Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Covid Denialism

 I mean, why not? We have people denying that Trump lost, that tax cuts cause deficits, that the earth is round...so why not deny that Covid was really "that bad"?

It seems roughly 1,300,000 more Americans died during the pandemic. Whether they died precisely from Covid isn't really the point. The pandemic was an event that impacted overall public health in ways that were deadlier than all other wars America ever fought. 

What I really can't understand is how motivated reasoning - which I admit is a very powerful force - could be so strong that it requires people to deny that Covid was really, really bad. Why, exactly, are they motivated to deny it?

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