Liberals love to blame the anti-vaxxers on all things COVID. Take this from Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, who paints a doom-and-gloom picture of “what the end of COVID health emergencies means (for anti-vaxxers)”:

It’s one thing to know intellectually that anti-vaccination fanatics are people completely unmoored from reality, but it’s another thing to be bombarded with their delusions in a highly personal manner.

‘Lucky’ for me, such an opportunity was recently inflicted on me — where else? — on Twitter. For no discernible reason, a couple of weeks ago my replies started to fill up with “this u?”-style taunts. Traditionally, “this u?” receipts are about digging up some prior public statement that the target is expected to feel shame about. For instance, if a right-winger gets violently ill with COVID-19, they run the risk of pro-vaccine people hitting them with “this u?” reminders of the times they dismissed the disease as a hoax.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

Here we go with the intellectualism again. Because they are the intellectually superior of the species, don’t you know? Amanda? First off, not everyone who opposed lockdowns and following in lockstep with government mandates is an “anti-vaxxer”. Just throwing it out there. Some of us on here have taken the Pfizer/Moderna/J&J for the team. I did because my parents were so petrified by the propaganda that they were scared to see me if I did not get the ol’ jab. So, I did.

I know you’re wondering: what is the “This U” about? Read on:

But what these folks kept tweeting at me, clearly believing I’d feel ashamed, was nothing embarrassing at all: an opinion column I wrote in August 2021 headlined, “It’s OK to blame the unvaccinated — they are robbing the rest of us of our freedoms.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

To sum it up, Marcotte was asked to wear a mask at her gym to attend a spin class. She was vaccinated. She did not want to wear a mask while spinning because “it felt like being waterboarded” or something. Not that she would know the first thing about waterboarding. She was mad because the unvaccinated, anti-vaxxer, Trump, racist, fascist, bigots were the reason she was asked to wear a mask at the gym. So, this justified her rant, I suppose. The unvaccinated were robbing the compliant robots of their freedoms.

They threw tantrums over the lockdowns. They had fits over masks. They refused to get vaccinated. Resisting COVID-19 precautions became, for many of them, central to who they are. And once something becomes central to your identity, it is hard to let go.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

Temper tantrums, Amanda? Let’s talk about who mastered the temper tantrum? (Hint: it’s not the Conservative “anti-vaxxers” you speak so lowly of):

These are the people who are part of Amanda Marcotte’s tribe. So, yeah. Spare me the temper tantrum bullsh#t, Ms. Marcotte.

Do we dare to discuss identity here? This from the intellectual party of group thought who happen to think that gender is fluid? That a boy can be a girl one day and go back to being a boy the next day and drive everyone nuts in this confusion?

Watching conservatives try to keep a zombie culture war alive would be funny if there weren’t real-world consequences. But now that being anti-vaccine is one of the stations of the Republican cross, there are serious public health implications.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

We’re the zombies, Amanda? We’re trying to keep a culture war alive? Let’s talk about the many lives that were ruined by the COVID “new normal”, shall we? We don’t need to look any further than a recent write up by Michael P. Senger of Substack.

For those who were following the real data, the statistics were always horrifying. Trillions of dollars rapidly transferred from the world’s poorest to the richest. Hundreds of millions hungry. Countless years of educational attainment lost. An entire generation of children and adolescents robbed of some of their brightest years. A mental health crisis affecting more than a quarter of the population. Drug overdoses. Hospital abuse. Elder abuse. Domestic abuse. Millions of excess deaths among young people which couldn’t be attributed to the virus.”-Michael P. Senger, Substack

Senger cites some of his responses from a Twitter query he posed: how people had been affected by the response to COVID at an individual level. Some of the responses he received were mind-boggling. Responses ranging from how easily people were propagandized, loss of income, loss of housing, loss of business, relationships severed over polarizations. Elderly family members locked away, unable to see their loved ones-left to die alone. The psychological impact of the mask. Separation, isolation of children that lead to identity confusion, poor academic performance, depression and sometimes suicide. It is a heartbreaking read, for sure.

Ultimately, I’m fascinated by what it tells us about politics and identity, to see so many right-wingers clinging to the anti-vaccine hysteria long after most Americans have moved on from the pandemic. Escalating Republican fanaticism and social media-fueled culture wars mean that many dumb ideas that would have once been lightly held on the right are instead being incorporated into their very self of self.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

We can’t expect Amanda Marcotte to understand what it must have been like for the business owner who worked hard, got vaxxed, but had to shutter the doors of their dreams because of draconian lockdowns and mandates. She was clapping away at her keyboard at home talking about how dumb the world is. We can’t expect Amanda Marcotte, who openly hates some of her family members, to understand the heartbreak of not seeing loved ones and missing out on life, memories and milestones.

There were no delusions here of what was happening, Amanda. And yes, I am still pissed off. And yes, it was f-cking personal.

I, too, am fascinated by what COVID has done and tells us about politics and identity as well. As far as bitter clingers go, I’d say the ones clinging onto this whole mess are the liberals. COVID gave them a purpose, an identity because some of them, quite frankly, were average and mediocre at best until the pandemic. Hey Amanda…This U?

Photo Credit: NIAID via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons/

Amanda Marcotte conservatives COVID democrats gop liberals lockdowns Michael P. Senger politics Salon Substack Vaccines