There is no doubt, no confusion, no mistaking noise amongst the data, at this time in the United States Covid-19 is killing more ‘conservatives’ than ‘liberals.’ At both the state and county level vaccination rates track with election results, the more a region voted with the Democrats the more vaccinated its population and the more vaccinated the population the more protected that are. Where Trump won larger votes shares more people are dying of Covid. The cause and effects are stark, clear, and lethal. Rejection of vaccines and mitigation measures such as masks are the cause of the pandemic continued lethality among ‘conservative’ populations.
To those basking in schadenfreude at this misfortune, at the suffering and death of your political opponents I say, stop! For practical and moral reasons, we should not, at all, take any sort of pleasure or preen with and sense of superiority over these human tragedies.
Many, if not most, of the people suffering, dying, and losing loved ones are pawns, used and manipulated by cynical sinister and anti-democratic forces. They are victims of the greedy, venal, and evil people that control ‘conservative’ thought in America. Yes, they placed those people into power and now those in power are sacrificing them as they have so many others before. ‘Spiking the ball’ will not open eyes, it will shut them, but perhaps, maybe, a little compassion will save some of these misguided souls.
This terrible tragedy is killing more than just those who have been led into suicidal behavior. Hospitals in these regions, already underfunded, are stressed to. and some areas, beyond the breaking point and people in need of critical care are dying because there is no care left for anyone else. If you are taking joy in these prevented covid deaths, you are also taking joy in the collateral damage it spreads. There cannot be one without the other.
Abuse, individual and cultural, is a cycle and the abused becoming the abuser. Only when the abused can find their way out and not visit upon other what has been done to them can the cycle shatter. Many of these ‘conservatives’ have indulged in their own schadenfreude over others suffering from disease and addiction and while it is hard, very hard, now is the time for the formerly abused to break the cycle and not continue it.
None of this is to say that the political fight ends with compassion and welcoming arms. There is a proto-fascist movement seeking to end democracy in the United States. It’s aims are to subvert and discredit elections while stealing them with discriminatory laws and regulations. For that enemy there is no compassion, no forgiveness, but for the pawns that use, abuse, and discard we can be the better people. When they said, ‘hate the sin not the sinner,’ they lied, we do not have to lie. We can be the moral people and we can be the righteous people without becoming the cruel people taking joy in death.
