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Some of the least vaccinated states are the most pro-Trump. Trump won 17 of the 18 states with the lowest adult vaccination rates. Many of these states have high proportions of whites without college degrees.
The irony is that many of those who now deride the vaccines also objected to lockdowns, social distancing, and the wearing of masks. In a rational world, they would see the vaccines as a ticket back to normal life.
Instead, at this moment, they have chosen to go full anti-vax. Even with hundreds of thousands of dead, and hospitals again filling up, the lies continue; media types tell them to get clicks and likes; pols spread the lies to raise their profile and bring in cash.
And their recklessness will kill people. This is not hyperbole.
The toll of the lies —the tweets, cable hits, and performative demagoguery — can be measured in human lives. The right’s burst of dishonesty means that more fathers, mothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, even children will die.
How to describe the enormity of the malignancy here? Words like “irrational” and “insane,” don’t cover it.
In the law, however, there is category known as “depraved indifference to human life,” which “reflects a wicked, evil or inhuman state of mind, as manifested by brutal, heinous and despicable acts. It is evinced by conduct that is wanton, deficient in a moral sense of concern, and devoid of regard for the life or lives of others.”
It fits.
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