Against liberal 'totalitarianism'

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Although COVID-19 has killed more than 5.2 million people worldwide — according to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore — Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio continues to downplay the pandemic’s severity and claim that “real America” needn’t worry about the pandemic. But CNN’s Phil Mattingly, slamming Jordan in a biting commentary, stressed that what Jordan considers “real America” is seeing the United States’ worst COVID-19 infection rates.
On December 2, Jordan tweeted, “Real America is done with #COVID19. The only people who don’t understand that are Fauci and Biden.” By “real America,” the far-right MAGA Republican obviously means red states — and those states, Mattingly stressed, are suffering the most from COVID-19.

Real America is done with #COVID19. \n\nThe only people who don\u2019t understand that are Fauci and Biden.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Rep. Jim Jordan) 1638453854

Mattingly explained, “Right now, the U.S. is averaging more than 100,000 new COVID cases every day. That’s the highest level in two months. Is that what being done with COVID looks like?” The CNN host went on to show some U.S. maps demonstrating how dangerous the pandemic continues to be, and he emphasized that most COVID-19 deaths at this point are among the unvaccinated — who are more likely to be in red states than blue states.

“Since the vaccines became widely available,” Mattingly told CNN viewers, “the risk of dying from COVID is 50% higher in red states than in blue states. Even on the most base, cynical level, you would think these Republican politicians would want to keep their constituents, their voters alive. But instead, there are seemingly weekly absurdities like this from Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

The “absurdity” that Mattingly was referring to was a December 4 tweet in which Rep. Greene, another far-right MAGA wingnut, posted, “Every single year more than 600,000 people in the US die from cancer. The country has never once shut down.”

Fact checker blasts Jim Jordan for ‘absurd’ claim that ‘real America’ is ‘over COVID’ - Alternet.org

• Liberation from liberal 'totalitarianism' doesn't involve only disregarding science and otherwise inconvenient facts, it's actually dangerous for the conservative tribe itself.
  
• This might be by design though
  
• It wouldn't be the first time
  

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NPR examined deaths per 100,000 people in about 3,000 counties across the US since May 2021. According to NPR, 1 May was chosen as the start date as it is roughly the time when vaccines became universally available to adults. The study found that areas that voted for Trump by at least 60% in November 2020 had death rates 2.7 times higher than counties that voted heavily for Biden.

The study also found that counties that voted for Trump by an even higher percentage had lower vaccination rates and higher Covid-19 death rates. Charles Gaba, an independent analyst who helped review NPR’s methodology, said that in October, the reddest 10th of the country saw death rates six times higher than the bluest 10th. “Those numbers have dropped slightly in recent weeks,” he said. “It’s back down to 5.5 times higher.”

People in counties that voted Trump more likely to die from Covid – study | US news | The Guardian

• And this is the result..
  

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At home, the threat to liberty from Silicon Valley monopolies enforcing progressive orthodoxy and the threat to human happiness from the addictive nature of social media, online pornography and online life in general. The collapse of birthrates, the dissolution of institutional religion and the decline of bourgeois normalcy, manifest in the younger generation’s failure to mate, to marry, raise families. The post-1960s “great stagnation” in both living standards and technological innovation. The costs of cultural libertarianism, the increase in unhappiness and high rates of depression and addiction in a more individualistic society.

Opinion | What the New Right Sees - The New York Times

• The ills in society that the new right ascribes to the 'totalitarian' left, but the origin of these ills is mostly their own making.
  
• Silicon Valley monopolies could emerge because libertarians blunted anti-competitive policy from the 1980s onwards.
  
• And besides the token liberalism of social media removing some of the lies from the right (pandemic nonsense, the 2020 election etc.) it's the right that thrives on the social divisiveness that social media reinforce.
  
• The collapse of birth rates and dissolution of families is mostly a product of stagnating wages that are the result of neo-liberal policies which have concentrated the gains from economic growth at the top.
  
• The increase in unhappiness and high rates of depression and addiction is also a product of rampant inequality and reduced social mobility and the associated status anxiety.
  

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Conservative legislators are outraged by recent reports that a Biden administration drug harm reduction programme may put some of its funds towards safer smoking kits. On Tuesday, US Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee wrote to the department of Health and Human Services, expressing “grave concerns” that a $30 million grant programme from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) could include subsidising drug paraphernalia... The initiative also intends to fund facilities offering safe syringe exchanges, opioid reversal drugs, fentanyl test kits, and other methods meant to stem the United States’ striking drug overdose crisis, which killed more than 100,000 Americans between May 2020 and April 2021... Such harm-reduction practices, meant to lower preventable illness, overdose, and death associated with unsupervised drug use, is already used in places like Canada, Australia, and Europe. 

GOP outraged at Joe Biden plan to fund ‘crack pipe distribution’ in effort to reduce drug harm | The Independent

• Good illustration of the differences between liberals and conservatives. While not always getting it right, liberals are looking for stuff that actually works, where there is preponderance of evidence behind a particular solution.
  
