California, target of Republican Culture War bashing
In the Republicans’ 24/7 Culture War seen and heard on Fox “News’ and other right wing media, one of their oft-repeated narratives is “California is Bad.” Maybe that is because California has long been on the forefront of many types of change, including cultural and social mores, media influence, political advancement, and business and technological innovation, all of which are antithetical to conservatism. Or maybe it’s because California is a solidly blue state containing more than one-fifth of the electoral votes needed to win the presidency, and has consistently given those electoral votes to the Democrats since 1992, as well as having Democrats in all statewide offices in recent years.
Not surprisingly, therefore, we are now seeing the Republicans run their “California Bad” narrative regarding the COVID pandemic. In particular, there are stories citing negative Republican reaction to California’s recent three-week Regional Stay at Home Order from the California Department of Public Health. The Order prohibits gatherings between different households, requires residents to work from home unless conducting “critical” activities (a long list including healthcare, food service, financial services, transportation, etc.), limits retail store capacity to 20 percent, and contains other restrictions. The reason for California’s Stay at Home Order was that, due to the nationwide explosion of Coronavirus cases that has also affected California, hospital ICU bed availability has fallen below the 15 percent threshold previously deemed an acceptable minimum. Some Republicans even call the California COVID order “Gestapo tactics.” Likewise, South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Monday, claiming that South Dakota is doing better than Illinois, New York and New Jersey in terms of COVID cases. We say that California and other (mostly blue) state governments are acting out of necessity because too many people have behaved carelessly on their own, and Donald Trump has been asleep at the switch.
Indeed, reckless Republican behavior on COVID can be traced right to the top. Back in February, Trump called the Coronavirus a “hoax” by Democrats, and he then downplayed its severity for many months as the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths kept mounting. Trump even held, and keeps holding, White House “super spreader” events where most attendees did and do not wear masks. It has become a badge of honor, or some kind of toxic masculity test, for Republicans to mock mask-wearing, gather in large groups, and ignore the severity of the Coronavirus. And what are the results? Trump, his wife Melania and their son Barron all contracted COVID, as did many members of the White House inner circle and staff, members of Congress (more than 70 percent of them Republican) and their staffers, as well as Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani and his associate Jenna Ellis.
Sadly but not surprisingly, many Republican politicians and voters also followed Trump’s reckless example. For example, they have continued to gather in large groups, without masks, at political events, weddings, church services and other venues, which predictably become super spreader events. One such place, lo and behold, is South Dakota, which held its annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally for 10 days in August, packing some 460,000 attendees together, despite the COVID pandemic. The Sturgis rally, where most attendees eschewed masks, did not distance and ignored other basic precautions, became the ultimate super spreader event, causing many hundreds of thousands of COVID cases in neighboring states and beyond, as the participants passed the virus to each other and then brought it home. Indeed, when taking population into account, South Dakota is number four in highest average COVID cases for the past week. Other red states such as Indiana, Utah, Nebraska and Wyoming are numbers two, three, seven and eight, respectively. In contrast, Illinois, New York (minus New York City), California and New Jersey, all blue states bashed by Republicans, are numbers 18, 34, 35 and 36, respectively. New York City is number 44. In other words, the Republican cultural bashing of California, New York and these other blue states has no basis when it comes to COVID, and the Republican/Libertarian idea that we should just let individuals decide how to behave during a global pandemic is increasingly deadly.
Civilized societies have long made many laws and rules, now including speed limits, seat belt laws, and prohibitions on murder, assault, theft, arson and vandalism, precisely because individuals cannot be relied upon to do the right thing, either due to carelessness, malicious intent or otherwise. Ironically, Republicans claim to be for “law and order,” although it turns out that’s usually applied only when black people are peacefully protesting injustice. If we have learned anything in 2020, it is that too many individuals are not taking proper precautions against COVID. When that happens, government must step in and act.
Photo by Anna Fox, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/ddcDHW
