Thread by @AlexandraErin

I regret to report that a little Twitter scouting reveals that Trump's base is pretty heavily buying into the "it's a hoax, Democrats and MSM are spreading panic to tank the market and hurt Trump" narrative.

(Note: I will block anyone who replies "Good, let them catch it!")

My suspicion is that as the virus breaks out into the open in more places, rather than recognizing they were manipulated by a false narrative, they will simply go deeper into the narrative, at first clinging stubbornly to denial (crisis actors, etc.) and then escalating.

The fringiest fringes are already spreading the idea that the virus is a man-made bioweapon. I expect to see that notion gaining more and more currency among Trump's base, along with the idea that Democrats and Deep State and "globalists" are spreading it directly.

There are a lot of Blue Check conservatives spreading the talking points on this one.

My best guess -- not a prediction but a guess -- is that by this time next week, the current story will be unsustainable.

There's something in particular I'm watching for in the narrative shift, and it's that rather than accepting their responsibility for having not listened, they will blame the people who tried to warn them.

As in, "We could have taken this seriously if the liberal MSM and Democrats hadn't been screaming about how bad it was. If they hadn't been so obviously seizing on it for political advantage, we would have seen the truth."

Also known as, "You should have told me in a way that made me believe."

The most perfect example of this I can think of is when President Obama vetoed the bill intended to let US citizens sue the Saudi government for involvement in 9/11. The president warned Congress that it opened the doors to a precedent that could hurt the US government more.

He vetoed it, and Congress went back and passed it with the necessary supermajorities to override his veto, and then as conservative legal experts looked at it and told them exactly what the White House had warned them of, GOP leaders blamed... President Obama.

They blamed him for not having warned them about the danger of passing a bill he VETOED. They said that if he hadn't been such a dang obstructionist they might have noticed the problems with the bill.

So at the point where conservatives even solidly outside the GOP's official power structure and solidly inside the Trumposphere abandon the "Democrats are making things up" tack, I expect it to be "Democrats deliberately distracted us from how bad things were".

Probably phrased along the lines of "We could have done something about this weeks ago but Democrats were busy playing politics!"

...I see the head tweet in this thread is starting to "do numbers" as they say, so let me explain my parenthetical to the brand new people who will ask "Why should I care if they die? They don't care if I do."

Viruses don't care who you are. If they get sick, we get sick.

I'm not demanding you share equal concern for all your fellow human beings. I'm not in charge of that. I mean, I'm not in charge of you, period. But I'm not interested in watching or facilitating anyone cheerleading for an outbreak.