Actually, Sen. Johnson, being consistently and dangerously misleading is not courageous

[Nevilledog]

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Philip Bump
@pbump
The subtext to the Johnson-Berenson thing is the way in which social media stokes these in-groups where knee-jerk contrarianism is heralded as brave and a celebration of core American values.

Analysis | Actually, Sen. Johnson, being consistently and dangerously misleading is not courageous
The toxic online reward system that casts misleading contrarianism as heroic individualism.
washingtonpost.com
8:27 AM · Aug 2, 2021

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/02/actually-sen-johnson-being-consistently-dangerously-misleading-is-not-courageous/

The former New York Times reporter — as he is invariably described when appearing on Fox News — is advertising that book in his Twitter feed, encouraging his 311,000 followers to preorder. It’s called “Pandemia” and is unsubtly subtitled, “How Coronavirus Hysteria Took Over Our Government, Rights, and Lives.” It promises to be precisely what Berenson’s followers on social media and fans from his frequent Fox appearances will expect: an excoriation of the official narrative of the coronavirus pandemic.

Berenson is by now a professional contrarian. Most of his prior books are spy thrillers, a genre that overlaps nicely with his current insistence that the government is conspiring to impose unjustified burdens on the public for unclear reasons. Before the pandemic, he published a book centered on the purported dangers of marijuana consumption — a book that earned grim reviews and condemnation from experts for its rampant alarmism and cherry-picking. So it was natural that, when the pandemic emerged, Berenson would stake out his current position.

In April, the Atlantic reviewed Berenson’s positions on the pandemic and the coronavirus vaccines finding that he was broadly and unapologetically incorrect. “In a crowded field of wrongness,” the article’s subhead read, “one person stands out: Alex Berenson.”

But Berenson was hardly cowed by either the label or the debunking. Instead, amplified by people like Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, he’s continued to insist that the coronavirus vaccines don’t work as advertised (despite the evidence that they do) and that the best way to combat the virus is simply to become infected by it — which 1) introduces a risk of death, 2) introduces a risk of long-term effects and 3) probably offers immunity to the virus for a shorter period of time than the vaccines. He has repeatedly misrepresented medical studies and has been a leading proponent of amplifying unverified claims from a public database of vaccine side effects as evidence of dangers.

*snip*

[DFW]

1. Actually, when I read all the nonsense Johnson is spouting

I find his asking anyone in the country to take him seriously very courageous. That takes some kind of cojones.

I would never be able to do that with a straight face.