody argues with that. but the the stermon drawn that has gone along with all of this up with with the government response with trying to get people to you know behave in some kind of a collective way. and I mean I think that you know my my my piece was about this idea that somehow or another it exposed the fact that our already fragile social contract was really broken. and we can see that with the way that our politics sort of intruded on something that was a national emergency. a crisis that hit every single person in the country and so we couldn't come together enough to do that. Right now outside of Washington DC you've got a bunch of truckers going around in circles outside the beltway to protest vaccine mandates. Which that you know there really. aren't any other than the individual businesses that are doing that. but you know, for the most part, there's certainly no federal vaccine mandate. and yet you know they have found this as you know some kind of a you know a motivation you know inspiration to get together and hold this protest for something that doesn't exist around something like covid. and to me I mean you know I think you remember when we went through the Obamacare wars in the tea party and all that the protests that happened around you know trying to give trying to provide affordable health care for people. and you can see it there this there's a faction in our culture that is just so kind of kind of you know fanatically individualistic that they're willing to say they'd willing to die and have other people in their lives die rather than join with their political enemies or people on the other side in their minds even for something like that. even for something like this.