Trump lost the election -- but his legacy of coronavirus denialism is here to stay

[marmar]

Trump lost the election — but his legacy of coronavirus denialism is here to stay
Refusing to wear masks or maintain social distance is part of a larger right-wing assault on the common good

By AMANDA MARCOTTE
DECEMBER 7, 2020 6:00PM


(Salon) Donald Trump encouraged coronavirus denialism for months for one simple reason: He thought it would help him win re-election. Ever the believer that appearances matter more than reality, Trump felt that as long as people acted like there was no pandemic — by refusing wearing masks and continuing to crowd into public places, especially his rallies — that was as good as there being no pandemic. The mounting death toll and hurricane-like effects on our health care system didn't matter to him, as long as he could pretend everything was doing well and take credit for it.

That was why I held out hope, in the days after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election, that Republicans would finally drop the act and start taking the pandemic seriously. After all, as Heather Digby Parton argued Monday morning at Salon, conservatives have a remarkable ability to discard their current enthusiasms the second they lose political value, and pretend that particular lunacy never happened. (You'd never know from its current behavior how gung-ho the American right was for the Iraq war 15 years ago.) It seemed entirely possible that in the face of rising case counts and Trump's defeat, the right would suddenly embrace public health measures and begin casually acting as if coronavirus denialism was never really a thing.

Unfortunately for the health of the nation, the opposite has happened. If anything, coronavirus denialism is as powerful a force as it was a month ago, when the media finally called the election for Biden.

On Saturday, Trump attended a rally in south Georgia, supposedly to support the Senate campaigns of Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. In practice, it was just another opportunity for Trump to whine at length about how he supposedly "won" Georgia (which he didn't) and how Republican state officials had conspiring to steal the election away from him (blatantly false, and also preposterous). The crowd ate these lies up, chanting "fight for Trump!" when Perdue and Loeffler bothered to peek their heads out at what was supposed to be their rally. ............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2020/12/07/trump-lost-the-election-but-his-legacy-of-coronavirus-denialism-is-here-to-stay/

[Blue Owl]

1. That will be demented Diarrhea Donny's lasting legacy

President of the Year 2020