Deeply disturbing conversation today re coronavirus, with a white male in the money biz, decades younger than me, from the west, lives in NY. I know that heretofore my results with threads have been terrible but this is so awful and so much Ima thread it. And prolly delete soon.

So. Conversation started with a general out of the blue declaration “it’s time for the lazy moochers to go back to work and time to open everything up”. Then I a rant about how AOC and the librulz want to use the disease as a pretext to usher in soshulizm.

So, I said, “but gee 100000 dead and 1.5 million cases is”...at which point I was interrupted with a rant:no way, numbers are all faked, everyone who died woulda died anyhow and hospitals get paid an extra $40000 to report a coronavirus case it’s no worse than flu.

I said ok but what about the evidence that it causes permanent damage in 20% of cases...interrupted again with a rant: that’s a lie, there’s no such evidence, it’s all made up just to scare everyone into wearing masks and it’s just a pretext to get in my pocket and raise my taxes

I said, well the masks are a public health measure, designed to protect the community, not the wearer...another rant: “they can’t force me to do anything I don’t want to do they’re just trying to get all the Christmas tree social programs they’ve always wanted...

...the mask is a sign of our submission to failed European style soshulizm. I will not be bullied by unelected bureaucrats with their fake numbers and fake science. It’s all a liberal hoax.”

“OK, so” I said, “let’s imagine for a second, a thought experiment, a disease comes into the US. It’s highly contagious, with a high fatality rate, at least some of the people who get it are sick forever, no vaccine and no cure. What public health measures would you support.”

The reply: “None. I’d support none. If people get sick, it’s their fault for not taking better care of themselves. You sound just like AOC. Why do we need imaginary experiments. We just need to get back to work. And tax cuts”.

I parted with “what’s with AOC? She’s a 1 term member of Congress not even in your district. Have you met her? I have. She’s sharp, smart and engaging”. Answer: “why would I waste my time?”

So. There you have it. Purely anecdotal, not evidence but. The fact that someone would be comfortable enough with these ideas and would be so horrified that their ideas were challenged even in a tiny way speaks volumes, to me, about how bad things are gonna get.

Because we at each other’s throats now AND are on our way to over 30 million US cases and over 3 million US deaths by Election Day. Plus we will have spent $20-30 trillion holding up the stock market. Oh and GOP will win again too. Yeah. Just sayin.