The Politics of Pandemic Denial

I’ve noticed that there are three kinds of deniers of a scientifically sound public health response to the coronavirus pandemic: a certain kind of political partisan, those who are medically uninformed, and those with a tendency to conspiracy theories. And there’s overlap between the three categories. In the common parlance these people are known as fucking assholes.

As I experienced with my last post, where I made the highly political statement that Pascal was right when he said that the miseries of people stem from the inability to sit quietly in a room, some political partisans of the current president are very angry and foaming at the mouth. They’re mad because they worry not only about the pandemic only slightly but about its harmful economic consequences which damage the reelection chances of the incumbent criminal traitor Trump.

In other countries, political partisans defend other incumbents, as they worry about the social risks of pubic anger against governments: China repressed the first doctors who warned about the pandemic; Iran held national elections at the start of the pandemic; Italy delayed enforcement of social distancing; England's fascist president Boris Johnson initially pretended it would be fine to let the infection run ravage to get herd immunity. America’s defenders of the current regime aren’t alone. Pandemics are bad politics if rulers engage in denial and later face an unhappy populace. 

In all these cases, though, governments turned around and took the measures that are needed to slow down the pandemic, some more effectively than others. Even here in the US, the president did the almost did right thing in the end, barely listening to his scientific advisors and while favoring his political ones like liar Sean Hannity, and moved to warn the nation to follow public health needs and then contradicting himself calling COVID-19 a Democratic hoax. His idiot son Eric is still pushing the hoax narrative. Even so, most of his followers can’t let go of their initial denial.  Especially with his idiot criminal son Eric cranking up the lie machine. And their "great leader" himself is now wavering. 

The second group comprises those who are willfully medically uninformed. These fall into two subgroups: young people, generally in their late teens or 20s, and Bible banging science-skeptics. The right wing young have received adequate criticism, though sometimes with limited impact. These are the folks who take the flights to Florida for the weekend, unworried about airplane risks of infection, and crowd together on beaches and in bars or the fact that they can pass the infection on to others. As is typical with selfish right wing persons, where reasoning constantly fails, commands must follow as people on the right lack self-control, the ability to think critically, empathy and basic human decency. Mayors and governors had to close beaches and bars, reminding the youth that they could party in later times. 

The science-skeptics tend to be older, in their thirties or later, and represented among predominately conservatives. They each pick and choose what kind of science they like: They dislike vaccines, clean air, clean water and the science global warming. They believe one thing: Their own views are more valid than science—pandemics be damned. They refuse to accept that the verdicts of science are unrelated to what they like. As the immortal 30-year-old Katie Williams of Las Vegas tweeted after going to a restaurant in response to an exhortation by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to stay home: "... this is America. And I"ll do what I want." We hold these truths to be self-evident—that I am more important than science, other Americans and the rights and the well being of others as they forget that rights come with responsibilities. k

Finally, there are the conspiracy theorists. How can something terrible just happen? There must be a deeper reason. So it was with the assassinations of Kennedy and King, 9/11, school shootings. The pandemic started in China. Initially, some wanted to blame China; in hard-hit Iran, some blame the U.S.; in the U.S., some Trump supporters blame his opponents. It’s human nature to rationalize, especially in the face of random events, even if the reasons given are false. This is especially true with Trump supporters. 

The problem with pandemic denial is that it only takes a minority to refuse to follow public health infection control to undermine the whole thing. That’s a major reason why control of this pandemic has faltered in Europe and the Middle East compared to China and the Far East. The U.S. didn't avoid becoming like Italy, which the incidence curves show, all Americans, not some or even most of them, would be smart to get out of denial. The likelihood of such rationality is low given the low collective IQ, high rate of immorality,selfishness, hypocrisy and high rate of fundamentalist fact denying religiosity among Trump's disciples. 

Pascal’s warning is a fact of human psychology: People can’t sit in a room, so they come up with reasons why they shouldn’t. In such circumstances, a wise government (see: Japan, Singapore) would replace exhortation with enforcement.  Pascal was talking about bratty children in adult bodies which accurately describes Trump supporters - the I me me my crowd.

