When one chooses to listen to a propaganda network that spins an alternate reality non-stop (despite the availability of countless reputable news sources) because it legitimizes one's hatreds and prejudices, the consequence is that when governmental agencies and medical experts saying things that impact with this fantasy world, these accurate and perhaps lifesaving messages are ignored. At least that is what is happening in the context of the coronavirus nightmare. Hard core Trump supporters and many Republicans either do not believe the threat is real or - the always dangerous Ron Paul continues to say it is a hoax - or downplay the situation. If this willful rejection of reality continues, these Trump cult followers will be endangering not only themselves - for whom I have zero sympathy since they have made the conscious decision to embrace ignorance - but also their communities. A piece in the Washington Post looks at the phenomenon. Here are excerpts:
Behold, the perils of the Pinocchio presidency. For three years, President Trump told his supporters that the federal government perpetrates hoaxes and frauds, that the media produces fake news and that nothing is on the level except for his tweets. He did the same with the novel coronavirus, portraying it as an ordinary flu that would “disappear” and accusing Democrats of a hoax and the media of exaggerating.
Belatedly, Trump has begun to speak the truth about the virus, which by some estimates could kill more than 2 million Americans without attempts to control it.
But Trump’s late conversion to reality has left behind one group of Americans that will be difficult to convince: his own supporters. Their alternative-facts diet has left them intolerant of anything the government and the media feed them.
An alarming new poll from NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist shows that the number of Republicans who believe the virus is a real threat has actually fallen over the past month, from 72 percent in February to just 40 percent now. A majority of Republicans now say the threat has been blown out of proportion — more than double the 23 percent who said so last month.
Naturally, they’re not so inclined to cooperate with efforts to slow the virus’s spread. Only 30 percent of Republicans plan to avoid large gatherings (vs. 61 percent of Democrats), a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found just before Trump proposed such limits. Republicans were half as likely to say they were rescheduling travel and a third as likely to stop eating out at restaurants.
Key Trump allies aren’t cooperating, either. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) recommended on Monday: “If you want to go to Bob Evans and eat, go to Bob Evans and eat.”
Also Monday, Ron Paul, the former presidential candidate and father of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), said, “People should ask themselves whether this coronavirus ‘pandemic’ could be a big hoax, with the actual danger of the disease massively exaggerated.”
After weeks of false reassurances and disinformation, Trump abruptly shifted this week. At Tuesday’s briefing, he lavishly praised the government scientists and public health experts he had until lately been contradicting, and he celebrated recent bipartisanship.
For once, he put his priority where it should be: on the human toll. “For the markets, for everything, it’s a very simple, very simple solution. We want to get rid of it. We want to have as few deaths as possible.” And he admonished those not following social-distancing guidelines: “I’m not happy with those people.”
There can be no doubt who “those people” are: Fox-News viewing Trump supporters who, until this week, had been encouraged to believe Trump’s claims that the virus was well under control. . . . . After encouraging his Fox fan base for weeks to scoff at the virus, Trump now finds that his presidency, the U.S. economy and countless lives depend on him convincing them otherwise.
I am not sure how one convinces those who reject anything they do not want to hear. Perhaps we will witness Darwin's theory in practice as the willfully ignorant fail to survive.
2 comments:
Darwin's law.
That's right. The only problem is that they'll become vectors of this disease and will kill many people.
The walking dead. Never a better allegory for an IMPOTUS supporter.
XOXO
I see what you did there, and I applaud it. But maybe THIS is the lie that finally makes them see the folly of believing in a anti government government official. Let's all hope for few deaths and a return to some sort of normality.
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