What false things do Republicans routinely believe these days? I'm not talking about wild-ass conspiracy theories like QAnon, or matters of opinion, like whether tax cuts produce higher revenue or CRT is wrecking our schools. No, I'm talking about simple, factual matters that are 100% contrary to expert opinion but are accepted routinely by most Republicans. Here are a few:
- Trump won the election.
- COVID came from a lab leak.
- Climate change is a hoax.
- Joe Biden took bribes from Hunter's clients.
- Masks don't affect COVID transmission.
- The FBI is engaged in a partisan war against Republicans.
Anything else?
Ukraine is not a cause worth supporting and Putin is worthy of being an ally.
Actually, Biden tricked Putin into invading Ukraine. Putin is just a niave minion controlled by Sleepy Joe, the GOAT crime boss.
Yes yes, the Rostovian President.
-Everything I need to know about sex & gender, I learned in middle school, and nothing has changed since then.
-Democrats founded the Ku Klux Klan, therefore Democrats are the real racists.
Lincoln founded the Republican party so ungrateful black people owe us one and need to shut up.
Are you seriously suggesting that some of the facts about sex & gender have changed since we were in middle school?
No. The suggestion is that we've learned some things since then.
Trump is a billionaire.
😉
Trump created more jobs during his presidency than any other president ever.
Numbers 2 and 5 aren't in fact 100% against expert opinion.
There are plenty of experts that think a lab leak was a possible source of Covid and while I am one of the few people who still regularly wears a mask the evidence they work is pretty thin.
Kevin addresses this below--but the "lab leak" theory has no evidence for it. The wet market theory does.
Masks work. Well done studies are hard to come by, but those done well show masks work. Studies on mask mandates show that mandates do not work well. Quality masks are needed, they have to worn properly, and masks will slow transmission, not completely eliminate it.
"Kevin addresses this below--but the "lab leak" theory has no evidence for it. The wet market theory does."
The main evidence for both is that the epidemic originated near them.
"The main evidence for both is that the epidemic originated near them."
The main evidence is that all other pandemics originated from natural sources, so that is the null hypothesis in the case of SARS-Cov-2 as well. The burden of proof is on those who posit a lab leak origin, and that burden has not been met.
"The main evidence is that all other pandemics originated from natural sources, so that is the null hypothesis in the case of SARS-Cov-2 as well. ..."
This is sort of silly. Like saying all previous episodes of global warming weren't due to humans so this one probably isn't either.
In any case lots of deadly epidemics in the new world were started by pathogens introduced by humans from the old world.
You are being willfully obtuse.
@joel could have been a little more precise:
Humanity has seen repeated, frequent epidemics arise from close animal-people interactions since the first towns (mesopotamia). Therefore another such event is plausible and expected. Indeed SARS and Ebola and almost every year's flu occurs that way. It is indeed the null hypothesis.
Yes a lab leak is possible, but no evidence of it has been found. Until it is, going out of one's way to cast doubt on a many-times-seen cause is, yes, willfully obtuse.
Human-caused global warming is different because multiple lines of carefully-evaluated and accumulating evidence show how it is happening, and because it is based on well-understood physics and chemistry.
What I want to know is: how much longer will you be able to live with yourself as you see our, and our children's and grandchildren's world being destroyed, while you nitpick and troll? What will you tell them daddy did when the issue that could have saved their world was before us?
There have been multiple cases of pathogens accidentally released in lab leaks and infecting researchers and occasionally others.
There have not been any pandemics caused by this until now, but we have really only had labs where something like that could reasonably happen for the past fifty years or so and this is the first pandemic in that time.
Yup, that is all absolutely true. A lab leak is a possible cause for the current outbreak. I don't think anyone here denies that.
But in the face of zero evidence that that happened, and knowing that animal-human contact has caused repeated epidemics throughout human history, what is your point?
"...Quality masks are needed, they have to worn properly, and masks will slow transmission, not completely eliminate it."
This is pretty close to saying they don't work in practice.
That's like saying the shingles vaccine doesn't work in practice because so many people refuse to get their shots. Sounds kinda dumb when you put it that way, doesn't it? Note that there was a time when you could have said the same thing about seatbelt mandates 'not working in practice'. Now _that's_ some level of dumbness we're talking about here.
Well said. Thanks for writing this.
"Well said. Thanks for writing this."
How many of you mask believers are currently wearing masks regularly? Judging by what I see in places like Denver it isn't just Republicans who doubt the efficacy of masks.
Not currently wearing a mask.
100% convinced of their efficacy at protecting *you* from an airborne disease that *I* am carrying.
Not 100% convinced that the current risk level is high enough to make me deal with the extremely minor inconvenience.
wears a mask the evidence they work is pretty thin.
