A number of MAGA people want to “blame China” for their own agendas. I think it’s important to make a distinction between finding out what happened vs. embarking on a vengeful mission to “assign blame.” If you agree with the premise that it’s at least possible that this pandemic originated with a lab leak I really don’t understand why you’d be opposed to a rigorous investigation into that possibility.
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This kind of generalization is dangerous because it starts with an insult of anybody who has ever voted republican. Maybe Republucans are a specifically stupid subsection of the republicans?
Anyone who voted for trump is either very stupid, or otherwise a bad person.
These aren’t mutually exclusive, and if you care to give counter examples, I can easily show how they were stupid or hateful.
Anyone who thinks the republican party is worthwhile saving is delusional.
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Yeah. Like a bat cave.
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You mean the party that is currently purging their remaining remotely sane members? The Party that has full on embraced a lie about the election? The party that is fully in thrall to a cult of personality? The party that supported a insurrection to overthrow our government? That GOP?
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Stupid is as stupid does.
Since Donald Trump is its de facto leader, then yes, it’s the party of stupidity. And corruption. And greed.
Any Republican not in favor of those things should leave the party and start a new one.
(And logically, you don’t actually have to be a member of the party to vote for a Republican in the general election. )
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I am just saying that labeling almost 50% of your population as stupid will not get you to a solution to the mess that is american politics. I would comment the same way to people referring to ‘libtards’.
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Half the country is not republican, more like a quarter is hard core members, and maybe another 10% or so reliably vote GOP… MAYBE.
But again, these are the same people who want to create a one party state devoid of anyone who disagrees with them. No POC who aren’t loyal to white supremacist ideals. No Non-Christians (unless they are very quiet). No independent women. No LGBQT+ unless they pretend to not be LBGQT+. No one who believes in a welfare state. No one from the Democrat party in power.
You are really underestimating how far gone they are now and how they’ve gone full on authoritarian. This is no longer a sane political party who cares about democratic principles. Dismiss that at ALL our peril.
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Prove me wrong and maybe I’ll care.
Republican voters and republican party members are all either stupid, get off in seeing their fellow americans hurt, or profit from it.
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It’s hard to follow a lot of the back-and-forth in this thread, and part of it has to do with lack of clarity in the original post: the Fox News guy asking a stupid question and Jen Psaki giving a standard equivocal response. A lot of people really want to stan Psaki, apparently.
It’s unfortunate that any mention of the possibility of Covid escaping from a lab immediately gets interpreted as support for the conspiracy theory that Covid is an intentionally developed bioweapon that was intentionally released. There is in fact a lot of circumstantial evidence linking Covid to the Wuhan lab, and circumstantial evidence is all we have for now given the WHO investigation’s method was simply to interview lab workers.
I recommend that those interested check out Nathan J. Robinson’s recent piece in Current Affairs. And I’d definitely be interested if anyone more informed than me has a rebuttal to the substance of that piece!
I honestly think it’s more this, because the current GOP is made up of a combination of the the hard Christian right, which operates off of a us/them fascist mentality, and self-centered Randian “Libertarians” who believe the only real value in life is that which can be measured in dollars. The two groups have ended up infusing the GOP with a high level of toxic individuality (the kind that says that the only thing that matters is the self), bigotry, and blind worship of capitalism. It’s the ultimate form of neo-liberalism that is going to eat us alive if something doesn’t happen soon.
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I am very concerned about what is happening with the republican party. I had hoped that the republican party would come to it’s senses after the attack on the capitol. My argument is that to just call them stupid and feel intellectually superior is not going to help. It is the rise of fascism which feeds on fear, hate, mistrust, anger, racism etc etc. Not to mention the constant propaganda from fox and others that creates the ‘us vs them’ narrative. I wish it was just stupidity…
Which is why and others have called them fascist. Which means that treating them with the kindness and respect that they sure as hell are not showing to anyone who isn’t a white man or who doesn’t believe that white men are superior to the rest of us, doesn’t matter. Call them wonderful people, call them assholes, call them smart, call them stupid… they don’t give a shit, because they hate many of us and some subset of them would gladly see us all thrown out of the country or just plain dead.
For the record, I have been pointing out that we have not taken them seriously for actually a while now, and some people persist in ignoring that and downplaying what they’re doing. But honestly, at this point, it does not matter what we call them. They are out to take over the country. So, yes, take them seriously, but let’s not kid ourselves that they give a shit what we call them.
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I am not advocating to treat them with kindness. Fascism has to be fought at all costs. I think there is a big group of people that self identify as republicans that are mainly conservative and are not happy with how transparently evil the republican party is becoming. This group is in between a rock and a hard place and still being called ‘stupid’ for the principles and values they live by.
I think I have made the point I wanted to make. Thank you for allowing me to clarify.
If they are unwilling to stand up against actual fascism… 
At some point, one does have to actual take a stand. If they are not taking a stand because they are afraid of the consequences, then they are cowards. If they are not taking a stand because they STILL believe they can control the Trump wing of the party, then they might very well be stupid.
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Nathan Robinson agreeing with Nicholas Wade? My head is in danger of exploding.
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That was done promptly. A pomeranian and some cats (who natch, want to kill us) sniffing around the wet animal market got fingered. SARS-CoV-2 jumping the species barrier: Zoonotic lessons from SARS, MERS and recent advances to combat this pandemic virus Small RNA components, Apple Design capsids…what’s to tell?
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