1/ Ooh boy. This is a complicated subject:

We have a far-right fringe that’s nuts, highly-motivated, increasingly organized via the Internet by both extremists and some big-money players the right. Many of these people are those nutty fringe (note the guns and signs). https://twitter.com/AllPopGuy/status/1252403183776722945

2/ The Republican party has spent decades trying to convince people not to trust the media (since an independent media would call them on their lies), and the GOP also tends to be anti-science, for the same reason — facts tend to undercut their policies.

3/ You’ve also got a crazy far-right religious element thrown in. See the truck with “Jesus is my vaccine” written on the side. And you’ve got a crazy “America, f*ck yeah!” side as well. Translation: We’re Americans, we can survive a plague!

4/ Then you’ve got the GOP worried that the bad economy could sink Trump’s re-election, so they need to blame the economy on the Democrats. How? Claim the virus was a hoax (or exaggerated), and Democrats are refusing to reopen the economy! So they’ll blame us in November.

5/ But you also have to keep in mind that some 43% of the American people think Trump — narcissistic, racist, sexist, homophobic, Nazi-defending, confessed serial sexual assaulter that he is — is doing a good job. So there’s an underlying problem in our democracy as well.

6/ Or perhaps worst of all, there’s an underlying problem with humanity overall. And this is why bad things happen in history. Not because bad men take over. But because half the country welcomes the bad men taking over. While the other hasn’t a clue how to stop them.