1. On The Media scaring Southern Republicans from getting vaccinated: I follow a number of mainstream sources and the only overall message that I've seen is that folks need to get vaccinated. That's presently The Message. Now, with the advent of the Delta variant, I am seeing some stories about how certain vaccines may or may not be as effective against the mutation, but the overwhelming takeaway has been to Get The Shot. You may still get infected, but you won't go to the hospital. Among my right-wing friends that I follow, the folks casting the shade on the vaccine are members of the right-wing media who use vax-skepticism to drive engagement dollars and fools in Congress like Chip Roy and Rand Paul who are trying to turn this common-sense public health measure into an issue that they can fundraise off of[1]:
"U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, a San Antonio Republican, on Wednesday directed a tweet at Biden with a play on the 'Come and Take It' flag that shows an image of a syringe with the words 'Come Inject It.' In a separate tweet, the congressman said he thought a door-to-door push would be unconstitutional, as such an approach was 'only really contemplated in Constitution for the census.'"
2. On the issue of Republicans refusing to get vaccinated, it's a stretch casting this as a problem with bad elites as opposed to the hardheaded grassroots. The answer to this isn't to complain about Bad Elites, the answer is to tell folks in those areas to use their own common-sense, look around at what COVID's doing to their communities, and decide what to do as individuals. The problem that the Internet introduces is that there are so many different "elites" that someone can make up their own minds about a topic, and find an "elite" to cite that backs up the preconceptions that they started with. If self-preservation or responsibility to their communities are not sufficiently strong motivators to get the shot, no amount of "Good Elites" will change their minds either.
3. On the CRT/racism stuff, maybe it's just me, but it seems like we're on the downhill slope of this particular fracas, where pragmatic folks are pushing back on it where it's an actual issue. The proponents of CRT are finding less sympathetic listeners in the middle and beginning to eat each other, while folks on the anti-CRT side are ginning up more controversy to use it as a political tool in an era where the GOP gave up all the sticks they traditionally would use to criticize the Biden administration during the Trump tenure.[2] I could be wrong here, but the CRT panic is feeling like it's cresting, not unlike what happened during the Satanic panic of the '80s.
The key indicator to watch is to what extent minority communities support or ignore CRT. With the election of Eric Adams as likely NYC mayor, and crime emerging as an issue attacking the Democratic flank (largely from minority communities[3]), it seems CRT had its moment in the sun and is now receding back to legal and activist circles.
--
At the end of the day, if you feel like it's the "elites" that are the problem, don't contribute to the problem by giving them attention - the only thing that makes them "elite" in the first place. (If an elite fell in the forest and nobody cared, would they still be elite?) Find better people to promote as "elites" and the problem will largely solve itself. On the race issue, I promote the "elites" who are actually saying something useful (e.g. Carol Anderson) over the grifters who are in it for personal promotion or speaking gigs (e.g. Kendi & DiAngelo). Attention is a scarce resource - every time that I promote Anderson over Kendi and DiAngelo, it's depriving the latter duo of attention and mindshare that they need to sustain their grift. Complaining about the latter duo won't do a lot of good, so as the Chinese like to say, "It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness." Especially when it comes to elites.
Fair enough. But the media is engaging in rampant prescriptionism (as Kevin Williamson would say). They say get the shot but do little to ease fears and also publish stories about vaccinated people getting sick, and they hammer Republicans who are reluctant versus trying to convince. In many cases it’s the people who are reluctant who need convincing but the media holds them in contempt. So these people turn to voices who fulfill their conspiracy wishes.
I guess we read articles very differently. Here's one example from CNN[1]:
"Five undervaccinated clusters put the entire United States at risk"
"A new data analysis identifies clusters of unvaccinated people, most of them in the southern United States, that are vulnerable to surges in Covid-19 cases and could become breeding grounds for even more deadly Covid-19 variants."
"The analysis by researchers at Georgetown University identified 30 clusters of counties with low vaccination rates and significant population sizes. The five most significant of those clusters are sprawled across large swaths of the southeastern United States and a smaller portion in the Midwest."
"The five clusters are largely in parts of eight states, starting in the east in Georgia and stretching west to Texas and north to southern Missouri. The clusters also include parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee, and are made up of mostly smaller counties but also cities such as Montgomery, Alabama; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Amarillo, Texas."
"Most of these states are currently seeing increases in Covid-19 cases."
I would imagine that CNN's up there on your list of media outlets behaving poorly on this front, but I'm curious what you would identify as issues in the article above, and how you'd rewrite it. I'm also curious whether your issue is with the straight news reporting (like the article above) or the various opinion pieces that news organizations publish in lieu of paying real reporters in the field. (Which might be the largest problem in our media ecosystem.)
I'm not doing this to troll - I'm genuinely curious how the two of us arrive at such different readings of these things. Perhaps if you could point out what I'm not seeing, I'd be able to see where you're coming from a lot quickly. Alternatively, if you could point out what's missing that you would include, that would be helpful too.
