The conservative lurch toward propagandism and conspiracy theory now turns deadly – By Hunter (Daily Kos) / March 16 2020
There are specific demographics that appear to be especially resistant to public health advice during a crisis. For expediency, we will call them the Fox News demographic. They are conservative; they are, shall-we-say, performatively religious; they likey their guns and have certain fantasies about how they may someday use them; and they are deeply distrustful of experts and government while quick to believe ideological allies, no matter how obviously fraudulent their claims might be.
If you tell them a foreign terrorist group is operating out of a Chuck E. Cheese’s ball pit, now that they may believe, so long as it is Sean Hannity saying it. If you tell them a virus is spreading that is absolutely certain to have the same effects on our population that it is having in China, in Italy, and elsewhere, they will tell you you are wrong. We are seeing the results of this now: the COVID-19 pandemic now seems likely to spread through conservative populations at far higher rates than other groups. Some of them will die, and all are likely to spread the virus throughout their communities and regions before becoming sick themselves.
From The News & Advance, here is one quote from a West Virginian who traveled to Lynchburg, Virginia, for a conference on “taking back Biblical manhood”:
“Everywhere you look, on your phone, on the news, it’s all bombarded. It’s overrated. It’s over- exaggerated. It’s bad news, so the media loves it. But it doesn’t concern me. It’s blown out of proportion.”
Another, from a Los Angeles Times report interviewing customers in an Oklahoma gun store doing “booming” business: “People all scared of this—it’s the flu. It’s some made up stuff from the coasts.”
Continue to article: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/16/1928027/-The-conservative-lurch-towards-propagandism-and-conspiracy-theory-now-turns-deadly
