COVID and sports 2021-2022

[Philsmania]

The Republicans are an odd group now and it is a legitimate question whether this is sustainable. They can cobble on an anti-tax component to keep much of their funding in place, but they risk losing moderate suburban voters on everything else. They are a working class party without working class policies other than culture wars. Something has to give eventually.

Unless culture trumps the wallet now. Add to that evangelicalism and its prosperity gospel and belief that wealth is a sign of God's favor while poverty is just dessert for sinfulness, many poor white folks in the Bible Belt think they don't deserve a system that helps them economically (and the supposedly even more sinful people who look different than them deserve it even less).

[zambonir]

The Republicans are an odd group now and it is a legitimate question whether this is sustainable. They can cobble on an anti-tax component to keep much of their funding in place, but they risk losing moderate suburban voters on everything else. They are a working class party without working class policies other than culture wars. Something has to give eventually.

Seems to be working just fine for them. They successfully govern with just the Senate and the courts and their donor base. It took them 60 years to get from Goldwater and the Great Society to here and it might take 60 years to undo now.

[andyb]

I am thinking (maybe hoping) more long term. They need policies that help working families in the long term. Right now they don't really have them. At some point voters might rebel if they are not rich and their party is only delivering economic benefits for rich people. Social security, health care, school funding, affordable housing. Lots of people will want this and they may not get it from Republicans.

[allentown]

They need policies that help working families in the long term. Right now they don't really have them

They don't have them, because they don't need them. White working class families are willing to support them because they oppose immigration/abortion/gay and trans rights and by appealing to their concern that demographics have changed too fast, women are too uppity, and whites, Christians, and males are under siege. That covers that part of the coalition. Those are the main things that concern them. That's why they can get away with campaigning against the Dems for supporting a watered-down version of European social economic policies (but in capitalist economies, despite Rs labeling this socialism/communism)

The economics part of their agenda is aimed at the rest of their coalition: small business owners, the very wealthy, corporations.

[zambonir]

Well, I certainly didn't expect this thread to say on just sports, not when I started it nor when I posted about Stockton. But to complete that circle for now

How Did the Most Boring NBA Legend Become an Anti-Vax Nut?

[VoteForKalas]

Great debate, folks. Thank you.

It is also really important to remember the context of this anti-vax/mask fringe movement.

andyb is right, Trumpism was simply gasoline on top of an already burning fire in the Republican party and pseudo-conservative, libertarian, nihilist and authoritarian circles.

What have these groups been attacking for decades now? Expertise of any kind, Science, Facts, Objective truth, A free press, all institutions of government and any individuals' obligations to or responsibility for society.

We will all go back to living in caves, put up walls & fences, carry guns, play the victim card all day long and watch the world fall apart. Not my job, not my fault, not my world. Everything is relative. Ideas are illusions. Truth does not exist. Peace and happiness are not possible. As long as I survive, nothing else matters.

I'd go back even further to the Contract with America. Re-read that document. Listen to Newt Gingrich then and now, pretty similar wacko approach. He made comments just yesterday that members of Congress investigating the worst act of sedition since the Civil War (Jan 6th) should be jailed for doing their job if the Republicans take power again.

[Philsmania]

Yeah, some of this probably should be moved over to the politics thread.

But here's the evolution of the modern conservative movement.

Born in the early '60's in the wilderness with the likes of the John Birch Society.
Goldwater harnessed it into a political movement in 1964.
Nixon domesticated it in the late '60's, early '70's with the Southern Strategy.
Reagan mainstreamed it in the '80's.
Gingrich made zero sum politics the objective in the '90's.
GW Bush revealed the power or religious voters in the '00s.
Trump was the manifestation of all of that in 2016.

[schillingfan]

Good evolution analysis. I remember the John Birch with its headquarters in Pasadena, California. You could certainly go back to McCarthyism in the 50s. Notice how the This strand of the party has always been there with different faces on the same argument of anti-government, anti-intellectualism and grievance. Nixon didn’t represent that, but he took advantage of the racism in the South to turn it Republican. In Reagan’s case, it was the “government is the problem” attitude. Gingrich totally weaponized the anti-government, anti-liberal to us versus them as you say. He made it al about getting power. The Tea Party manifested as combining;* ant-government with white grievance, as government was seen as the instrument of affirirmqtive action and other policies that “victimized” white men.

[andyb]

Pretty good fact check from the Washington Post today on the false claims about athletes dropping dead. A lot of this started after Christian Erickson had a heart attack in the World Cup though all the right wing sites spreading misinformation just assumed he was vaccinated (he wasn't at the time). In general the rates of heart issues among athletes after the vaccine are in the same range as heart issues in athletes before the pandemic. And John Stockton believed all this stuff.

Analysis | How the falsehood of athletes dying from coronavirus vaccines spread

[julio]

And John Stockton believed all this stuff.

People believe things that support their preconceptions. Which is to say, people believe what they want/need to believe. But beliefs aren't reality - unless you don't believe in objective reality?

[andyb]

There is a whole lot of confirmation bias going on. People start with a belief that government is bad and out to get them. So they look for data to make their case. Lots of 85+ year old people were always going to die after getting the vaccine because, unsurprisingly, lots of 85+ year old people die every day. But the fact that some died after getting the vaccine just had to be the government and the vaccine's fault because people wanted to believe that.

It is just such a shame that a huge percentage of our country saw political gain in stoking these culture wars.

[zambonir]

He is probably right that the city can't require vaccination forever. But the league should.

As fun as it would be to see a 76ers-Nets playoff series - or as painful to lose it - I kind of hope the Nets stay in the toilet.

Kyrie remains hopeful NYC reverses vax mandate