When white southerners don't get vaxxed they are kooks and cray cray. When blacks and Latino's don't get vaxxed they are victims of white oppression. That's what I'm told anyway.
I'll go out on a limb here and wager that most White Southerners are vaccinated on the normal schedule, and those avoiding the COVID vaccine are doing so due to misinformation and contradictory stances ("Everyone should thank Trump for the vaccine!" followed by "I'm not getting the vaccine because I don't trust it!").
Let's all calm down. There are several reasons Black individuals have a higher COVID-19 mortality rate. Some of it is genetics, some of it is health and lifestyle (weight, diabetes, blood pressure, which are all factors). But there's no "all explaining" reason because there are white people with the same risk factors. It's a game of statistics and demographics, and when you measure anything by skin color it's dangerous to draw conclusions. There are other reasons Blacks have a higher mortality from COVID-19 too. I wouldn't say "distrustful of government doctors" is one of the major causes. Plenty of white earthy-crunchy anti-vaxxers die of COVID-19.
The interesting thing about some of these "elites", especially those that are elected officials, is that like anyone else, they generally operate with electoral longevity in mind. For the "elites" that aren't elected officials, their motivation is relevance. While of course it is disappointing, members of Congress who voted to reject certifying the slate of electors or push vaccine skepticism/anti-vax hysteria, are doing so because that reflects the thinking of large swaths of the GOP base. My belief is that many of these "elites" know that election and Covid trutherism is a bunch of baloney. But they indulge their constituents for the interests of electoral longevity. That is the kind of incentives that exist in a representative democracy. Don't get me wrong, I don't excuse what they are doing, but I believe a lot of the fault also lies with rank and file constituents who allow themselves to be played like a Stradivarius. While I'll concede that some among the bases of the hard progressive left and the Trump right are gullible to the core, most of the them are hardened in their beliefs(rightly or wrongly), and tend to seek out sources on the internet that confirm their biases. I think that where gullibility has its impact comes to the credibility of the sources they seek on the internet that gives them the confirmation bias they seek.
A couple bits of push back:
1. On The Media scaring Southern Republicans from getting vaccinated: I follow a number of mainstream sources and the only overall message that I've seen is that folks need to get vaccinated. That's presently The Message. Now, with the advent of the Delta variant, I am seeing some stories about how certain vaccines may or may not be as effective against the mutation, but the overwhelming takeaway has been to Get The Shot. You may still get infected, but you won't go to the hospital. Among my right-wing friends that I follow, the folks casting the shade on the vaccine are members of the right-wing media who use vax-skepticism to drive engagement dollars and fools in Congress like Chip Roy and Rand Paul who are trying to turn this common-sense public health measure into an issue that they can fundraise off of[1]:
"U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, a San Antonio Republican, on Wednesday directed a tweet at Biden with a play on the 'Come and Take It' flag that shows an image of a syringe with the words 'Come Inject It.' In a separate tweet, the congressman said he thought a door-to-door push would be unconstitutional, as such an approach was 'only really contemplated in Constitution for the census.'"
2. On the issue of Republicans refusing to get vaccinated, it's a stretch casting this as a problem with bad elites as opposed to the hardheaded grassroots. The answer to this isn't to complain about Bad Elites, the answer is to tell folks in those areas to use their own common-sense, look around at what COVID's doing to their communities, and decide what to do as individuals. The problem that the Internet introduces is that there are so many different "elites" that someone can make up their own minds about a topic, and find an "elite" to cite that backs up the preconceptions that they started with. If self-preservation or responsibility to their communities are not sufficiently strong motivators to get the shot, no amount of "Good Elites" will change their minds either.
3. On the CRT/racism stuff, maybe it's just me, but it seems like we're on the downhill slope of this particular fracas, where pragmatic folks are pushing back on it where it's an actual issue. The proponents of CRT are finding less sympathetic listeners in the middle and beginning to eat each other, while folks on the anti-CRT side are ginning up more controversy to use it as a political tool in an era where the GOP gave up all the sticks they traditionally would use to criticize the Biden administration during the Trump tenure.[2] I could be wrong here, but the CRT panic is feeling like it's cresting, not unlike what happened during the Satanic panic of the '80s.
The key indicator to watch is to what extent minority communities support or ignore CRT. With the election of Eric Adams as likely NYC mayor, and crime emerging as an issue attacking the Democratic flank (largely from minority communities[3]), it seems CRT had its moment in the sun and is now receding back to legal and activist circles.
--
At the end of the day, if you feel like it's the "elites" that are the problem, don't contribute to the problem by giving them attention - the only thing that makes them "elite" in the first place. (If an elite fell in the forest and nobody cared, would they still be elite?) Find better people to promote as "elites" and the problem will largely solve itself. On the race issue, I promote the "elites" who are actually saying something useful (e.g. Carol Anderson) over the grifters who are in it for personal promotion or speaking gigs (e.g. Kendi & DiAngelo). Attention is a scarce resource - every time that I promote Anderson over Kendi and DiAngelo, it's depriving the latter duo of attention and mindshare that they need to sustain their grift. Complaining about the latter duo won't do a lot of good, so as the Chinese like to say, "It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness." Especially when it comes to elites.
