Editorial right purchased from iStock. Illustration by Tetiana Lazunova
The far-Right in Canada has joined the far-Right in the U.S. I’m all for uniting, but it’s a bit disappointing when the ones coming together are the dumbest people in both countries. So far, all they have demonstrated is their inability to behave rationally under less-than-ideal circumstances.
I was hoping to escape to Canada if things continued to get worse here, but it looks like there is no safe haven there now that our Northern neighbors have been sucked into the irrational right-wing political vortex.
There is an old saying: “Adversity builds character.” This is not true. Adversity doesn’t build character — it reveals it.
No better example of this truth can be found than the reactions of the far-Right to COVID and the measures the government has taken, in both Canada and the United States, in response to it.
Truckers protesting government restrictions in Canada have chosen to focus their ire on Ottawa, where their expressions of frustration are making things significantly worse for everybody.
“In Ottawa, the occupation has paralyzed the core and political center of Canada’s capital, pushing residents to sleepless fury and anxiety, and causing many businesses to shutter, losing tens of millions of dollars.”
COVID lockdowns are a big problem for these people — it’s hard on the economy. Their answer to this problem? Block roads and prevent businesses from functioning at all. Canadians are tired of COVID. Their answer to this issue? Protest the vaccines — the one thing that could stop the virus.
The level of ignorance on display here is astounding. I’ve concluded these people are not just uneducated — they are assholes. Their choice to make things worse for all of us is not just stupid, it’s abusive. These aren’t people looking to solve problems, they are just people who don’t know how to manage anger.
We’re all sick of COVID, but despite cries of “I am so done with COVID” the fact is COVID is not done with us. The supply chain issues created by the virus are not fully resolved. This has created a level of inflation we haven’t seen in years. However, the culprit isn’t the government, it’s the virus. Instead of solving the real problem, right-wing nutjobs have decided to protest the only source of virus control we have: the government.
The government is providing vaccines — the only known solution to this problem — but the protesters don’t want to get the vaccine. I can’t help but wonder what would happen if they were drowning, and I offered them a lifeboat. They would probably turn it down because they don’t like my liberal politics. If they didn’t know me, they’d likely ask about my politics before agreeing to enter the lifeboat. And if another right-wing nutjob offered them a raft, they wouldn’t be able to climb aboard it either because freedom is more important to them than life. I am sure they would prefer to drown rather than spend a few hours, days, or weeks in a lifeboat because they wouldn’t be free to do whatever they wanted while they remained afloat.
The vaccine is the lifeboat — these people prefer to drown.
I’m okay with that. It’s sort of like the Darwin Awards — if they want to die, who am I to stand in their way? The thing is, they aren’t drowning alone — they are taking the rest of us with them.
It’s bad enough that they can’t cope with the ever-changing data scientists are gradually accumulating in their efforts to understand the virus. What’s really problematic is their need to blame someone for the reality they don’t like.
They can’t wrap their heads around the scientific fact that viruses mutate, and the threat level can change based on these mutations. They just know they don’t like the news, so they frantically search for someone to scapegoat for their increasing frustrations. They are like children throwing tantrums because mommy is making them eat their broccoli.
In addition to their resistance to scientific fact, they are confused about the economy. In an article by Zachary D. Carter, for The Atlantic, Carter points out the stark contrast between our current economic recovery from COVID and the decade it took to recover from the economic crisis of 2008.
“Compared with the federal government’s response to the 2008 financial crisis, the recovery from the COVID-19 crash has been an extraordinary success. It took more than a decade after the onset of the previous recession for the unemployment rate to fall back to 4 percent, the level where it stands today.”
Let’s also not forget that in 2008 the entire crisis was man-made — the result of greed, poorly managed and unregulated financial practices, and a complete failure of appropriate government oversight. In other words, the sanctioned practices of a right-wing administration focused on making money for the already wealthy, at the expense of everyone else.
According to Carter, the problem isn’t how Biden is running the country, it’s how Democrats are talking about it. This does present a conundrum. While facts clearly show the economy is rebounding in spectacular fashion, the one thing we can’t control, without resolving the COVID-created supply chain issues, is inflation.
If Democrats try to explain this to the irrational Republican base, they won’t get it. They don’t want to get it. They want someone to blame. Hence, the Biden administration’s messaging dilemma.
Case in point: The day before the recent jobs figures were announced, Fox hosts were gleefully predicting disaster.
According to a tweet by Craig Harrington (@Craigpedia), “Up until just *seconds* before the release of the January jobs report, Fox News was giddy with anticipation of massive job loss…” Harrington includes the video of the Fox broadcast in his tweet, which pretty much says it all.
The truth is not inflammatory enough for Fox — sometimes we have to be willing to read to find it. Again, from Zachary D. Carter’s piece in The Atlantic:
“We are living through the best labor market in 50 years. The U.S. economy created 467,000 jobs in January, more than triple the 125,000 that economists had anticipated. According to the most recent data, the economy created 700,000 more jobs at the end of last year than previously believed. Workers are leaving their jobs for greener pastures at record levels, organized labor is enjoying a resurgence of worker power unseen in a generation, and pay for low-wage workers is up even after adjusting for inflation.” (Emphasis, mine)
The less people understand, the more likely they are to suffer unnecessarily. This is because failure to reconcile reality with our concept of it creates cognitive dissonance. The right-wing crazies who won’t get vaccines and insist on blaming Biden for a “bad economy” when it’s actually pretty good are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy — they just aren’t smart enough to know it.