Cult(ure) of Stupidity: How America Lost Its Battle with Coronavirus
NPR/Johns Hopkins University
Forget for a moment that America’s response to the deadliest pandemic in a hundred years is being lead by the former host of The Apprentice (and a man who was slated to play the president in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! before negotiations broke down).
While the federal government’s lack of a unified and fact-based response is the biggest reason why over 150,000 Americans have died from coronavirus (and predicted to be 230,000 by November) - it’s not the only reason. Its people share a chunk of that responsibility as well.
The American citizenry at large was proudly uninformed, ignorant, and flat out stupid well before they helped elect a reality show host as president, and they’ll be just as dumb, if not more so, long after he’s gone. It’s entirely possible that sometime in the near future we’ll look back on these turbulent times as “the good ‘ol days” when we’re two years deep into a Kid Rock administration.
Lack of affordable, quality education, internet propaganda and disinformation campaigns that fuel conspiracy theories, and partisan warfare that drags factual, apolitical topics like science into the culture wars, are all contributing factors woven into America’s anti-intellectual fabric.
Is it really surprising that in a country where 15% of its citizens deny climate change exists and/or that humans are at least partly responsible for it (the highest proportion of climate deniers in a survey of 28 countries), that 23% of them also say they won’t get a COVID-19 vaccine? Or that wearing a mask during a pandemic has become a political wedge issue?
When people are risking their lives and the lives of others to watch The Chainsmokers perform, you know we’re in trouble.
Americans have become numb to the amount of deaths and skyrocketing cases in hot zones. Some think mask mandates are the makings of a dystopian tyrannical government (while ignoring people in Portland literally getting snatched off the streets and thrown into unmarked vans). Some laugh and view those taking extra safety precautions as reactionary, hypochondriacal alarmists.
Simply put, Americans have gotten bored with COVID-19.
They’re tired of staying home. They’re over their favorite hangouts being closed. Many want schools to reopen, even though that’s a super spreader event waiting to happen. They want to go grocery shopping and congregate bars without masks. They want things to go back to “normal.”
The cruel irony of course being, their refusal to do their part in stopping the spread of the virus, assures the continuation of movie theater closures, mask mandates, sporting events with digitally-rendered fans, and an overall fractured economy.
Yes, the federal government has failed epically to do its job. Telling people to inject bleach, and trying to legitimize quack doctors who believe in alien DNA and demon sperm aren’t helpful strategies. Ironically, they may have been better suited to handle a tornado predominantly made of sharks. But that being said, a considerable amount of our country’s citizens are failing their fellow Americans as well.
That’s why it’s gonna take years, if not decades, to truly recover as a nation. While other countries have reopened and are as close to normalcy as a country can possibly be without a vaccine - Americans are prohibited from even visiting those countries, because we’ve had one of the worst responses to this virus on the planet.
Lack of testing, lack of medical resources, an AWOL federal government, incompetence at the state level (particularly in red states where they had more time to prepare after seeing how the virus ravaged New York), are all contributing factors - yes; but so, too, is a proudly uninformed citizenry who think hand washing, mask usage, and social distancing are matters of opinion, and not scientific facts.
They can blame China. They can blame 5G towers. They can blame Bill Gates (???). But when it comes to community spread, Americans largely have to place blame on themselves.
It’s not “like the flu.” It’s not a “hoax.” Sadly, Trump Tulsa rally attendee and former Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain had to find that out the hard way. As did a 30-year-old San Antonio man who attended a coronavirus party.
Those deaths are tragedies, as are the hundreds of thousands of others, whose deaths could’ve been prevented, and the people that will die from this virus in the months to come whose deaths also could’ve been prevented.
America’s history regarding its cultural penchant for ignorance, science denial, and sheer stupidity is a long and storied one, but now more than ever, it’s damage is beyond devastating, and it’s currently standing proudly on the world stage, for all to see.