[spaetzleesser]

“I used to wonder how on earth nazis and communists and the like were able to seize power and control of a population, and now I've seen it”

That’s how the US has worked for a long time. See the war on drugs and mass incarceration, laws against black people and extreme political polarization. There was always a group of “others” that people wanted to get punished.

I bet if Trump had been a little smarter he would have got away with a lot more while people cheering him on. But it seems a lot of political institutions are eroding so maybe the next strongman will be able to go way further.

[throwawaylinux]

Yes that seems to be how it goes. Drum up irrational fear, lay the blame at the others, create hatred against them, then it becomes almost a self-sustaining mass psychosis. Intellectually I understood that's basically how it works, I guess I just didn't want to believe it.

People didn't care that vaccines didn't stop the virus spreading, they didn't care that insignificant transmission occurred due to individuals or small family groups enjoying the outdoors, they didn't care that some people were as irrationally scared of the vaccines as they were of covid. It wasn't about any kind of measured response designed for the real greater good. They wanted to see those hated others suffer and be punished for their heresy and audacity.

[hotpotamus]

Is fear of dying irrational? I mean, it's going to happen to us all anyway, so does it matter if it's via airborne virus or whatever it is that conservatives fear is going to kill them?

[throwawaylinux]

Fear of dying of covid because someone is taking their child to play in a park certainly is.

[hotpotamus]

And was the contagiousness of covid perfectly understood as soon as it was discovered?

[prottog]

Certainly by the time vaccine mandates came around, we had a pretty good idea of the contagiousness and lethality of the disease.

[hotpotamus]

At that point, they had also taken the caution tape off the playground by me. I'm unaware who mandated that. As far as I can tell, many aspects of the disease and vaccines are still quite controversial, though it seems to me that vaccines are helpful.