This is a good & important thread

and also, as someone who's been working with conservative white folks on basic hygiene for literal years

you ain't even seen denialism till they get told to wash their hands & stop violating pesticide regs

it was always gonna come to this https://twitter.com/erinbiba/status/1276308777491468292

my header is a painting that was banned because it depicts medicine as mostly about hygiene & women's work rather than heroic interventions: Klimt, Hygeia, 1907

conservatives hated that so much the Nazis straight-up burned it

yep, for real

Hostility towards hygiene- actual real-life hygiene like washing your hands & putting shit away- is a way bigger part of conservatism than I think folks may be reckoning

it's driven by fear of fallibility & some INTENSE psychosexual baggage

real-life sanitation that keeps us healthy & life worth living is repetitive, meticulous work that never ends

it's women's work. so yeah a lot of folks are gonna see it as inherently degrading, simply for that reason

but wait! there's more!

if you have a macho, "silver bullet" mentality, it's not just that real hygiene is a pain in the ass. it's completely at odds with your self-concept of being someone who is powerful & has control. powerful people don't need to keep doing shit over & over & over & over again.

real hygiene isn't just annoying. it's an existential threat to a lot of folks' sense of self. "If I wear a mask to protect other people, that means I'm dirty/weak" etc.

that doesn't compute

so they hitch their idea of "clean & safe" onto shit that DOES make them feel powerful.

they pour their "gotta stay clean" energy into stupid shitty "racial hygiene" projects that never can & never will put those fears to rest

bc punishing other people doesn't keep you safe, make you stop being human & fallible, or stop the needling voice of "what if you're wrong"

that's why their energy & enthusiasm for punishing the Other never fucking ends

they're trying to pour a cure that doesn't work into a hole that has no bottom

...

welp anyway this has been a thread about hygiene, terror management, & conservatism