Quote (NetflixAdaptationWidow @ Jul 27 2021 01:17am)
I mean, the big risk has and remains the overwhelming of the healthcare system. As I said previously (or in another thread?) the hospitals and clinics I did all my medical work at are absolutely fucked right now, and mainly because they have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.
I don't buy that our messaging was particularly poor on this. We had a president minimizing the risks and encouraging his party to do the same. The messaging could have been pitch perfect and it wouldn't have made much of a difference with the literal president actively undermining his own medical staff.
When Fauci said "There's no reason to be walking around with a mask", it was a lie. He admits it was a lie; his stated goal was to prevent hoarding. These are the sort of things that reduce public trust in government. You can dress up the reasoning all you want, but you told someone one thing, and you meant another. Why should they ever take what you say at face value?
Trump's response was incoherent, and he paid a steep political price for it. He lost a national election and is no longer president. The fact that voters trusted him on the economy, or that his administration got vaccines developed and approved in record time, were both completely tuned out as a result of his response. Republican governors (e.g. Alabama & Florida) are now tasked with cleaning up the mess that he left.