Monday Reading

 

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ ip eds.

Steve M at No More Mister Nice Blog writes about what Democrats' focus should be on in the coming months and year:

We need to remind Americans that we can't raise the minimum wage, fight climate change, pass sensible gun laws, increase taxes on the super-rich, or protect reproductive freedom because a solid bloc of Republicans won't allow us to. We need to hammer home the fact that Republicans back or at least tolerate COVID denialism and vaccine skepticism, that they want to restrict voting rights and probably overturn the results of future elections, that they want to scapegoat trans youth everywhere in America, that they believe it's okay to run over peaceful protesters in your car, that they want to return to the days of the Wall and family separations at the border.

Trump could go to prison tomorrow and all this would still be true. It's all true even though January 6 rioters are in prison and up on charges now.

Accountability is fine, but it won't save us. Talking about the ongoing threat posed by ordinary Republicanism might.

Pummeling a radical, anti- democracy party to run against, as well as touting your popular achievements, would be a powerful 1-2 punch.

Virginia Heffernan writes about the demise of the LowIQAnon cult:

QAnon’s demise, in fact, is well underway. Its leader, Q, a figure from the internet’s dark side, is now widely suspected to be the creation of Jim and Ron Watkins. The Watkins men are a seedy father-son duo in Asia who serve up pornography and hate speech online.

If the Watkins hypothesis is true, it means that Q is not exactly the patriotic, principled avenger crusading against sex trafficking that his followers have put their faith in.

Q has also been silent for seven months. The cryptic things Q used to post, tone poems that served as Rorschach tests for his followers’ projections, have stopped appearing. They no longer headline the rave at 8kun, the horrifying online image board, administered by Ron Watkins, where they first appeared.

We have full confidence it will be replaced by other equally demented ones.

Dr. Peter J. Hotez, of Baylor University, writes about "America's deadly flirtation with anti- science and the medical freedom movement" throughout its history, concluding that today COVID anti- vax, anti- science must be countered more forcefully:

Medical and health freedom and its antiscience tenets represent grave threats to American public health in this new century. We must urgently seek broad and innovative solutions that tap guidance and expertise in multiple areas. For example, we might consider a federal interagency task force across several branches of the US government in order to identify new levers for countering antiscience groups (1). These might extend beyond the standard approaches focused on amplifying provaccination advocacy, instead driving harder to remove nefarious antiscience internet content and other forms of harmful communication. We cannot afford a status quo now thwarting desperate efforts to save lives or reduce COVID-19 long-haul injuries.

The US was the deadliest location worldwide for the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, and in 2021, we will hold our breath as the new variants emerge and potentially sweep through the country. The high death toll from SARS-2 coronavirus transmission was exacerbated by a medical freedom ideology linked to political extremism. It is vital to US public health and homeland security that we find ways to defuse antiscience organizations, messaging, and health consequences.

The highly contagious Delta (India) variant is already here.  Our vaccines are effective against it. Get vaccinated, dammit. 

On a related, but more amusing note, Dana Milbank tells us how the "magnetized" COVID vaccine turned him into a Republican:

It took some getting used to, but I’ve begun to enjoy my newly magnetic personality. In fact, I’ve tried to maximize my magnetism by getting a third vaccine dose, and a fourth — Pfizer, Moderna and J&J. Now I no longer have to pay Metro fares; I simply run toward a moving train and peel myself off its side when I get to my stop. Whenever I go to the beach, the tide comes in as soon as I arrive.

[Anti- vax conspiracy nut Sherri] Tenpenny and her ilk also say the vaccine alters our DNA. Those fun-sponges at the CDC say “the vaccines cannot affect or interact with our DNA in any way.” But I’m not so sure. Since taking the vaccine, I’ve stopped believing in anything resembling science in favor of stuff I read on social media. I’ve become totally immune to what “experts” call “facts.” And I have a feeling that my magnetic powers have become so great that the whole universe revolves around me.

See? The vaccine did change my DNA: It turned me into a Trump Republican.

Finally, please head over to Infidel 753's link round- up for a comprehensive array of links to interesting and varied topics from around the Internet.  You'll find something to pique your curiosity, guaranteed (by us, not Infidel!).