Research suggests that pandemics are more likely to reduce rather than build trust in scientific and political authorities.
Bad headline: Covid didn’t do that, grifters exploiting covid did that.
The saying “never let a good crisis go to waste” applies here.
In times of crisis, such as a pandemic, people are looking for reassurance, people to blame, or both. That’s the ideal time for grifters to swindle them, whether for money, power, political support or more than one of the above.
Fascism has always risen from times of intense hardship and ineffective to nonexistent opposition to disinformation and those that spread it.
From Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler in the first half of the 20th century, to Orban, Putin, and Trump today, that’s how you get fascism.
So education pushes people left and sickness pushes people right?
Is that why the Republicans are against healthcare and education?
Thats exactly why
Yes. That is actually a fact. The more educated one is the higher the likely hood they tend to lean left
That’s really interesting, same goes for religiousness.
I always think that it’s because people who have it rougher need something to look forward to (ie afterlife). As education helps escape poverty, people become less religious. I wonder if this association is the reason for the political spectrum shift too, since the right tends to associate more closely with the church.
Couldn’t read the whole article, but it’s interesting how politics even outside the US has tainted science to also be not worthy of trust. The science was never the question, only how it was manipulated to tell a different narrative for the current people in power. Masks are a perfect example. There are still people who question someone wearing a mask or its effectiveness because for some reason a politician told them it was pointless, even though plenty of actual research shows reality. Even just common sense will tell you that something is better than nothing, yet the cult following fools some to not even believe their own gut feelings or eyes. Orwellian.
Couldn’t read the whole article
Here you go: https://archive.is/WBfrQ
But I can’t breathe!
Seriously, I had to fly a bunch for an elderly family member during 2021. I wore two masks in the airport and on planes. I saw a chuckhead come out of the airplane bathroom with his mask down, realize it, and quickly put it back on. My guy. Is it that fucking onerous to wear?!
By the way, the only time I’ve had covid was in 2023. I think three years without getting it was a pretty good run. I wouldn’t say masks weren’t a part of that run.
only how it was manipulated to tell a different narrative for the current people in power.
And these people love muddy waters, makes it easier to rule the slave force.
its because they all the time to listen to joe roegan and become engaged on X thats why.
The writers and journalists putting this piece together always write it from the point of view that right wing parties and movements just magically come out of the woodwork and start spreading on their own accord as if it’s some sort of seasonal or cyclical trend.
Right wing rhetoric, movements and groups are funded by money. Every political movement only grows through the use of money … the more a group has of it, the stronger they can become, the louder their message and the bigger their movement.
There are lots of left leaning people and movements and they probably outnumber far right extremists. But you know what the difference between the two groups are? MONEY … Right wing extremists have a habit of appearing in national headlines. Left wingers barely ever get the media spotlight other than to be painted as protesters who have no support.
Conservatives enjoy funding far right movements because it is part of a idea of the Overton Window … if you shift the conversation too far to one end of the political spectrum, then you can shift everyone into that direction. No one will accept far right extremists but if you allow them to join the conversation and make them acceptable, then everyone can take one step to the right and now everyone in the left and far left start to look more and more like far left extremists.
Political movements don’t come out of thin air … they are constantly being pumped, primed and sponsored by wealthy benefactors who can move money around in the most discreet ways in order to make the world move in the ways that they want.
I called it in 2020 to my therapist. I linked the flu pan to the rise of fascism and theorized that major catastrophic events plus fear may lead to something similar now. Least glad I’ve ever been about being right on anything.
COVID oversaw the extreme price gouging while squeezing “non-essential” businesses into insolvency. Inflation is still high where it matters to most people. We’re losing our quality of life to produce more billionaires and we’ve been convinced it’s the immigrants and queers that are to blame.
I’m not convinced. It’s the rich ruining our lives.
It’s almost like when you reduce people’s freedom, belittle them, and make them feel weak and useless, they turn against the forces they see as the limiting factor. Lockdowns have hurt us all politically, socially, and economically.
