Thread by @DrewHolden360

A lot of people have suggested that the insane Covid focus on Florida is an attempt to kneecap DeSantis in 2024.

But I think it’s more a visceral response to the idea that governors who didn’t *appear* to care as much could’ve succeeded.

It doesn’t compute for many. Quick 🧵

Part of this, I think, is just a natural human response to a crisis: we want people who act like they’re doing everything to keep us safe. That’s why Cuomo’s pressers were such a hit: it was the reassurance, purportedly, that someone really cares.

Plus for lots of people there’s surely some mental requirement to justify their own behavior and suffering: the reason I’ve been inside is because I will help end this thing, so if other people aren’t doing what I am, they don’t care. That it isn’t actually that neat is bypassed.

And there’s a certain logical explanation: if we do less, the virus will spread less. We just never really accounted for what we could still safely do, like go to the beach.

And a lot of folks haven’t adjusted their calculation now that death and hospitalization rates are way down and the vaccine is rolling out.

But I think a big part of what’s driving the real rage is that the pandemic has turned so many of us into deranged scolds. It’s less about what people are doing vis-a-vis covid and more simple anger that anyone could be having anything close to fun right now.

It’s sacrifice for sacrifice’s sake. And lots of people seem to be taking near-religious personal satisfaction from their own suffering.

So the idea that, well, a lot of that might’ve been pointless (if not far worse) isn’t something people can stomach.

Florida becomes the most convenient alternative. Everything they did *should’ve* led to problems, according to a certain set of experts. And it would’ve been evidence that they simply didn’t care who died.

The first part didn’t happen & no one changed the logic of the second.

But the facts tell a totally different story. Deaths in FL are in the bottom half of all states. Their death rates are still about 100 people per 100k lower than places like NY and NJ. Despite a huge elderly population.

And they did it with kids staying in schools and local economies not getting bulldozed. It should be the most heralded policy success of the last year in the US.

And instead, they still, somehow, earn people’s ire.

https://twitter.com/stephenking/status/1372312015092473861

And of course so much of the current thinking is just a continuation of the bad expectations set about Florida. If you’ve forgotten, well, check it out:

https://twitter.com/DrewHolden360/status/1344439480720252928

But at this rate, it’s just enormously dishonest. People on the left and in the media (but I repeat myself) need to come to grips with the fact that a Republican Governor they don’t like handled Covid better than anyone else.