See below for an excellent analysis by Dr. Rachel Bitecofer about the Republicans and COVID-19, among other things. A few lines that jumped out at me were:
- “Trump & the modern GOP cares about non-whites. So if the herd thinning is ‘them’ and not ‘us’….” (Exactly, they don’t give a crap if non-whites are getting sick and dying, and they mostly don’t even care if *whites* are getting sick and dying, as long as it isn’t *them*)
- “Trump organizes that RNC Convention stuff at the WH and though it was far less balls to the wall dangerous than the rallies we end up seeing in Sept., make no mistake about it, that RNC stuff at the WH was dangerous. You gotta stay away from people- there’s a pandemic.”
- “The level of activity occurring, by the way, is pushed A TON by the elite cues the public gets from the president who has told them that the virus is no big deal, even that it was a hoax designed to tank his election prospects.”
- “He is a covid19 denier (at least in public– which is the weird part, right, bc we KNOW that he knows the truth so that’s what makes his reckless conduct so baffling, he knows he was endangering his life and the life of all the staff but did it anyway. And he is a potential superspreader. He thinks Hope Hicks gave it to him but there is no reason to think that.”
- “For months Trump told his supporters not to take the virus seriously, and as we know some who didn’t got sick and died. But if he had responded like Morrison in Australia or Trudeau in Canada almost all Republicans would take it seriously too. And I can tell you this: America’s death tally would not be creeping towards 210,000.”
- “… even before the Woodward tapes (indeed, this is one of the reasons Bob released the tapes, Trump and his campaign has started to aggressively pursue a COVID denialism- throw off the masks and reigns approach, starting to hold events w crows with no masks and no social distancing and shortly, they were announcing large-scale rallies. These rallies, 1 of which was held right where I am, in Newport News, have like 10,000+ attendees, crammed in shoulder to shoulder, mask optional. They’re buffets for this virus & for people that like Trump, too tempting to pass up. Its like having candy- people can’t resist going even when it puts their family members in mortal danger (of course, they don’t really get that, its hard to discount the president assuring you that it is, in fact, all overblown bullshit).”
- “In addition to these super spreader events, Trump has been having all of these private events w people like Amy Coney Barrett and fundraisers and now all of these people from the last week or so are positive. He was putting himself and all of these people at risk. He went to Bedminster and exposed dozens of people there. And all these members of Congress.”
- “In short, they have been [flouting] the existence of this virus so much that I’m only surprised its taken this long for the virus to find its way into it. To say it’s irresponsible is the biggest understatement of the year.”
- “In terms of sympathy/polls/race standings, I assume no impact. If it ends up being a very serious cases I’ll assess it on that terms. But in terms of sympathy, I assume the fact that he brought it on himself will likely stymy it more than neg. partisanship.”
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