Excellent thread on the problems American political culture poses for dealing with a public health emergency 1/ https://twitter.com/KeithNHumphreys/status/1259828752516706304

One thing I've noticed over the years is that there's a segment of the political right that flies into rage over facing any inconvenience to serve the public good — e.g., suggesting violence over a ban on phosphates in dishwasher detergent 2/ https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/phosphate-memories/

It's very much a minority, even fringe segment 3/ https://twitter.com/nickgourevitch/status/1260538368837988352

But it's a segment that the GOP defers to, and this being America, some of those people enraged by any hint that there are social responsibilities have guns 4/ https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/04/us/michigan-security-guard-mask-killing-trnd/index.html

And of course the armed and crazy segment is also the most likely to rebel against social distancing, face masks, etc bc they seem anti-macho 5/

The thing is, while refusal to act responsibility by a minority is a problem for things like environmental issues, it can make the difference between control and explosive infection in a pandemic. So anti-social rage is a huge problem 6/