Sounds like your thinking of masks mandates? I agree the evidence those work is thin, because the absence or presence of a rule requiring masking isn't much of a difference-maker. Japanese didn't need a rule and would've masked either way. Americans did have masking rules, but didn't follow the rules either way.
But masking itself (preferably with well-fitting, high quality models, or, barring that, with near 100% adherence in the enclosed space in question) clearly works.
Ten thumbs up for the distinction. Plus two. I'm going to keep saying that until somebody gets the reference 🙂
YES!
Nicely said.
And there's the fact that the 2020-21 winter flu season was almost absent in the US. Just a coincidence?
I would put it this way: "my mask protects you, your mask protects me".
While it seems likely that sloppy masking as many do it is not strong protection for the wearer, it slows the breath from their mouth and makes us effectively farther away from others.
"I would put it this way: "my mask protects you, your mask protects me"."
Sounds like you are saying masks don't protect the wearer which is what I care about.
Really?
I kind of find it hard to believe that someone who presumably thinks he plays a positive role in society can say with a straight face
"I don't care if I infect a fellow human with a potentially fatal virus. I won't lift a finger to avoid that".
I disagree with a lot of what you write here, but want to respect your point of view. But now it sounds like you're saying you simply don't care if you're a disease vector. Should I chalk that up to the heat of the moment, or is this precisely why we need mask and vaccine mandates; enforced mandates?
"...Should I chalk that up to the heat of the moment, ..."
More precisely I care more about protecting myself than protecting other people. Especially if none of them are wearing masks.
I am under the impression that masks provide roughly equal protection either way. If so I don't understand all the emphasis on protecting other people, if you want people to wear masks emphasize that they protect the wearer whether or not other people are wearing them. Are liberals really so clueless that they don't understand this?
Ok great! We're getting somewhere!
I also want to protect myself "more" than I want to protect anyone else. And I know that cloth masks don't do very much to protect the wearer. And I agree that it would be more effective to be able to honestly tell people that even a cloth mask protects the wearer more than "somewhat".
It's too bad that cloth masks do their main work by reducing transmission, not protecting the wearer directly, but that is the case.
But even so, that cloth mask worn in mass does protect me because I will come into contact with fewer cases and have less chance to get infected. That doesn't seem so hard to understand.
And it also means that when I break my ankle and get taken to a hospital it won't be overwhelmed and I'll get better care. That doesn't seem so hard to understand either.
I assume you get this too. So then why do you train your fire on democrats who are at least pointing society in the right direction, while giving a free pass to those who trumpet "masks don't work", and thereby endanger us all?
You would have more credibility if you acknowledged the societal benefits - that absolutely translate to "protect me" as above - and started off by saying "these MAGA types are willfully ignorant and unserious about this", before criticizing democrats who, for sure, got some things wrong while trying to get a truly beneficial result for society as a whole.
And vaccines, too.
"... And I know that cloth masks don't do very much to protect the wearer. ..."
As I said I am under the impression that the protection is roughly equal. So if cloth masks don't protect the wearer very much then they don't protect other people very much either.
But why are we talking about cloth masks when KN95 masks which I understand to be more effective are now available? Do they also provide little protection to the wearer?
Dear everyone who says masks don't work:
Please get your next surgery with no one wearing masks.
Thank you for your cooperation.
No the evidence that CLOTH masks are effective is thin-to-nonexistent. The evidence that surgical masks and N-95 types masks work is pretty robust.
The problem with the lab-leak theory is not that it's possible, it's that for many (most?) Republicans it's an article of faith, and for a non-trivial subset of those Republicans, the actual theory is of a PURPOSEFUL lab leak.
While it seems likely that sloppy masking as many do it is not strong protection for the wearer, it slows the breath from their mouth and makes us effectively farther away from others.
Even cloth masks improve public health.
"No the evidence that CLOTH masks are effective is thin-to-nonexistent. The evidence that surgical masks and N-95 types masks work is pretty robust."
The powers that be were pretty slow about informing people of this. I was wearing cloth masks for months although they were apparently known to be ineffective. This is annoying and reduces trust in public health authorities.
Racism in the USA is over.
How can racism in the USA be over, there was never any racism in the USA.
According to Chief Justice Roberts, Yes.
Not quite. Republicans believe the only victims of racism are white people.
No one was prosecuted for BLM riots.
And its corollary: "Jan.6 was a BLM False Flag operation."
Cities were burnt to the ground.
New York City is more dangerous than Florida
Well, no one other than the FIFTEEN THOUSAND or so people who were arrested. It's surprising how many Republicans think that no arrests took place, and then when shown what the actual number is, simply pivot to, "well, that isn't really important because...."