While that may be true, people are forgetting that the recent trend of shit started before the pandemic. The pandemic absolutely amplified a good deal of idiocy, but in this case, the fire was already started.
If anything, political polarization just got worse than it already was, but still, I don’t think there was a huge swing from one party to another. Democrats lost this election because people didn’t vote, not because the Republican base grew.
I am not denying that lockdowns sucked ass, because they did. Did it contribute to a weird political climate? Absolutely. Did it cause a rise of fascism? I have my doubts because it was bad beforehand.
I can only judge based on my own self and the people around me. Before the lockdown, I was pretty far on the left. I voted Stein in 16 after Bernie got (inevitably) screwed by the DNC. And I have to admit, Trump 1 wasn’t a bad time for me economically. But the actual shift happened during the lockdown.
I’m in NJ. I found myself abruptly unable to live my life, unable to see my friends, unable to do anything but live in fear - not of a virus or deaths, but of the laws put in place by Democrats - specifically Phil Murphy. I had a friend die with COVID-19, so I wasn’t untouched. But I was unable to mourn that friend because we couldn’t hold a wake for him for three years. I didn’t have a chance to process what I was feeling, because I was being told that I should be afraid of being next - even though unlike him, I haven’t had multiple strokes or a heart attack. I also saw my friends who were teachers be unable to teach properly, denied the ability to do anyone hands-on or stop students from losing focus. Most of.my friends who were teachers before 2021 have changed jobs because it was so disheartening. And when the teachers wanted to go back to the classroom, it was the Union that refused, and who influenced the governor and his people, rather than real classroom teachers.
All I saw was the policy of the Democrats trapping me at every turn. So my feelings turned otherwise. And I still say, no one who claims to be Democrat or caucuses with Democrats will every get my vote or my donation again. I don’t care what happens otherwise. I can’t hurt them the way I was hurt. But I can do that one thing. So I will. I can’t change the massive wealth transfer that happened because the normal people were trapped like animals in cages. But I can vote against the people who put us in the cages. It’s a totally worthless gesture, but it’s the one that is mine to make. After all, if voting mattered, you and I wouldn’t be allowed to do it.
I expect that younger people see the same thing. Their lives were put on pause, their education was stunted, and their few years of freedom were curtailed by Democrats and the American Progressive Left. Why should you support the people who hurt you?
And thanks to Trump and everyone else who fought against preventative measures, immunocompromised people have to live like that for the rest of time. It’s no longer safe for them to go to a restaurant or a bar or go shopping because every season is COVID season, and the newer strains are even more infectious and deadlier than the original. My mom, a cancer survivor, has to think about that every time she leaves the house. And she’s lucky, because she can get vaccinated and therefore actually can go out and do things, while so many others don’t have that option because their immune system is just that weak. The fact of the matter is that we should still be masking in public. Not just for COVID, but for the flu as well.
We could have literally killed off COVID in about 6 weeks with a total lockdown of society. It never would’ve happened, or even truly been feasible, but we could have been back to normal so much faster if society at large had gotten their shit together instead of whining about having to take responsibility for not killing those around them at the expense of their own comfort. The reason it lasted as long as it did and killed so many people is because Republicans fought tooth and nail against doing what stopped the Black Plague and the Spanish Flu in their tracks: putting on a mask and isolating to prevent spreading it to others.
Your whole thing comes off a lot like this:
Do you not remember that Trump was president during the lockdowns? Are you that stupid or are you trying to rewrite history for your masters?
What I remember is that Trump wasn’t the one who impacted me directly. Sure, his mad “warp speed” policy gave the pharmaceutical companies an even more powerful blank check, but that doesn’t impact my day-to-day life. It was ridiculous, and should never have happened, but the transfer of wealth and rights between the government and private industry isn’t something that changes based on the party in power anymore.
