It really is.
What made you laugh today - Fifth Edition
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I live in Texas and I am taking an early bus today, I just heard a man talking to another guy about the fact that people in California are all crazy lefty zealots because of soy in their latte. They were completely serious about it and it took everything I had not to laugh out loud.
It makes sense and you know it!
I think Florida liked Trump a little too much.
Sir, yes, sir, reporting for duty, sir!
Slight off topic but how did we even get to the point where being vaccinated is left wing and refusing the vaccine is right wing? Like I know that it's a thing but I still really don't get it.
Because Left Wing and Right Wing don't really mean anything concretely political in America anymore, they're just different regional and class cultures that have formed haphazardly in opposition to one another. "Right Wing" is basically "I do whatever I want and nobody can tell me otherwise" which corresponds to rural and lumpenbourgeois Americans, while "Left Wing" is "I am morally superior and culturally universal" and corresponds to the mainly coastal managerial class. Right wingers constantly have to prove to themselves and to others that they're rebelling against the system by sealioning anything that remotely resembles a command from above. Even hardcore Trumpists don't react well to Trump himself telling them what to do.
There is nothing else in the broad philosophical or social basis of any "right wing" belief that explains this. A lot of right wingers now were hippies or anti-establishmentarians back in the Bush era, or even the Obama years. The medley of pro-capitalism, libertarianism and nationalism that now makes up right wing beliefs would have been nonsensical 20 years ago. It's the same reason you have "communists" in America and the west more generally who wholeheartedly defend and even work for liberal institutions.
There is nothing else in the broad philosophical or social basis of any "right wing" belief that explains this. A lot of right wingers now were hippies or anti-establishmentarians back in the Bush era, or even the Obama years. The medley of pro-capitalism, libertarianism and nationalism that now makes up right wing beliefs would have been nonsensical 20 years ago. It's the same reason you have "communists" in America and the west more generally who wholeheartedly defend and even work for liberal institutions.
I have a simple explanation: conservatives (the core of the right wing) don't like change and are more likely to push against new information (climate change, Covid...) and therefore Covid vaccines as well.
In conservative media (and this is not just the US) there's an anti-science bias that's skeptical about new developments in science, especially if it implies societal change (lowering greenhouse emitions, Covid lockdowns).
What's more specific about the US, is that there are conservative think tanks working hard on developing explanations that undermine scientific theories problematic to conservatives. Then these alt facts are spread through developed conservative networks which are the only source of information for many conservatives. The rest of the world's conservatives tend to pick up this ready-made stuff they can peddle at home.
What's interesting though, is how the hard left picks up the Covid conspiracies from the hard right. This is a serious concern for the intelligent leftists on the hard left, like recently in this article. The anti-corporation (Big Pharma conspiracies) and anti-repression (lockdowns, various mandates) motives are important to the populist left, and many otherwise reasonable lefties consume this kind of disinformation uncritically, as it validates their world view.
I know both conservatives and hard leftists that believe in disinformation, so the claims above are from personal experience and observation.
Edit: Also let's invite @bonerstorm here, he's literally conservative Goebbels, but may have other insights (that somehow prove this is all liberals' fault
).
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I don't agree the right-left political wings don't mean anything concretely, but that's a long discussion.
In the case of vaccines, the scepticism was mainly found among left wing people hailing alternative medicine,
where the 'wisdom' of the East is revered. Hippies, if you will.
Naturally, right wing people distance themselves from them by making fun of their Eastern philosophical mumbo jumbo about the body healing itself e.g.
Vaccines have for many years been an obvious thing. Especially for children it's self evident. For adults vaccines are a choice, either to gain entrance to a country (some require vaccines from foreigners) or to get into a job/education. Or, in most cases it's a 'selfish' thing to protect yourself from disease if you travel e.g. Or the flu vaccine is to avoid a week of discomfort. In short, vaccines for adults were a personal, 'selfish' choice that didn't involve concern for other people. And it was a visit to your personal physician. No government involvement.
This all began to change when covid came along and two things happened: right wing politicians in general downplayed the dangers, even as the house was burning. People like Bolsonaro, Trump, Boris Johnson, Putin etc. - and pretty much any leader in an autocratic country - were quick to ridicule those who rang the alarm bells, saying "it's just the flu" (ignorant of how deadly flu is) or that "herd immunity (aka do nothing) is the only option.
It became an issue of national pride to show that the pandemic was under control and the health care systems worked fine.
It's still imperative for the extreme right to downplay covid, and pointing out how government and scientists are lying (bloating the numbers of dead or how many are infected e.g.) to scare people into complying with the measures to contain the virus.
That brings yus to the second point: lockdowns, quarantines etc. where individual freedoms are obstructed. That was a big red flag for right wing people.
To them the freedom of the individual always comes first, even if it might inadvertently hurt others.
The very idea of taking a vaccine not for your own sake but for the lives and health of (anonymous) other people is an alien concept.
Left wing people, on the other hand, see a social responsibility to protect others from your own actions.
The covid vaccines became a government project to immunize the entire population, and suddenly you had a combination of "government overreach" (as conservatives like to say) and pharmaceutical companies working in tandem to force vaccines and quarantines on people from a disease that really isn't so bad and only has a mortality rate of '0. something' (despite millions of casualties).