[1] https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Not-on-my-watch-Texas-Republicans-buck-16299133.php
[2] https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conservative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theory
[3] https://yated.com/democrats-face-minority-revolt-on-the-crime-issue/
Fair enough. But the media is engaging in rampant prescriptionism (as Kevin Williamson would say). They say get the shot but do little to ease fears and also publish stories about vaccinated people getting sick, and they hammer Republicans who are reluctant versus trying to convince. In many cases it’s the people who are reluctant who need convincing but the media holds them in contempt. So these people turn to voices who fulfill their conspiracy wishes.
I guess we read articles very differently. Here's one example from CNN[1]:
"Five undervaccinated clusters put the entire United States at risk"
"A new data analysis identifies clusters of unvaccinated people, most of them in the southern United States, that are vulnerable to surges in Covid-19 cases and could become breeding grounds for even more deadly Covid-19 variants."
"The analysis by researchers at Georgetown University identified 30 clusters of counties with low vaccination rates and significant population sizes. The five most significant of those clusters are sprawled across large swaths of the southeastern United States and a smaller portion in the Midwest."
"The five clusters are largely in parts of eight states, starting in the east in Georgia and stretching west to Texas and north to southern Missouri. The clusters also include parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee, and are made up of mostly smaller counties but also cities such as Montgomery, Alabama; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Amarillo, Texas."
"Most of these states are currently seeing increases in Covid-19 cases."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/08/health/undervaccinated-clusters-covid-risk/index.html
I would imagine that CNN's up there on your list of media outlets behaving poorly on this front, but I'm curious what you would identify as issues in the article above, and how you'd rewrite it. I'm also curious whether your issue is with the straight news reporting (like the article above) or the various opinion pieces that news organizations publish in lieu of paying real reporters in the field. (Which might be the largest problem in our media ecosystem.)
I'm not doing this to troll - I'm genuinely curious how the two of us arrive at such different readings of these things. Perhaps if you could point out what I'm not seeing, I'd be able to see where you're coming from a lot quickly. Alternatively, if you could point out what's missing that you would include, that would be helpful too.
When white southerners don't get vaxxed they are kooks and cray cray. When blacks and Latino's don't get vaxxed they are victims of white oppression. That's what I'm told anyway.
I'll go out on a limb here and wager that most White Southerners are vaccinated on the normal schedule, and those avoiding the COVID vaccine are doing so due to misinformation and contradictory stances ("Everyone should thank Trump for the vaccine!" followed by "I'm not getting the vaccine because I don't trust it!").
Misinformation also plays a part in African American and Latino populations. There's also a long history of AA distrust of doctors due to not being taken seriously (https://time.com/5494404/tressie-mcmillan-cottom-thick-pregnancy-competent/), or experimented upon without their consent (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study).
Pick up a history book and learn why black people are distrustful of government doctors. They have every right to be. White people are just stupid.
So, don't then decry the fact that blacks are dying of covid at a higher rate. You can't have it both ways. Pick up a medical book.
Let's all calm down. There are several reasons Black individuals have a higher COVID-19 mortality rate. Some of it is genetics, some of it is health and lifestyle (weight, diabetes, blood pressure, which are all factors). But there's no "all explaining" reason because there are white people with the same risk factors. It's a game of statistics and demographics, and when you measure anything by skin color it's dangerous to draw conclusions. There are other reasons Blacks have a higher mortality from COVID-19 too. I wouldn't say "distrustful of government doctors" is one of the major causes. Plenty of white earthy-crunchy anti-vaxxers die of COVID-19.
The distrust in the AA community is towards all doctors, not just government doctors.
A couple add'l examples (see my other comment for the others):
From NIH in 2006: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1924632/
2017: https://seattlemedium.com/blacks-dont-trust-doctors/
The interesting thing about some of these "elites", especially those that are elected officials, is that like anyone else, they generally operate with electoral longevity in mind. For the "elites" that aren't elected officials, their motivation is relevance. While of course it is disappointing, members of Congress who voted to reject certifying the slate of electors or push vaccine skepticism/anti-vax hysteria, are doing so because that reflects the thinking of large swaths of the GOP base. My belief is that many of these "elites" know that election and Covid trutherism is a bunch of baloney. But they indulge their constituents for the interests of electoral longevity. That is the kind of incentives that exist in a representative democracy. Don't get me wrong, I don't excuse what they are doing, but I believe a lot of the fault also lies with rank and file constituents who allow themselves to be played like a Stradivarius. While I'll concede that some among the bases of the hard progressive left and the Trump right are gullible to the core, most of the them are hardened in their beliefs(rightly or wrongly), and tend to seek out sources on the internet that confirm their biases. I think that where gullibility has its impact comes to the credibility of the sources they seek on the internet that gives them the confirmation bias they seek.