Lucky Bastrd

“The conservative elites who view their supporters as easily manipulated rubes know exactly what they’re doing. It’s the same formula, applied again and again. Keeping the machine running means outrage, anger, distrust, fear and conspiracy thinking, all wrapped up in a spinning turbine of hysteria where emotion is turned into action. The action might be small-dollar donations, or it might be tuning in to Fox News and Newsmax and OAN night after night, and at the right times it means turning out to vote. But the fuel of the machine doesn’t really matter; it’s whatever will get people worked up today, even if it might get them killed tomorrow. The vaccines are a perfect example. Does anyone doubt that if Trump was still president, the conservative media would be promoting covid vaccination as his personal triumph and encouraging it so normal life could resume as quickly as possible? Of course they would. Today, on the other hand, there remains a political incentive to discourage vaccination: Fewer vaccinations extends the pandemic, which means more misery, more death, a constrained economy, and an increase in the feeling that things just aren’t going well in America, which in turn makes it more likely that Republicans will win at the polls in 2022 and 2024. But that may not be the main goal of those discouraging vaccination. They just want to keep the machine running, and if the fact that there’s a Democratic president means vaccines can be divisive enough, they become a terrific vehicle for outrage.”

Coronavirus Insights