"Republicans’ faith in science is falling as Democrats rely on it even more, with a trust gap in science and medicine widening substantially during the pandemic, new survey data shows. It’s the largest gap in nearly five decades of polling by the General Social Survey, a widely respected trend survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago that has been measuring confidence in institutions since 1972."
Adding - in a quote from University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd :
"We are living at a time when people would rather put urine or cleaning chemicals in their body than scientifically vetted vaccines. That is a clear convergence of fear, lack of critical thinking, confirmation bias and political tribalism.”
But that isn't the half of it, as toxic politicization widens on every front, from education, to cultural issues to governance itself. At the root of the increasing chasm - now almost approaching dangerous levels of civil division - is FOX chief Troll and propagandist Tucker Carlson - now actually suggesting (from a WaPo piece by Greg Sargent) that the U.S. must not defend Ukraine against Russian aggression in any way, shape or form, e.g.
Can this traitor (Trump) -supporting maggot be serious? Will his insanity finally break his confounding spell over his millions of brain -dead minions? Who - as Chris Hayes noted two nights ago - are all too willing to die from Covid, mostly unattended in ICUs - if it means adhering to Carlson's anti-vaccine codswallop? Can a political cult that supports such imbecility and outright proclaimed treason even be remotely trusted with power again? I am talking about the congressional power of investigation and oversight - which would arrive if voters are dumb enough to award the Reeps with midterm victories in House and Senate. (And btw, I do not subscribe to the trope that the defeat of the majority party in off -year elections is a foregone conclusion. It only becomes one if too many sit on their asses with a "meh" moron attitude and outlook!)
Let's fix ideas and focus to note that already former GA Reep Newt Gingrich was just on Maria Bartiromo's FOX show threatening to jail House Select Committee members, e.g.
As Select Committee Vice -Chair Liz Cheney pointed out in the wake of Gingrich's incendiary vow:
"A former speaker of the House is threatening jail time for members of Congress who are investigating the violent January 6th attack on our Capitol and our Constitution. This is what it looks like when the rule of law unravels."
This was after Gingrich barked the following utterly antagonistic and egregious nonsense, which btw, every Reep rat from Kevin McCarthy to Matt Gaetz can't wait to pursue - and echo - should they get power:
"The wolves are going to find out that they're now sheep and they're the ones who are in fact, I think, face a real risk of jail for the kinds of laws they're breaking."
This followed
a deranged, Nazi-style essay that would have put Josef Goebbels to shame when he tried to gaslight normal Germans about the "threat" from Jews:
"The Wolves Will Become Sheep."
The piece reads like a longer version of his riff with Bartiromo. In one
section, Gingrich writing:
"The
January 6 Select Committee is in the process of potentially bankrupting scores
of Americans who worked for or supported President Trump. They face financial
ruin defending themselves against the committee's attack. The legal costs of
fighting subpoenas and the further cost of legal counsel if put under oath by a
hostile congressional committee creates a real burden. That financial burden is
compounded by the psychological stress of being under assault by the House
Democrats -- and potentially also the FBI."
"Bankrupting scores of Americans"? The bloody traitors ought to be thankful they aren't hung! Facing financial ruin? How about busted necks for their treason? Let's further grasp that this only covers the overt attack, i.e. the rabble defecating and destroying property in the Capitol as they threatened lawmakers with bear spray and bats as well as flag poles. Meanwhile, the covert treason entailed more than a dozen Trump-backing conspirators in 7 states trying to submit falsely certified slates of electors in an effort to overturn the 2020 election in favor of Trump., e.g.
by Lindsay Beyerstein | January 15, 2022 - 8:52am | permalink
This lot also needs to be fully prosecuted, sent away for maybe 10 years each for their dastardly crime. These so-called alternate electors met Dec. 14, 2020, in seven states that Trump lost and submitted bogus slates of Electoral College votes for him, the committee said. They then sent the false Electoral College certificates to Congress, an action Trump’s allies used to try to justify delaying or blocking the final step in confirming the 2020 election results: a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, to formally count the electoral votes
As for the laws this asshole Gingrich accused the House Select Committee of breaking, what the fuck are they? Did Newt somehow forget that even the Supreme Court (by a 6-3 decision) denied an emergency request from Trump to block the House Select committee from obtaining White House records pertaining to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol? The court’s decision was a brutal, and personally stinging, loss for Trump. And the arguments his own lawyers advanced may have made the defeat worse.
