I would say to these people go get sick and die already but that would just end up overtaxing the local hospitals and they'll probably spread it around before they kick off.Smoove_B wrote: Mon Mar 30, 2020 11:09 am The social distancing culture war has begun via the Atlantic:
What's amazing to me is that there's some type of belief that a virus somehow respects party lines or that policy makers are somehow crafting a response designed to specifically target voters in a certain demographic. I'm having a hard time getting into that mindset and not seeing this as a human being problem, but I also acknowledge it's not possible for me to be unbiased in review of information.This dynamic is playing out in small ways across the country. Bret, a sales representative from Plano, Texas, who asked that I not use his last name, proudly told me how unfazed he and his conservative neighbors were by the threat of an outbreak. In his view, the recent wave of government-mandated lockdowns was a product of panic-mongering in the mainstream media, and he welcomed Trump’s call for businesses to reopen by Easter.
When I asked whether the virus had interfered with his lifestyle, Bret laughed. “Oh, I’m going to the shooting range tomorrow,” he replied.
Was he worried that his friends might disapprove if they found out?
“No,” he told me, “around here, I get much more of people saying, ‘Why don’t you go Saturday so I can go, too?’”
Terry Trahan, a manager at a cutlery store in Lubbock, Texas, acknowledged that a certain “toxic tribalism” was informing people’s attitudes toward the pandemic. “If someone’s a Democrat, they’re gonna say it’s worse,” he told me, “and if someone’s a Republican, they’re gonna say it’s bad, but it’s getting better.”
My patience with this sort of closed minded tribalism is gone. Even the Corona spring break kid saw the error of his ways.