I would advocate helping these immoral selfish idiots increase their "pseudo denial" until they are in full absolute inescapable denial where has so brainwashed themselves that they follow each other off the proverbial cliff. Self destruction will follow and that would be a good thing. Moral and enlightened societies are comprised of moral enlightened people people. The less bad, stupid and purposefully ignorant people their are in a society the healthier that society will be. Asians have the highest IQs and some of the best countries with the lowest crime rates on earth e.g. Japan, Tibet, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, South, Cambodia as opposed to Russia, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia where the purges by Stalin and the Muslim hordes killed off a lot of good people leaving Russia and most of the Middle East what Trump would call a shit hole unlike Qatar the UAE and Israel.

Psychologists and sociologists who run their pie holes and assign unscientific behavioral theories that they have pulled out of their asses would be funny if they were not so dangerous. Behavior is dictated by both nurture and nature leading to the logical conclusion that some people are simply no damn good. Are Trump supporters in true denial? A few may be. Most them are simply liars.

Below is the original article some jackass wrote for psychology today. I took the BS out of it and added some facts. 

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Nassir Ghaemi M.D., M.P.H.

I’ve noticed that there are three kinds of deniers of a scientifically sound public health response to the coronavirus pandemic: a certain kind of political partisan, those who are medically uninformed, and those with a tendency to conspiracy theories. And there’s overlap between the three categories.

As I experienced with my last post, where I made the highly political statement that Pascal was right when he said that the miseries of people stem from the inability to sit quietly in a room, some political partisans of the current president are very angry. They’re mad because they worry not only about the pandemic but about its harmful economic consequences which damage the reelection chances of the incumbent.

In other countries, political partisans defend other incumbents, as they worry about the social risks of pubic anger against governments: China repressed the first doctors who warned about the pandemic; Iran held national elections at the start of the pandemic; Italy delayed enforcement of social distancing; England initially pretended it would be fine to let the infection run ravage to get herd immunity. America’s defenders of the current regime aren’t alone. Pandemics are bad politics if rulers engage in denial and later face an unhappy populace.

In all these cases, though, governments turned around and took the measures that are needed to slow down the pandemic. Even here in the US, the president did the right thing in the end, listening to his scientific advisors and not his political ones, and moved to warn the nation to follow public health needs. Even so, some of his followers can’t let go of the initial denial. And the great leader himself is now wavering. 

The second group comprises the medically uninformed. These fall into two subgroups: young people, generally in their late teens or 20s, and science-skeptics. The young have received adequate criticism, though sometimes with limited impact. These are the folks who take the $80 flights to Florida for the weekend, unworried about airplane risks of infection, and crowd together on beaches and in bars. As is typical with young persons, where reasoning fails, commands must follow. Mayors and governors had to close beaches and bars, reminding the youth that they could party in later times. 

The science-skeptics tend to be older, in their thirties or later, and are equally represented among liberals and conservatives, though for different reasons. They each pick and choose what kind of science they like: The left dislikes vaccines, the right dislikes global warming. They can agree on one thing: Their own views are more valid than science—pandemics be damned. They each refuse to accept that the verdicts of science are unrelated to what they like. As the immortal 30-year-old Katie Williams of Las Vegas tweeted after going to a restaurant in response to an exhortation by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to stay home: "... this is America. And I"ll do what I want." We hold these truths to be self-evident—that I am more important than science.  

Finally, there are the conspiracy theorists. How can something terrible just happen? There must be a deeper reason. So it was with the assassinations of Kennedy and King, 9/11, school shootings. The pandemic started in China. Initially, some wanted to blame China; in hard-hit Iran, some blame the U.S.; in the U.S., some Trump supporters blame his opponents. It’s human nature to rationalize, especially in the face of random events, even if the reasons given are false.  

The problem with pandemic denial is that it only takes a minority to refuse to follow public health infection control to undermine the whole thing. That’s a major reason why control of this pandemic has faltered in Europe and the Middle East compared to China and the Far East. If the U.S. is to avoid becoming like Italy, which the incidence curves find so far, all Americans, not some or even most of them, have to get out of denial. The likelihood of such rationality is low though. 

Pascal’s warning is a fact of human psychology: People can’t sit in a room, so they come up with reasons why they shouldn’t. In such circumstances, a wise government (see: Japan, Singapore) would replace exhortation with enforcement.