The court's action cleared the way for the National Archives to deliver thousands of pages of documents to the Select Committee. If Gingrich was the least bit correct about an "abuse of power" that SC ruling never would have happened, given the Court is loaded with a 6 to 3 conservative majority! Is Newt's brain so addled he can't process that? No, he can, he simply opts to bellow bellicose bile and not so veiled threats to intimidate Committee members, or try to. All of which proves his demented Trump-tainted tribe has no business being handed the keys to power in the midterms. I mean, it would be national suicide, in the form of endless chaos, bogus investigations, bogus attempts to impeach Biden and non -stop obstruction.
Make no mistake this outrageous threat cannot be just swept under the proverbial rug. It is a shot over the bow of all decent citizens and true patriots - not the scum that soiled and savaged the Capitol- that if the Repukes gain power again they will engage in unconstitutional lawlessness, trashing governmental norms all while committing the REAL abuses of power. All this to distract the nation via chaos in what's likely to be a critical time. (The Biden DOJ will prevent any actual GOP efforts to jail House Select Committee members.) The Select Committee, indeed, had every right to investigate the savage attack on our seat of democracy. A masterful and unanimous opinion by Judge Patricia A. Millett ripped to shreds every argument Trump made. Millett wrote:
“The Committee has
sound reasons for seeking presidential documents in
particular as part of its investigation into the causes of the attack on the
Capitol. There is a direct linkage between the former
President and the events of the day. So to allow
the privilege of a no-longer-sitting President to prevail over Congress’s need
to investigate a violent attack on its home and its constitutional operations
would ‘gravely impair the basic function of the’ legislature.”
So it is pure insanity to turn Judge Millett's and the Supreme Court's ruling around and claim the investigators are the criminal renegades. This inversion essentially aborts the rule of law, much like Hitler's Reich "laws" aborted the laws governing the Weimar Republic. Neither is much different than what Trump - Barr puppet John Durham is doing with his "investigate the investigators" bollocks, e.g.
Watch Out for Bill Barr's Flunky John Durham to Fabricate a Report That Would "Absolve" Russia of 2016 Election Interference
And:
The other aspects of rejecting science are equally important given that we still face a serious pandemic of indeterminate length as well as accelerating climate change. It is absolutely a deal breaker to have a cult dedicated to diluting and misrepresenting science running this nation in terms of controlling House and Senate. That is just begging this nation to circle the sewer drain, and likely with no recovery or salvation.
Jennifer Benz, deputy director of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research had this to say about the poll:
“It’s certainly
plausible that this is a result of how politicized the pandemic became in
the months between when it emerged and when the survey ran. It is
definitely a stark change for these particular trends on confidence in
scientific leaders and leaders in medicine, to see this degree of
polarization.”
According to Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication:
“We’ve seen so much
criticism (and worse) leveled at medical experts since the beginning of the
pandemic from the former president, other Republican leaders and the
conservative media, and just the opposite from the current president,
Democratic leaders and the mainstream and liberal media,”
Let's cut to the chase and acknowledge a majority of this medical (vaccine) disinformation has emanated from the sewers of FOX News and specifically Tucker Carlson. As Chris Hayes has noted, Carlson has almost single-handedly been responsible for more Covid deaths (of the unvaccinated) than even Rupert Murdoch can count, e.g.
How is it that a jacked up hybrid cockroach - termite like Tucker Carlson could garner such enormous sway and enough to drive thousands into killing themselves from a deadly virus? (By putting a faux personal liberty over their own protection and that of others near and dear to them.) William Davies, a political economist at the University of London and the author of 'Nervous States:Democracy and the Decline of Reason', notes that(p. 22), the far Right - not only in the U.S. is using disinformation as well as "anger, intimidation and lies to destabilize institutions without constructing alternatives."
He also observed that the likes of Steve Bannon and Milo Yiannapoulos were "reframing public debates along the lines of war to intimidate and marginalize opponents".
This is part of what Tucker Carlson is doing as well as trolling the libs. This is what gets the base off and revs them up, though it's hard to see how Carlson's latest defense of Russia vs. Ukraine would appeal to any base. Abject traitor garbage, sure. But patriotic citizens - meaning true red, white and blue - who rightly despise how the Russkies helped Trump get shoehorned into power in 2016? ? Hardly! Speaking of Trump, he has since vowed to pardon all the January 6th traitors. Yet another reason never to put this treason0us scum back in power again!
See Also:
The midterms could be a bloodbath for Democrats
And:
by John Stoehr | January 28, 2022 - 8:35am | permalink
And:
by Amanda Marcotte | January 26, 2022 - 7:34am | permalink
And:
by Thom Hartmann | January 26, 2022 - 7:22am | permalink
And:
by Henry Giroux | January 28, 2022 - 7:24am | permalink
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