• Conservatives tend to discard the consequences of their positions and react with a simplistic good/bad dualism: drugs, abortion, criminals, regulation, government, etc. are bad, so we get stuck with mindless policies like the war on drugs, mindless deregulation and bashing/underfunding of government (which tends to produce self-fulfilling prophesies as it undermines government capacity to act and trust in government), locking criminals up with ever tougher sanctions, etc.
  
• The deregulation actually got us the opioid crisis and there is some evidence these initiatives that conservatives are now all riled up against actually produce better outcomes.
  
• They discard all evidence of policies they don't like, whether it's climate change, the pandemic, abortion, crime, drugs, gun violence, tax cuts, they invariably take a-priori positions which become articles of faith.
  

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All over the United States, far-right Republicans in state legislatures have been pushing bills that prohibit teaching “critical race theory” in public schools. But CRT, a field of academic study found on some college campuses, isn’t even taught in K-12 schools in the United States — and the race-baiting bills are really a broad attack on any teachers who discuss the country’s racist past in any way. These bills, liberal Washington Post opinion columnist Greg Sargent warns in his February 9 column, are promoting a Republican “snitch culture” designed to bully and intimidate teachers and make them feel they have to walk on eggshells in the classroom.

The new GOP 'snitch culture' is designed to 'spread fear' and 'scare' teachers into silence: analysis - Alternet.org

• The right's cancel culture
  
• They're prohibiting books as well
  

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According to an NBC News analysis, about 670 anti-LGBTQ-plus bills have been filed since 2018. The number has increased each year. According to NBC, there were 41 bills in 2018, slightly more than 60 in 2019, nearly 150 in 2020, 191 in 2021 and 238 bills this year. As Florida's “Don’t Say Gay” law suggests, silencing discourse of any kind about sexual orientation or gender identity is the goal. The GOP theory seems to be that if kids don’t hear about queer and trans people, they won’t become queer or trans. That these identities are likely embedded from birth (or before) is a concept the purveyors of “Parental Rights” bills don’t want to grapple with.

Ask any gay, lesbian, non-binary or trans person about their identity. Most will say they always knew. Most will say they were who they are, even if they didn’t yet have a name for it. Books and other materials allowing LGBTQ-plus youth to feel comfortable in their identities and most importantly, not isolated, are key to safe, healthy adolescence. A national survey from The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ-plus youth suicide prevention and intervention group, found that 42 percent of LGBTQ-plus youth seriously considered attempting suicide last year. “LGBTQ youth are not inherently prone to suicide risk because of their sexual orientation or gender identity but rather placed at higher risk because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized in society.”

LGBTQ+ Americans face an 'incalculable' risk of harm in the right-wing culture war - Alternet.org

• What the new right calls 'liberal totalitarianism' is nothing more than protecting vulnerable people and there is every reason to believe there is an increasing need for that.
  

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The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, broke down in tears during an interview in which she condemned the “cruelty” of a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation sweeping Republican states. Republicans are dusting off a tried and true election strategy: hatemongering Moira Donegan Read more Known for her toughness at the briefing room podium, Psaki showed a more emotional side during the discussion with Jessica Yellin, host of the News Not Noise podcast, in an interview released on Tuesday. “They’re doing that in a way that is harsh and cruel to a community of kids, especially,” Psaki said, in tears, after Yellin asked her to “make sense” of the Republican push for legislation that marginalises the LBGTQ+ community. “I’m going to get emotional about this issue because it’s horrible. But it’s kids who are bullied, and all these leaders are taking steps to hurt them, and hurt their lives and hurt their families. “And you look at some of these laws in these states and who’s going after parents, who are in loving relationships, who have kids. It’s completely outrageous. Sorry, this is an issue that makes me completely crazy.” Analysts say the wave of legislation, prominently including Florida’s so-called “don’t say gay” bill, which attacks the teaching of LGBTQ+ issues, is designed to provoke “gender grievance” among voters ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Jen Psaki in tears during interview on Republican anti-LGBTQ ‘cruelty’ | US news | The Guardian

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More than one in four girls reported that they had seriously contemplated attempting suicide during the pandemic, which was twice the rate of boys. Nearly half of LGBTQ teens said they had contemplated suicide during the pandemic, compared with 14 percent of their heterosexual peers. Sadness among white teens seems to be rising faster than among other groups.

Why American Teens Are So Sad - The Atlantic

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Amanda Gorman, the American poet who shot to international stardom when she recited The Hill We Climb at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration, has vowed to defeat book bans in Florida after the poem was removed for reading by elementary school children in an educational institution in Miami-Dade county.

Florida school district sued for violating first amendment rights with book bans

Gorman, 25, said she was “gutted” to learn that a complaint from a single parent led to her inaugural poem being banned from Bob Graham education center in Miami Lakes. The poem was one of five books challenged by a parent of children at the school, including The ABCs of Black History and books on Cuba. In the complaint, the parent mistakenly listed Oprah Winfrey as the author of The Hill We Climb, and said she objected to the poem because it was “not educational and have indirectly hate messages”. Gorman hit back in a lengthy social media post.

Amanda Gorman ‘gutted’ after Florida school bans Biden inauguration poem | Amanda Gorman | The Guardian