I posted this on Facebook this morning, and it generated quite a lot of conversation immediately … so I thought it worth copying here.
I’m noticing that this current pandemic situation is just worsening the already-horrible political divide in this country. We need to realize that this virus doesn’t care one bit if you are a Republican, a Democrat, or neither. It doesn’t care if you believe in it or not. It doesn’t care if you think it is a hoax.
We are all vulnerable to getting it, and the newest scientific reports indicate it may do permanent damage even in mild cases. (That was published in the journal Nature, so it is well peer reviewed.) Refusing to stay home, refusing to wear a mask, and so forth is not “rebelling against the man” or “raging against the machine” or “protecting your freedoms” — it is potentially exposing yourself, and *anyone you come into contact with* — to a virus that may ultimately be fatal to even the young and healthy.
Spatchcocking the Future 
My next post is going to discuss one key difference between the current situation and the AIDS crisis: AIDS is *really* difficult to contract. It was politicised from here to hell because those most likely to contract it were from demographics that were easy and effective to demonise. COVID-19? Really easy to contract. Everyone is susceptible. And no one in the US federal government really wants to bang the drums with that, even though those who are able have been saying it really loudly for several months.
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Yes, Joe, this is exactly what I’ve been thinking. It was incredibly easy for people who were not in high-risk groups to make AIDS sufferers into the Other, whereas with this current disease, everyone is at high risk. Remember when hemophiliacs and healthcare workers were infected with AIDS, and there were cries about these “innocent” victims, as if somehow being gay or an IV drug user made one “guilty” and, therefore, deserving of a deadly disease? Also, once AIDS was properly understood, it was possible to protect oneself to a large degree, without the necessity for a quarantine (although that didn’t entirely stop the spread, nor did it stop the talk about wanting to forcibly quarantine all the gay people.) Now, we see Othering happening between political parties in the US. We also see it happening against other countries (China, particularly) because we apparently still need an enemy to blame, aside from the disease itself. I look forward to your post, and to your thoughts on the matter.
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