In Congress, there seems to be a general consensus that the country needs to take extreme measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus. They’re arguing over the response to the economic fallout, but few elected Republicans are criticizing the public health response. Elected officials in the states have a much more varied response. And conservatives on cable news and social media are a whole different story.
In North Carolina, Republican Lieutenant Governor and GOP Gubernatorial nominee Dan Forest tried to score political points by criticizing Governor Roy Cooper’s decision to close bars and restaurants but got so much blow back, he’s been supportive Cooper’s subsequent orders to close other businesses. In Texas, the lieutenant governor said that people, especially older ones, should be willing to die to keep the economy alive. He inspired a GOP death cult response.
Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck says “he would rather die than kill the country.” He really means tank the stock market. Beck is joined by right-wing talk show host Jesse Kelly who tweeted, “If given the choice between dying and plunging the country I love into a Great Depression, I’d happily die.” Over at the Daily Wire, they’re taking a cost benefit approach. Matt Walsh says that we should accept “way over 35,000” to “preserve our economy.” These are people who will throw a fit about raising taxes but willingly sacrifice the lives Americans to keep the stock market hopping.
Now, conservatives are pushing back on the social distancing strategy because one of the authors of the report that got Trump to take the virus seriously now says only 20,000 or so Brits will die because the government is now following his mitigation advice. They’re saying he dramatically overestimated the number of people who will die. But that’s not what Neil Ferguson said. He said without the radical measures taken, 500,000 would die in Great Britain. Experts extrapolated that to about 2.2 million Americans. The precautions, not errors or misinformation, changed the trajectory. But these are conservatives. Don’t let facts get in the way.
Closer to home, conservatives on twitter are up in arms about the city of Raleigh crushing their civil rights by issuing stay-at-home orders. One twitter warrior tweeted, “Not an exaggeration to say that these are among the most restrictive regulations on the freedom of movement to ever be issued in the history of the American republic.” Clearly, we’ve failed at teaching history. Another said, “This is the kind of outrageous big government, that scares me more than the damn virus.”
For perspective, similar orders were used to control the last pandemic in 1918. Besides, as far as I can tell, the orders have no teeth. There’s no enforcement clause. There’s no penalty. A hundred years ago, people adapted and they didn’t even have the Twitters or Netflix.
Conservatives are bucking against science and government. That’s no real surprise. One group wants to take a Pickett’s Charge approach to the virus. Let’s run headlong into it and hope that enough survive to keep the economy chugging along. Others are more concerned about government asking them to stay indoors than they are about the health and mortality of their parents and grandparents. Both groups are willing to die for their conservative ideals. That would be quite noble if they didn’t want to take so many of the rest of us with them.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
This is a classic clash between collectivist and individualist values. Right now, collectivist values prevail. Eventually, the individualist spirit inherent in American life and traditions will overcome the current fear and panic.
It’s a false choice to say that either our economy crashes or North Carolinians can be healthy by practicing social distancing and other measures to defend against the coronavirus. It is classic Republican thinking: either we allow business to operate without regulations or we are a socialist country. Either we invade Iraq or the terrorist armies will invade the country; either we put children in cages or our country will be overrun by illegal aliens.
The present health crisis was not the fault of Republican policies. No one could predict that the slaughter of a bat in Wuhan, China, would result in a worldwide pandemic that would cause so much death and economic destruction. But the failure to formulate a reasonable response is uniquely the fault of Donald Trump. A few weeks ago, as the virus was gaining strength, he dismissed it as a “hoax” and “fake news.” His failure of leadership continues today as he fails to deal with the facts on the ground. A federal response, begun in January or February, would have saved thousands of lives.
It is a silly, preposterous response to suggest that the elderly should throw themselves off some cliff to preserve a lofty Dow Jones Industrial Average. The business interests of this country will recover. They always recover. A massive extinction of our elderly would not prevent bear markets. Republicans like to claim that they are better at business than others. Instead of ridding the country of old people, Republicans might have better luck if they formed a drum circle and beat tom toms until the Dow Jones rises again.