I think it's deeper than just they need to believe the "democrats" or whatever invented it, or so on. There are people intensely invested in an ideological model of the world where solidarity and any kind of collective action are inherently immoral and also that their own self-interest is paramount. They've been taught it since they were kids, regardless of party. Being a selfish asshole is a virtue to them.
It's an ideological-ethical system based on might-makes-right and "I'll take whatever I want try to stop me" and at the time the pandemic hit, its chief exponent ("grab em by the pussy") was the president of the United States.
Around here in Canada half the people who were going on about "F*ck Trudeau" and anti-mask this and anti-vax that were also taking CERB ("Canada Emergency Response Benefit") payments from the government and bilking the taxpayer for money at the same time. My nextdoor neighbours for example.
Savage capitalism as an ideology, who the fuck cares about my neighbour, and screw the old people, all this shit is inconvenient, they gonna die anyways
All that said, western governments seemed to come up with marvelous ways of making the whole lockdown & etc suck for the working classes the most. Easy for folks like me who got to work from home but pretty damn vile if you were an hourly wage worker. So I get where a lot of the anger comes from.
> Easy for folks like me who got to work from home but pretty damn vile if you were an hourly wage worker. So I get where a lot of the anger comes from.
Right. And that's if you bought into the principle of it.
If you looked around at real outcomes — rather than intentions and propaganda — then it was far worse. Government was spending a ton making their pals rich, and people like you and me a teeny bit safer. But it was also failing absolutely those that really needed it. That was not a cause to rally around.
The problem is the rallying happened on the other side, and out of all of this the far, outright fascist, extreme right has recruited more people than ever before. And in large part what they've recruited on is extreme anti-social behaviour, conspiracy theories about the WEF etc, total bullshit lies about the vaccines (including crap I see commented on in this forum all the time), and laying the blame in all the wrong places.
Did government mismanage COVID? Yep. Did they do in an unjust way? Yep. You know what's worse? Savagely letting the vulnerable die, and the rather .. deplorable ... people who built a whole ideological edifice out of complaining about social duties during the pandemic and pretending it was all fake.
It's not like it wasn't possible to be critical of gov't approaches and also pitch in to help out.
It's an ideological-ethical system based on might-makes-right and "I'll take whatever I want try to stop me" and at the time the pandemic hit, its chief exponent ("grab em by the pussy") was the president of the United States.
Around here in Canada half the people who were going on about "F*ck Trudeau" and anti-mask this and anti-vax that were also taking CERB ("Canada Emergency Response Benefit") payments from the government and bilking the taxpayer for money at the same time. My nextdoor neighbours for example.
Savage capitalism as an ideology, who the fuck cares about my neighbour, and screw the old people, all this shit is inconvenient, they gonna die anyways
All that said, western governments seemed to come up with marvelous ways of making the whole lockdown & etc suck for the working classes the most. Easy for folks like me who got to work from home but pretty damn vile if you were an hourly wage worker. So I get where a lot of the anger comes from.