Republicans should always be in power
Rich people and corporations should not pay taxes
Women should be punished for having sex
Gun ownership should be completely unrestricted
Democrats hate America and want to destroy it.
Illegal immigrants (who are usually drug cartel members) are streaming across the border by the thousands, unimpeded by INS because Biden told them we should open the borders.
Tax cuts increase revenue and reduce deficits.
A lying NYC "billionaire" cares deeply about the fate of me and my blue collar family.
+1
The biggest con that Trump pulled until now.
I said last year and earlier this year that, because Trump made stupid comments about SARS-CoV-2 and claimed that it was leaked from a lab, the origins had become unnecessarily politicized. And here you are, claiming this as something that Republicans believe contrarily against a fact.
You keep pushing this as settled. It is not. I'm close to suggesting that you're full of shit on this. There are very few experts who claim 100% certainty on the subject in either direction.
It's settled among actual virologists. Sure, they all say, pro forma, that a lab leak is possible, but their actual opinions are something like 99.9% in favor of a natural origin.
Come on, you're clinging to confirmation bias.
Jesse Bloom is a virologist. Are you discrediting his review of the DNA/RNA data from the Hunan wet market to refute the conclusions reached by Crits, Worobey et al?
Bloom dissected their spatial analysis suggesting that Hunan was the source of a natural spillover, as well as the overlap of coincidental samples of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and racoon dog DNA.
If you can, show me why Bloom is wrong.
If you can't, show me why Bloom is a fraud.
If you can't even do that, maybe you should keep your mind open.
Come on, you're clinging to confirmation bias.
That's rich coming from you.
I'm taking a deep breath and refraining from accusing him of trolling; as somebody pointed out to me a few months back, D_Ohrk_E1 isn't a troll ... He's a crank. Of the 'Einstein was Wrong' variety.
+1
That is a false dichotomy.
It is 100% natural origin, but that doesn't conflict with the possibility that a lab leak was involved in transmission of it.
"It's settled among actual virologists. ..."
Actual virologists being defined as virologists who agree with you? In any case there is no reason to limit the discussion to virologists, a whole field can fall into error. Especially with the amount of narrow specialization in science today.
5 is empirically true, masks don't affect COVID transmission.
4, Joe Biden took bribes from Hunter's clients, is a slippery description of what many people suspect, that Biden gave access to people who bought Hunter's paintings and might have done favors for them.
And last time I checked we couldn't say for sure whether or not 2, that COVID came from a lab leak, was true or not.
Why oh why is partisan red meat always so rancid?
I am a scientist. If you can convince me of your argument on masks, I will eat my undershorts after crapping in them. You made the claim, now back it up. Peer reviewed only, don't waste my time and for the love of God, do not cherry pick.
The fricking Cochrane Review meta-analysis of controlled trials, that even found that hand-washing prevented COVID (to a small degree) but masks had no detectable effect.
Drum coped at it pretty extensively on the blog. I was very pro-mask because they are common sense. But common sense empirically proved to be wrong. Empirically.
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full The author even wrote an opinion piece in the NYT saying masks don't work for COVID.
You, Drum, and everyone else who is leftist in identity rather than just opinion responded with total cope. Everyone who is open-minded, even leftists like myself, admitted we got one wrong.
“Many commentators have claimed that a recently-updated Cochrane Review shows that ‘masks don’t work’, which is an inaccurate and misleading interpretation,” Dr. Karla Soares-Weiser, the editor-in-chief of the Cochrane Library, said in a March 10 statement.
“It would be accurate to say that the review examined whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses, and that the results were inconclusive,” she continued. “Given the limitations in the primary evidence, the review is not able to address the question of whether mask-wearing itself reduces people’s risk of contracting or spreading respiratory viruses.”
My underwear are still intact and clean. Your review doesn't even *address* the question I asked. Did you not read the paper, or not understand it?
How much did you have to dig to find that ass-covering? The review found that "interventions that promote" HAND WASHING had a measurable impact. "Interventions that promote" mask wearing did not. As the study's author summarized, masks don't work. And as you demonstrate and cite, the response of many of us who were wrong (which includes myself!) is rationalizations, weasel-words, and cope.
A meta-analysis of controlled studies in a variety of settings found an impact of hand-washing but not mask-wearing. This is our highest-quality empirical evidence on the subject. That means the science says that masks don't work for COVID.
There is obviously nothing that will convince you: you are an irrational partisan who is on the same intellectual level as a creationist.
You should at least be able to admit that masks are less effective than hand washing for preventing the spread of COVID? Maybe you're capable of baby-steps towards rationality? I doubt it.
