3 ms·
My feeling is it became politicized because the left saw it as a chance to expose Trump, and the right downplayed it to avoid impacts on Trump's reputation. Lik
by dividefuel 3y ago
My feeling is it became politicized because the left saw it as a chance to expose Trump, and the right downplayed it to avoid impacts on Trump's reputation. Like because one side took one stance, the other side inherently had to take a different stance.
The right started out as "Covid is bad, but so is crashing the economy to prevent it", which turned into "Covid isn't that bad, wearing a mask is excessive", which became "The vaccine is more harmful than the disease". The left went from "Causing people to die is worse than any economy hit" -> "You should do everything possible to prevent it" -> "You should wear a mask at all times in public".
I often feel the left would have taken reversed stances if the right had taken the pandemic seriously. If Trump had advocated shutting things down and pushed strongly for vaccines/masks, it seems pretty likely the left would have called this an authoritarian overreach and/or highly questioned the safety of the vaccines.
In short, I think our culture is so highly polarized that as soon as something becomes a major topic, people immediately divide into separate 'sides' on it.
EDIT: follow-up question -- was the pandemic as polarizing in other countries besides the US?
- swed420 3y agoBoth parties of capital have handled this pandemic terribly: https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-consent https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...
- gojomo 3y agoDoesn't seem to have been as durably polarizing elsewhere, as far as I can tell. EG: even European countries that were more draconian earlier in the pandemic returned to relative normalcy, with less fear/debate around school reopenings, mandatory testing, mandatory masking, etc, sooner than the US. In the US, sticky "showy extreme COVID vigilance is my essential identity as a good citizen" or "showy nonchalance is my essential identity as a free person" partisanship lingers.
- TMWNN 3y ago>it seems pretty likely the left would have called this an authoritarian overreach and/or highly questioned the safety of the vaccines. Biden, Harris, and Pelosi all said in September 2020 that they won't trust any Trump vaccine. <https://www.newsweek.com/anti-vaccine-covid-trust-skepticism-democrat-politicization-1535559 https://www.newsweek.com/anti-vaccine-covid-trust-skepticism...>
- silverquiet 3y agoI mean, given what he said about trying bleach in people, I think I'd be a bit skeptical about his vaccines as well.