Fascinating! Lefties are angry that Cummings *broke* the lockdown but this same anger is also morphing into anger that he *caused* the lockdown. They can only make the mental transition from being lockdown loons to lockdown sceptics by finding a single scapegoat relevant to both. https://twitter.com/chrishorrocks72/status/1264646326131851264

If they had a different scapegoat for each anger, they'd have to support the lockdown AND be angry about it - impossible. And they can't just change their minds, because they can't think without scapegoating. They require a single scapegoat to move from one anger to the other.

A rephrase: their anger at his 'hypocrisy' enables them to begin to question if the lockdown was necessary. If he broke the lockdown (bad!) then maybe it wasn't necessary at all (also bad!). Thus their lockdown support morphs into scepticism. One scapegoat; contradiction avoided.

A general moral to draw from this: if you want to get a lefty to change their mind about something, maybe you need to find a single scapegoat who enables them to contradict themselves without contradicting themselves.

Aha: a serious inference can be drawn from this. I think lefties will be more swayed by you pointing out that their leaders are hypocrites than any other argument. That way, they can hate the leaders for not upholding socialism AND transition into condemning socialism itself.

Try it: next time you're debating with a socialist, just relentlessly point out the hypocrisy of the leaders who have claimed to be socialists. You'll be providing the socialist with a transitionary scapegoat who might help them break out of the whole mindset of socialism.