While it seems likely that sloppy masking as many do it is not strong protection for the wearer, it slows the breath from their mouth and makes us effectively farther away from others.
The mask tests concern the first part (protect the wearer). That is indeed your business. But general masking protects us all. That's my business too.
You read a study that concluded "There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks." A study that repeatedly goes out of it's way to say the evidence is inconclusive. A study that says the evidence about masks we're discussing (N95-type masks) is *VERY* uncertain. And you read that as conclusive evidence that masks don't work. You are wrong.
Quoting the conclusion:
The study also looked at both surgical masks and N95 masks. Quoting further from the conclusions:
Jemmy, be sure to have your open-heart surgery without the surgeon or nurses wearing masks.
Why would I give a flip fuck what republicans think?
The correct expression is "what republicans believe". Republicans don't think.
"what republicans PRETEND TO believe"
The underlying belief is "truth and lies are equivalent, and you just take what you like".
It's not overwhelming but more Republicans don't believe in evolution than those that do.
Everyone else but Nazis are the real Nazis, everyone else but racists are the real racists, and everyone else but criminals are the real criminals, and everyone else but clergymen and billionaires are the real pedophiles.
Their guilty projection is pretty much universal. It isn't a cult it's a mental illness.
Perennial contenders are
1: Republicans are good for the economy (Democrats are better for GDP, incomes, income equality, stock market growth, deficits, and just about any other reasonable metric you could come up with).
2: Democrats are lazy (employment rates for Republicans and Democrats are effectively identical)
3: Immigrants are prone to crime (legal immigrants have *much* lower crime rates than natives, illegal immigrants only mildly less)
4: Guns in your home make you safer (they increase the rate of innocent people being shot significantly, and increase the risk of suicide wildly)
5: Vaccines are too risky (the positives dramatically outweigh the risks)
2 should be "Covid was developed in a Chinese Lab as a bio-weapon and then leaked".
I think you mean "Covid was developed in a Chinese Lab by Anthony Fauci as a bio-weapon and then leaked".
+1
- Trump had illegal immigration at the southern border under control.
- The economy totally boomed under Trump and has done horrible under Biden.
- Biden caused massive inflation.
- Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, is a great leader and the US needs a leader like him.
- The MSM, most experts, and fact checkers should be ignored since they promote Fake News.
Antony Fauci is guilty of...something.
- the border is wide open
- the wall is working
- terrorists are coming across the border
- the IRS targeted and continues to target conservatives
- media reporting is heavily biased in favor of a liberal point of view
- Democrats / pro Choicers favor unrestricted abortion up until the moment of birth
7. Trump is innocent.
8. Trump is innocent.
9. Trump is innocent.
10. Trump is innocent.
The polls are clear on this.
11. We're in recession / the economy is horrible.
There's a strong negative correlation between the size of the public sector and economic strength.
Truth and lies are equivalent, and you just take what you like.
This underlies all the other "beliefs".
Vaccines don't help.
Vaccines are more likely to harm you.
Biden is wrecking the economy.
Trump ran lower deficits than Obama (pre-pandemic).
Wages went up under Reagan.
Reagan ended the Cold War.
This Week in KKKult45 (and I make none of this up):
• Democrats burned Maui. Why? Know one explains.
• Barack Obama is gay
• Michele Obama is a dude
• VP Harris is evil for saying she’s ready to take over for Biden
(even though, you know, that is her job.)
• Mass lockdowns are coming: “I won’t comply!”
• Bill to ban Federal mask mandates. “Think of the children!”
• Child support payments for embryos
• Customs and Border Patrol has an app.
(True! Dunno why it’s nefarious.)
• The Jews are responsible for all the world’s evils throughout history
My dad (who only votes D) forwarded me something about democrats and "weather engineering" and burning Maui. Like truly crazy shit.
When I was growing up in the 50s/60s I recall my grandmother blaming just about all America's woes on- "Those communists"
Sounds like we've become the "Communists of the 21st Century "
It's really all the same thing in their minds: communists, fascists, marxists, jews, gays, transgender, satanists... same same.
That they are good, moral, patriotic people who embody the very best of American principles.
Honestly, beyond policy differences and even core values, the main reason I rarely even maintain compartmentalized relationships with conservatives is that almost all of them have way too high an opinion of themselves.
Republicans believe that:
7. African Americans deserve every bad thing that happens to them, including but not limited to being shot by the police or white vigilantes for no reason at all.
8. The overwhelming majority of Americans agree with them.
I think #2 is a category error. It is nowhere near the same level of certainty as the others.
As for masks, I'd say the vast majority don't have an opinion either way, but will wear one if the government/business says to and won't if they don't.
But, of course they work. It's like thinking respirators don't work in industrial facilities.
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