That's how left wing hippies now see the pharmaceutical companies trying to force dangerous vaccines on people, and right wing extremists see the government trying to control people's lives even more than before.
(I have an urge to post stories from some of all these crazy websites, but it's probably not allowed.)
In the case of vaccines, the scepticism was mainly found among left wing people hailing alternative medicine,
where the 'wisdom' of the East is revered. Hippies, if you will.
Naturally, right wing people distance themselves from them by making fun of their Eastern philosophical mumbo jumbo about the body healing itself e.g.
Vaccines have for many years been an obvious thing. Especially for children it's self evident. For adults vaccines are a choice, either to gain entrance to a country (some require vaccines from foreigners) or to get into a job/education. Or, in most cases it's a 'selfish' thing to protect yourself from disease if you travel e.g. Or the flu vaccine is to avoid a week of discomfort. In short, vaccines for adults were a personal, 'selfish' choice that didn't involve concern for other people. And it was a visit to your personal physician. No government involvement.
This all began to change when covid came along and two things happened: right wing politicians in general downplayed the dangers, even as the house was burning. People like Bolsonaro, Trump, Boris Johnson, Putin etc. - and pretty much any leader in an autocratic country - were quick to ridicule those who rang the alarm bells, saying "it's just the flu" (ignorant of how deadly flu is) or that "herd immunity (aka do nothing) is the only option.
It became an issue of national pride to show that the pandemic was under control and the health care systems worked fine.
It's still imperative for the extreme right to downplay covid, and pointing out how government and scientists are lying (bloating the numbers of dead or how many are infected e.g.) to scare people into complying with the measures to contain the virus.
That brings yus to the second point: lockdowns, quarantines etc. where individual freedoms are obstructed. That was a big red flag for right wing people.
To them the freedom of the individual always comes first, even if it might inadvertently hurt others.
The very idea of taking a vaccine not for your own sake but for the lives and health of (anonymous) other people is an alien concept.
Left wing people, on the other hand, see a social responsibility to protect others from your own actions.
The covid vaccines became a government project to immunize the entire population, and suddenly you had a combination of "government overreach" (as conservatives like to say) and pharmaceutical companies working in tandem to force vaccines and quarantines on people from a disease that really isn't so bad and only has a mortality rate of '0. something' (despite millions of casualties).
That's how left wing hippies now see the pharmaceutical companies trying to force dangerous vaccines on people, and right wing extremists see the government trying to control people's lives even more than before.
(I have an urge to post stories from some of all these crazy websites, but it's probably not allowed.)
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This is very US centric though, and the phenomenon is definitely not limited there. It could be that it spread from the US elsewhere with Trump being the first instigator, but I honestly think that he picked that up elsewhere. That usually is how he does it, he finds some conspiracy theory somewhere and then runs with it and makes it mainstream. I am really curious about the origin of it all.
I have a simple explanation: conservatives (the core of the right wing) don't like change and are more likely to push against new information (climate change, Covid...) and therefore Covid vaccines as well.
In conservative media (and this is not just the US) there's an anti-science bias that's skeptical about new developments in science, especially if it implies societal change (lowering greenhouse emitions, Covid lockdowns).
What's more specific about the US, is that there are conservative think tanks working hard on developing explanations that undermine scientific theories problematic to conservatives. Then these alt facts are spread through developed conservative networks which are the only source of information for many conservatives. The rest of the world's conservatives tend to pick up this ready-made stuff they can peddle at home.
What's interesting though, is how the hard left picks up the Covid conspiracies from the hard right. This is a serious concern for the intelligent leftists on the hard left, like recently in this article. The anti-corporation (Big Pharma conspiracies) and anti-repression (lockdowns, various mandates) motives are important to the populist left, and many otherwise reasonable lefties consume this kind of disinformation uncritically, as it validates their world view.
I know both conservatives and hard leftists that believe in disinformation, so the claims above are from personal experience and observation.
Edit: Also let's invite @bonerstorm here, he's literally conservative Goebbels, but may have other insights (that somehow prove this is all liberals' fault
Yes, I think I remember you mentioning extreme lefists pushing conspiracy theories where you live.
We live in a world of chaos in which the "left" and "right" both spew the same or similar inane nonsense with a different spin on it.
In Denmark if you are caught speeding more than 100% of the speed limit the police confiscate your car.
A man bought a $310,000 Lamborghini in Germany and the next day Danish police seized it.
You do not get it back
norfolkdailynews.com
A man bought a $310,000 Lamborghini in Germany and the next day Danish police seized it.
You do not get it back
Danish police confiscate luxury sports car caught speeding
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Danish police have confiscated a high-performance luxury car after its new owner was caught speeding as he drove it home from Germany to Norway.
The title of this court case:
Coldplay plans to make the audience power the concert by jumping up and down.
Coldplay ?
www.bbc.com
Coldplay ?
Coldplay: Band ready for backlash over eco-friendly world tour
Chris Martin says their gigs will be powered from renewable energy but expects backlash over flying.
www.bbc.com
It will be all Yellow.Coldplay plans to make the audience power the concert by jumping up and down.
Coldplay ?
Coldplay: Band ready for backlash over eco-friendly world tour
Chris Martin says their gigs will be powered from renewable energy but expects backlash over flying.
