The Emerging MAGA Pandemic

© Bruce Allen

This article was posted on July 7, 2021

In an unsurprising dog-bites-man story, statistics are emerging that show a higher incidence of vaccinations among populations living in blue states than those in red states, which are now lagging and, not coincidentally, seeing outbreaks of this week’s viral flavor of the week, the Delta variant. Sounds like a 1960’s model Oldsmobile. The thinking behind it is definitely of the 1960’s variety, back when America was ‘great’. Wondering when this will stop being news.

I examined the results of the 2012 presidential election by state and found a high correlation between the percentage of Obama voters and educational attainment numbers from each state. Across the board–high school or less, college, graduate degree–the better-educated states were embarrassingly blue, while red states made up most of the bottom half.

Those of us willing to see have noticed a correlation between gun ownership and gun violence. We are not talking rocket science here. At some point, we have to be willing, as effete liberals, to say it out loud–the people who make up Trump’s ‘Republican base’ are, statistically, under-educated and racially biased with violent tendencies. In their own vernacular, they would be called dumb-ass crackers with guns.

Many respectable columnists feel it is imperative for the Democratic party to reach out to these disaffected, demented people, bring them together under one big tent with people who make close to full use of their brains, and somehow find common ground. The old “better to have them inside the tent pissing out than the other way around.” I’m not buying it.

I don’t fully share my mother’s closely held belief that, in their hearts, Republicans are basically mean. I do detect among MAGA people getting interviewed in the media a lack of reasoning ability. So often, a CNN reporter will ask a bleached-out 50-ish woman in red what she liked best about a just-concluded Trump rally speech, and she will say, “Oh, I dunno. I just liked the whole thing, getting the crowd going, getting excited about politics again and taking back the government…from ourselves…um…bye…” A lack of intellectual depth, of processing capacity. Of having to fall back on feelings and biases when ones ability to follow an argument ends. But impugn their intelligence and you’re looking to get your ass beat.

Statistics have already proven the fact that attitudes towards race more closely bind the Trump base than do feelings of ‘having been left behind.’ The glue that holds this base together is, bluntly, racism. The ‘getting left behind’ part is a result of that racism. People with backward attitudes toward race often have other backward, career-killing attitudes, such as fear of the unknown when it comes to the vaccine. “I don’t know what’s in it” is a common complaint, hilarious coming from people who don’t know what’s in their corn flakes.

Contrary to the infuriating bitchiness of the modern Republican party embodied in Mitch McConnell, there is a certain poetic justice in seeing the virus picking off un-vaccinated people in red states. It is a trend likely to continue, as one of the other aspects of The Base is its impermeability to facts. They won’t notice or admit they are dying off until it reaches epidemic proportions later, in the fall, in some communities, generally in red states, almost exclusively amongst the un-vaccinated.

Suddenly, it will be, like, so, if you get vaccinated, you probably won’t die? Hunh. Do we get lottery tickets or donuts, anything?

I don’t think it is the behavior of liberals which has created this dangerous divide, a new one running along the existing fault line between the vaccinated and those not vaccinated, for what must be seen as political beliefs. Yet another small factor chipping away at the Republican base population, demographics being the major driver. It may be true that this issue is the one that strips the few remaining thinking people from the Republican base, leaving it almost completely white, violent and un-educated. People who lose people to Covid are going to blame the thinking that kept the deceased from having gotten vaccinated. We will all pay the price, failing to achieve herd immunity in time to avoid another winter surge–mostly among the un-vaccinated.

On balance, Democrats have done the right thing, encouraging people to get the shots. It’s the Republican leadership that has been wavering or outright hostile to the idea, leaving their constituents vulnerable to a long and painful illness and possible death, possible bankruptcy. As clear an illustration as one is likely to ever see of leaders putting party before country. Shame on them. And the only reason to put party before country in this case is not because the Republicans have a better plan–they have no meaningful plans–but to avoid offending this ignorant, racist, unreasoning base that believes Trump is the second coming.

It will be fascinating to see how the aura holds up when the indictments of family members and, one hopes, the former President himself begin coming down. When the prosecution shows how he worked the system, as all good con men do, to his spectacular advantage, but had to break the rules to do so. Like the prototypical tragic hero of the ancient writers, he will be brought down by an internal flaw, the there-is-never-enough-of-anything gene that drives his manic need to acquire and to drive down those around him. Before this is all over, he will have thrown almost everyone he is related to under the bus. It appears likely to get that bad. The buffoon who preaches, along with his two ex-wives, the virtues of family trying to pave his own unscathed exit on the backs of his children. Run for your life, Donald.

One can identify his remaining followers in several ways. The first and most obvious is the MAGA gear, the flag, all the meaningless symbols of a system the wearer only vaguely understands. The second is a fever, a stubborn cough, a flushed look, etc. not wearing a mask. The combination of the two suggests one should cover up and run, even if vaccinated, because your location is about to become a node.

God is saying that membership in the Trump base can be bad for your health.