Democrats are still feeling the effects of Covid.
Democrats emphasized public health.
The public preferred emphasizing freedom.
 |
| Anti vaccine-mandate demonstration |
Five years ago this week the U.S. woke up to the fact that Covid was dangerous. Maybe really dangerous.
With hindsight, we realized that it was dangerous to elderly and already-sick people, but only rarely to the young and healthy. Between March 2020 and August 2022, the U.S. had nearly 1.2 million more deaths than expected, with approximately 635,000 in the first year and 544,000 in the second year. We measure "excess deaths" above the trend line of expected deaths because the exact cause of death became a matter of partisan controversy. We know extra people died of something, presumably Covid.
America made missteps early in the disease. Moving Covid-infected people into nursing facilities in New York and New Jersey spread the disease to a vulnerable population.
Church choirs seemed to be a vector for spreading disease. When people sing, they exhale with force, spreading disease. Bans on choir practice sent an unintended message that the health authorities -- characterized as over-educated, secular-humanist, busybodies -- were anti-God.
There was a rush on masks, one so great that front-line health care workers couldn't get them. In the early weeks health authorities told the public not to acquire masks, so that they would be available for healthcare workers. That sent a mixed message: Don't get masks, then do get masks. That damaged the credibility of health advice.
Teachers unions exercised their clout. Don't send teachers into classrooms filled with 30 little disease-carriers, unions said. Health policy got a reputation for responding to political power.
Democrats made a policy decision whose political effects linger. They emphasized protecting vulnerable people. Democrats "socialized" the risks, making rules that forced everyone to take steps -- vaccinations, social distancing, mask-wearing -- to protect one another. Blue-state governors shut down schools and kept them shut. They inconvenienced people and hurt children. Red-state officeholders went the other way.
Two archetypes emerged. Democrats became the tyrant party. Republicans were the live-free-or-die party. The self-reliant party. The protect yourself, but don't expect others to do it for you, party. Republicans decided that the disease wasn't that dangerous, that natural immunity from getting the disease was the best protection, and that there was nothing to be done worth the damage to business and schools caused by closures. A spirit of defiance against authority emerged, one that paralleled Trump's defiance of election results, legal process, and regulations.
 |
| Piss on Oregon governor Kate Brown |
 |
| Mask-free Republican gathering |
The political parties reversed polarity from the late-1960s era of protest against the Vietnam War. Republicans were the defy-authority, do-your-own-thing party.
Americans became impatient with Covid's inconveniences. Covid protocols paralleled top-down rules of proper behavior regarding gendered pronouns, harassment in the workplace, and the DEI agenda. It was all of a piece and it involved everyone. The idea is that Democrats bend over backwards to protect vulnerable people, be they a Covid-vulnerable senior, a male-to-female trans athlete, or an immigrant here without papers.
Democratic Covid policies expanded the pool open to MAGA resentment. What about us normal, healthy folks? Us normal people who want to go to church? Us normal, White, Christian, heterosexuals, born here in the USA? Democrats don't care about us. We get screwed. As Trump's campaign put it in the final weeks:"Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for us."
I am 75 years old. Democratic policies in Oregon may have saved my life. But they weren't good politics. A majority of people my age voted for Trump.
[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]
3 comments:
It's fitting that we look back at COVID. Health experts have estimated that as many as 40% of deaths could have been avoided had Republicans, starting at the top, supported common sense health hygiene. You should also note that at the same time there was a bipartisan effort to develop an effective vaccine, which serves to expose the hypocrisy, not to mention the right wing disinformation that now blames vaccines for all manner of ailments.
We got lucky...COVID was not EBOLA. If we face another pandemic with this bunch will the vaccine only go to the wealthy?
For 400 years, America was settled by people who left Europe because they wanted to do things their way, out from under stifling pressure to conform. I suspect that this not only had a cultural effect, but perhaps even a genetic selection effect. In any case, Americans are much more individualistic than Europeans, and this shows itself in many aspects of public attitudes.
It’s hard to imagine any jurisdiction in Europe that would put the slogan “Live Free or Die“ on its license plates. It’s hard to imagine any European company whose culture was based on “Move fast and break things.” There is a reason why Google, Facebook/Meta, Twitter/X, Apple, Nvidia, Oracle, and SpaceX are all American companies; Europe has nothing comparable. Why, with the whole world to choose from, did entrepreneurial genius Elon Musk decide to come to America?
Andrew Breitbart told us that “politics is downstream from culture“. Politicians who do not resonate with our unique American culture tend to lose for reasons they can’t quite understand.
Covid highlighted just how ignorant and selfish people are. That's what's scary.
That orangeanus supporters were more likely to doesn't bother me one bit.
I wonder how many supporters orangeanus will kill by mishandling the next pandemic.
Post a Comment