Originally published at: British Prime Minister opposed lockdown because only old people were dying | Boing Boing
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Boris is a cute messy haired monster, that’s nice. /s
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It’s kind of amazing that the Tory party is the one most affiliated with the elderly in the UK. I suppose their voters are particularly stupid and/or ignorant old people, the kind who wouldn’t have blinked if de Pfeffel had slipped “reduce the surplus population” into his stone-hearted and innumerate comments.
Or perhaps, like the “cruelty is the point” party in the U.S., they’ve entered death-cult territory.
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If you want to understand why this marks the man out as a moron, then you need the VERY FIRST CHART from this page - How Britain voted in the 2019 general election | YouGov
Not only was he acting callously against those who voted for him, he also seems to have forgotten that those in the younger brackets are probably the children and grandchildren of those he’s callously acting against.
And nothing makes a lifelong voting association like the thought “that’s the party that let granny die”.
It is genuinely hard to understate just how much of a moron you would have to be to think that this was a good plan. But Boris is, apparently, “not a details man”. And that’s an understatement.
Of course, this is Boris Johnson. I’d love to be making a moral, ethical or even economic argument as to why it’s a horrific plan. But sadly, he’s as contemptibly inadequate in those areas as he is in all others. So let’s just stick to the first, easiest and most obvious reason why this man is a moron:
He treated his own voting base as an inconvenience he could allow to die.
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I’m beginning to think that the “party for leopards eating faces” quote needs to be more direct.
You know the one - “When I voted for the ‘Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party’, I didn’t think that they’d be eating MY face!”
Maybe something like:
“When I voted for the ‘Being Cruel To People Who Aren’t Giving Us Money Party’, I had no idea that they’d be cruel to ME unless I gave them money!”
Or is that too direct?
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CON +2
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Not direct enough. It could be snappier, and this would certainly chime over here
When I voted for the Nasty Party, I didn’t think they’d be nasty to me.
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It lacks the corruption connotation, but it zings a lot better. OK, we’ll go with it!
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It’s painful to acknowledge this, but our very success in improving lifespans (especially amongst the better off) means that what used to be a solid ~25% Tory base is now closer to being a solid ~35% Tory base. And 35% is more than enough to ensure hegemony when we have FPTP but a multi-party system - consider that, in 2017 May only barely lost a majority despite having pissed off much of that better off pensioners constituency* and still maintained a high vote share (albeit mostly due to UKIP rather than anything else.)
That’s why the brilliant term “sado-populism” is so appropriate. This class of politician have worked out that it’s no good offering a vision for the future any more; instead you have to hark back to the past (“Make American Great Again” or “Take Back Control”) and make sure that your base know that it’s “they” who are (a) responsible for everything bad and (b) will do worse than “us” in the future.
*meanwhile Johnson is desperately trying to figure out how to avoid taxing them in a similar way for fear of the same outcome. He’s currently following the Trump “health care plan” playbook by declaring that he’s got a great plan that will be announced in two weeks, a process that started two years ago.
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It zings because of the link I added after posting.
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Here’s a good analysis (by Alastair Campbell) of why and how Johnson qualifies as a sado-populist.
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Also throw in the fact that newspapers are read much more by older people than younger, making for indoctrinated older groups and information sparse younger groups.
That’s a problem we really need to fix - how our media addresses and explains problems. Because it just adds fuel to this particular fire.
Sadly, again, the current situation works for the parasites in power.
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Coined by Timothy Snyder, IIRC, who knows what he’s talking about in that regard. It encapsulates the whole “cruelty is the point” trend of Western conservatism since Reagan and Thatcher so well that I’m surprised it didn’t come into common usage years ago. I’m going to start using it more.
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This is exactly what everyone opposing masks, public restrictions and vaccines is really saying, whether they realize it or not.
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Remember, when you read this, that Alex Johnson’s own father is still alive and part of the age cohort in their 80s.
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Turn the bastard over to the elderly and let them deal with him.
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And by deal with him you mean let them gladly vote for him, which is what they seem to be doing in droves?
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Dominic is really putting the boot in and at the same time clearly showing his own colours.
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At a guess I would say that they just don’t think any of this applies to them. All the other old people are useless chaff that we need to get rid of anyway. I am rich and/or healthy, I “have the body of a 50 year old.” I can personally keep myself safe, and all those suckers who can’t are just going to have to die for the greater good. My family and I are extremely moral, only degenerates and the unclean will get sick.
So yes, maybe stupid and ignorant, but also cruel.
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Mr. Johnson is a deplorable piece of filth. While I would never advocate or commit violence against any human being, I would also not shed a tear if someone were to give Mr. Johnson a slow, lethal thrashing with a lead pipe.
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