upset that people were even acknowledging that there was a pandemic.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. For a lot of people, a “just universe fallacy” is how they need to navigate the world for it’s the only way situations like a pandemic make sense. The idea, that anyone, anywhere, at any time, can befall tragic circumstances for no reason at all, is tantamount to an existential crisis. Instead, doubling down on the fiction that “there’s no real threat so quit reminding me that there is one” is the only way to keep it together. It was never really about the masks themselves.
Yeah, I think that’s why lots of them spent a lot of time and energy on conspiracy theory and “doing their own research” (meaning, trading tall tales with people equally clueless about critical thinking).
The notion that disease can just happen - these people also deny evolution so they struggle with this notion for sure - is anathema and threatens their world view. So of course it had to be a conspiracy - China is covering up Wuhan stuff, Fauci did it with “gain of function” research - and that’s when they acknowledge the disease at all. When not doing endless arguing over the source they’d downplay the entire thing. It was “only” the old, it was “only” those with preconditions, and we all just need to “open everything back up” and “get back to work”, and so on, even if millions have to die, because we must make the line go up.
In addition to that, they’d spend lots of time complaining about “the clot shot” and instead do nearly anything but acknowledge that the experts actually know anything and have public safety in mind. Nope, everything is a conspiracy and experts are not really experts, so preventative things like social distancing, avoiding in-person things, doing remote learning and remote work, masking up and of course, the vaccine that was a modern-day moon shot is a big plot to get conservatives or whatever.
So instead, they are resorting to bullshit medicine like HCQ and horse dewormer. Once the stupid train left the station, that’s where it was bound to end up.
I think what really, really broke their brains was the fact that they want to be able to follow and repeat narratives that Faux and Taco make up for them, and those are usually entirely unshakable. Except for something like the pandemic, combined with watching the market and job numbers go into freefall. No amount of spinning from Taco OR Bullshit Mountain was going to change that bedrock truth.
And that infuriated not only a whole lot of redcaps, it drove Taco absolutely nuts. If there is something that the conservatives just cannot stand, it’s when liberals are proven correct, and that was happening nearly every day during the peak of Covid.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. For a lot of people, a “just universe fallacy” is how they need to navigate the world for it’s the only way situations like a pandemic make sense. The idea, that anyone, anywhere, at any time, can befall tragic circumstances for no reason at all, is tantamount to an existential crisis. Instead, doubling down on the fiction that “there’s no real threat so quit reminding me that there is one” is the only way to keep it together. It was never really about the masks themselves.
Yeah, I think that’s why lots of them spent a lot of time and energy on conspiracy theory and “doing their own research” (meaning, trading tall tales with people equally clueless about critical thinking).
The notion that disease can just happen - these people also deny evolution so they struggle with this notion for sure - is anathema and threatens their world view. So of course it had to be a conspiracy - China is covering up Wuhan stuff, Fauci did it with “gain of function” research - and that’s when they acknowledge the disease at all. When not doing endless arguing over the source they’d downplay the entire thing. It was “only” the old, it was “only” those with preconditions, and we all just need to “open everything back up” and “get back to work”, and so on, even if millions have to die, because we must make the line go up.
In addition to that, they’d spend lots of time complaining about “the clot shot” and instead do nearly anything but acknowledge that the experts actually know anything and have public safety in mind. Nope, everything is a conspiracy and experts are not really experts, so preventative things like social distancing, avoiding in-person things, doing remote learning and remote work, masking up and of course, the vaccine that was a modern-day moon shot is a big plot to get conservatives or whatever.
So instead, they are resorting to bullshit medicine like HCQ and horse dewormer. Once the stupid train left the station, that’s where it was bound to end up.
I think what really, really broke their brains was the fact that they want to be able to follow and repeat narratives that Faux and Taco make up for them, and those are usually entirely unshakable. Except for something like the pandemic, combined with watching the market and job numbers go into freefall. No amount of spinning from Taco OR Bullshit Mountain was going to change that bedrock truth.
And that infuriated not only a whole lot of redcaps, it drove Taco absolutely nuts. If there is something that the conservatives just cannot stand, it’s when liberals are proven correct, and that was happening nearly every day during the peak of Covid.