The right’s Covid narrative has been turbo-charged into the mainstream
“Before the next outbreak, we need a serious conversation about how to cope – but first, the more strident, misguided voices must pipe down … A different narrative has invaded the conversation: it wasn’t the virus that ruined our lives, but the response. This narrative was always there, but for a long time it stayed on the fringes. Now it’s becoming mainstream, turbo-charged by the recent successes of its political champions who typically gravitate towards the populist right. Public health experts have watched its advance with a gathering sense of doom. They know that how we respond to the next pandemic depends on how we understand the last, and that the next one is probably closer than most people think.”
I’d have to agree, and I’d also add the lab-leak SARS-CoV-2 origin hypothesis to that mix. In general, the right wing has somehow “won” the propaganda war and are able to rewrite COVID-19 history, possibly as a result of how they’ve been allowed to take over social media.
Tags: covid-19 history sars-cov-2 disease social-media media right-wing politics