The direct impact was all from Phil Murphy and others on his side. Now, I’m going to be clear: the government of the state of New Jersey has the right to do what they did. If I had the means and the ability, I would have had the right to move to a different state. The right of self-determination and nearly unfettered intranational mobility to live in the way you see as best is a large part of what makes the USA a strong nation. My situation is such that I didn’t have that option to leave. Had I been able to move, I might have very different views now.
But all that doesn’t mean I have any desire to support that administration, or anything aligned with them. So I’m not going to vote for them ever again. Because I was hurt and the people around me were hurt by the policies and laws they put in place and supported, and I’m not going to forgive them.
You should’ve switched with me. My state did little to nothing as our hospitals were overran and refers trucks were called in to hold the dead.
Chucklefucks like you are the reason people with trivial medical needs were dying because there was no room in hosptials.
A virus hurt us all and it wasn’t one political party or another. Right off the top, making the connections you have made and expressed is simply bizarre.
I never felt trapped by policy or weird restrictions. I felt trapped because I had to do what I had to do to prevent getting sick and spreading COVID and not hurting my own family even more.
Your story sucks, for sure. Most of us all lost friends and family, so a lot of us get it.
How you were able to wrap politics into it like you did was beyond me though. You do know how any virus spreads, right? It’s simple proximity to each other. This was discovered years before COVID and separation is an effective measure to prevent getting more people sick.
I am sure you are a great person and all, but I haven’t heard a viewpoint so skewed since I was tracking Russian troll farms on Twitter.
The virus isn’t a conscious force that shut businesses down, stopped mass transit, discouraged or outright banned local economy, or closed schools. That’s the government. It’s up to each person to make the choices they see fit for themselves, their loved ones, and their community. The Democrat-run government stripped us of the right to make our own choices. They trapped people in their homes.
The policies put in place are the problem. The virus just existed.
If it’s your right and your choice to become a biological weapon and spread a lethal virus amongst the public, then it’s my right to put a bullet in you to save everyone around you.
This is not a path you really want to go down
If I was still in the state of mind that I was in during that time, you would have been doing us both a favor. I’m only recovering now, and engaging over it is pushing me backwards.
I have a feeling this is going to go into conspiracy theory territory really quick and that was probably the dumbest grouping of words I have read since the pandemic.
Upfront, I am not going to respond to anything you say after this. There is no point since you are just going through a fit of “nobody can tell me what to do”.
Nobody has the right to put others at risk. If you didn’t notice, all the things you described were spaces were people gather, and people did go out. Schools being closed is huge. Kids get sick fast. When kids get sick entire households gets sick. This is normal even during the best of times.
These policies were put in place to protect others from people like you, who have a serious misunderstanding of freedom of choice and freedom of speech.
So you’re throwing a tantrum basically.
You don’t have to worry about the coming bird flu pandemic locking down anything this time.
And the government will tell you that the people who disappear in your social circle never existed, it’s you that remember wrongly.
And don’t worry about the new uniforms for all government workers includes a gasmask.
It may sound very dystopian, but that’s what you get with a totalitarian regime.
While I was imagining how the muskrat, headworm and lil-t regime will handle the next pandemic it reminded me of what we see in Half-Life 2, Ultraviolet (2006), Brazil (1985).
What social circle? I don’t have one anymore thanks to losing contact with them over the last few years.
So it’s a skill/personality issue then.
I have kept up with friends I made and live across the country from me. If you lost touch with friends that live near you, you either didn’t try hard enough to keep touch or they chose to let friendship with you wither away. You have access to technologies that allow you to get text, audio and video in real time with someone on the other side of the world. Losing touch with a friend means one or both of you didn’t care enough to do the work to keep it up.
If physical proximity is the only thing keeping your friends around, you didn’t have friends, you had acquaintances who you misjudged their participation in the relationship. I’ve had plenty of “friendships” go this way as well, but the people I care about I make a point to stay engaged with, even if it’s not as often as I should.
That might have to do with your batshit Insanity. Just saying.
