When things screw up, presume human folly and incompetence.
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."
My post yesterday described two poorly-timed election screw-ups, the Iowa caucus election count in February, 2020, and the New York City election count two weeks ago. Echoing the advice of a former Oregon governor, I said Democrats need to demonstrate governing competence because it is the party representing the value of positive government.
Errors, especially in elections, feed conspiracy theories because someone loses. There is a motive for misbehavior: Political power. People look for opportunity and weapon, the means to carry it out the crime. Thus rise conspiracy theories. In February, 2020, Bernie Sanders' supporters floated conspiracies regarding the Iowa debacle, saying Hillary and Pete Buttigieg planned it. Bernie himself did not push that theory, so the conspiracy talk ended. Trump claims multiple conspiracies in the November, 2020 election. He persists, so they persist.
I think you have missed one of the biggest conspiracies--the Democratic COVID vaccine conspiracy! Realizing that the vaccine protects against COVID hospitalization and death and that Republicans distrust a government vaccine program, even one initiated by Trump, savvy Democratic leaders have secretly fanned the flames of the Republican anti-vax movement. The success of this is readily demonstrated by the increasing COVID death rate in Republican areas. Why just block your opponents from voting when you can encourage them to kill themselves off? Nancy Pelosi is brilliant!
He is joking.
Only in hindsight is it obvious that Trump, the Trump-oriented media, and GOP leaders and voters would decide to treat vaccinations as something "Biden is pushing down our throats." Fox News has guest after guest talking about the threat of Democrats trying to "force" a risky, questionable vaccine, likening vaccine providers to Nazi brownshirts. Guests talk about the tyranny of vaccinations. Republican Congresspeople brag about refusing vaccination.
It could have gone the other way. "Operation Warp-speed" appears to be a tremendous success. It took courage by the Trump administration. The government paid vaccine companies to ramp up the manufacturing capacity for potential vaccines, removing what would normally be a long delay getting from approval to production. This could have blown up in their faces, with accusations of "money wasted on speculation" had vaccines not worked. Multiple effective vaccines came to market beginning in December--far faster than expected.
In October, prior to the election when it might have tipped the election balance, it could have been Trump-the-Hero, bragging about leading a triumphant Manhattan Project on the verge of implementation. He could have been Eisenhower, just prior to D-Day.
After the November election loss, focusing on his enduring legacy, Trump might have retained his claim on the vaccine, and bragged about them, saying the success in stopping COVID belonged to him and him alone, not Biden, and urging Republicans to take the Trump Victory Vaccine. His position all along was that masks were unwelcome and shutdowns of the economy were too costly a way to stop COVID, that the cure was worse than the disease. Vaccines were the all-American way to deal with COVID, and Trump did it. It would have made sense. It would have been on-brand for Trump.
He went the other way. Once Biden secured the election Trump and the Trump-oriented media saw that Biden was pleased with the vaccine, they turned against it.
Eliot Nierman's joke about the Nancy Pelosi's supposed multi-step conspiracy is funny because it is so implausible to think that Nancy Pelosi or anyone could have predicted that Trump supporters would willingly refuse a vaccine created under Trump's watch, and then endure a condition where some 98% of people appearing in hospitals from COVID are people who are not vaccinated. Who would have guessed that Biden praising vaccines produced under Trump's watch would stimulate such widespread vaccine refusal among Trump supporters?
Nancy Pelosi didn't plan this. Nobody planned this. Americans stumbled into this state of affairs, against all logic, and indeed against all self-interest for Trump personally and for Republican partisans.
When in doubt about things that seem strange, the rule of thumb is to assume ignorance and incompetence. Human folly is a constant. Conspiracies take planning.
--- --- --- ---
[Note: readers who wish to get this blog by email every day can go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Enter your email address. The blog is free and always will be.]
6 comments:
Go figure, republicans ignoring facts, science, over their belief system. Republicans may have normal IQ s, but when it comes to being rational and smart I think they are lacking. It’s hard to feel sorry for people who refuse the vaccine and then get very sick. When the virus first came on the world stage, I feared Trump would be smart and fight it with masks, vaccines, the champion of being at war. If he did we would certainly be in a corrupt administration of four more years, at war with our allies and friendly with an aggressive Russia. He would have destroyed democracy completely.
Thank heavens for Trump incompetence.
Let’s see if Trump country wises up as the delta strain kills of a higher percentage of vaccine deniers. I’m guessing they won’t.
Incompetence of a magnitude rarely, if ever, seen in somebody who becomes a Global Figure. We gained a respite from his Destruction of the Republic, but the forces he unleashed are still actively working to complete his self appointed mission. I for one, am beginning to question whether or not the Democratic Administration has the fortitude and imagination it's going to take to defeat Trumpism and Fascism as being expressed by today's Republiqan Party.
All societies have developed systems and methods of caring for disease. Vaccines change the course of disease. Removing a disease from a society through a vaccine as effective as say the polio vaccine makes the societal structures for that particular disease care obsolete. Many people in society are specifically trained and invested and profiting from a particular disease. Ministering to disease gives power to those that control its care delivery. The existence of a "cure" or a vaccine to prevent the disease removes both the profit and the power of those in control. Some religions claim only their faith can heal the sick and protect the faithful. Modern medicine is a threat to their beliefs and tenants when one can show the healing power of a modern treatment. The psychology of "why" an individual would opt to be treated or not is largely based on their "tribal unit" or faith. Furthermore, in these times of epidemic, charlatans arise with their elixirs and treatment methods to scam the fearful. Mistrust, or "do nothing" is often the choice taken because they no longer know who or what to believe. Anyone want a sip of bleach? Anyone? Anyone?
I forecast that the unvaccinated (trumpeters,primarily), will gradually die off, as their foolishness, along with western powers' inability or unwillingness to provide adequate vaccine to most other countries, results in more and more dangerous new varieties of covid.
Sad for the world, but almost joyful to progressives, as the trumpeters' percent of voters shrinks more and more as they continue to die off.
There is a connection between conspiracy theories and superstition. It is the belief that powerful but unseen forces control reality. Imagine a primitive human in awe of the wind witnessing a tornado. It must be the actions of a supernatural being.
How much influence would these folks have if they were not included in a major political party? Not much. Some would pity them, some would ridicule them, and in prior times they were inconsequential in our society. But when Republicans, who were facing a dwindling constituency, started pandering to them now find ourselves in a situation where a mob attacks our capital in the name of a twice impeached and disgraced president, and Republicans are lauding them as heroes.
I also maintain that the vaccines would have been developed regardless of government support, although considering the scale of the crises it would be inconceivable that there would have been no response, so Trump taking credit is the rooster taking credit for the dawn. Any administration would have done the same. However, it did run in opposition of the "government is the problem" narrative so Republicans couldn't brag too much without sabotaging one of their major issues.
Trump might deserve a little credit for Operation Warp Speed (after all, he did agree to it) except that he displayed such contempt for simple preventive measures, like masks and social distancing, that he demonstrated that he led many to their death. That isn't hyperbole. One small example: Herman Cain attended Trump's superspreader in Tulsa without a mask and died of COVID shortly after.
If the virus does focus on the Insurrection Party, maybe it will raise the nation's IQ.
Post a Comment