1/ Crediting the China 'travel ban' for saving lots of lives is absurd. First, by the time it was imposed 300k had come from China after the virus was spreading; Second, it was already here in places like NY bc of travel from Europe, which wasn't banned til weeks later-
2/ Third, Even then, it wasn't really a ban, as US citizens were coming back in, largely unscreened, from both places, meaning more spread; Fourth, at most virologists say it bought 2-4 weeks of slower spread during which we failed then to ramp up testing and containment...
3/ Which means, fifth, that whatever benefits could have derived from the restrictions were squandered. In large part this is bc Trump only cared about the optics and politics of the travel crackdown itself. It seemed "tough" and anti-foreign people, and anti-"globalist"...
4/ Which is what his base loves more than anything. It allowed him to play to his political strength while ignoring everything else, none of which matters to him because it doesn't matter to the mouth breathing morons now protesting outside state capitols....
5/ Trump and his cult don't care about containing viruses. They don't even understand how viruses work, nor care about science. They just like containing people: specifically foreign people, who they can blame for the problem (especially if they're not white)...
6/ Or "city folk" whom they blame and for whom they advocate containment, even as they demand the right to go get their haircut or go get seeds for their garden or whatever utter triviality they think takes precedence over public health...it's all about blaming the "other."
7/ That's why all the stupid conspiracy theories: blame Chinese bioweapons, blame Fauci & the deep state, blame Bill Gates and a vaccine conspiracy...all bc Trump's hardcore base is uneducated, scared by what they don't understand, thus, willing to accede to scapegoating...
8/ And no, I don't care that you think it's unkind to call them ignorant, or that you think we should be reaching out to people like that bc they're hurting & you think they're potential economic progressives. Bullshit. They don't oppose elites in the way we think of that term...
9/ To them, elites are people who believe in science, people who went to college, people who trust doctors and other experts...bc they feel these people "talk down to them"...their self image is more important than life itself to them...they are unreachable...
10/ Stop trying. Stop trying to save them. Save yourself. Save the country. Save the planet...FROM people like this, and their superstitions, and their conspiratorial nonsense, and their reverence for dear leader, and their bigotries. They are the adversary. Act like it.
