Sooner or later, the right wing was going to be led off of some kind of metaphorical cliff. For over forty years Republicans have perfected their weaponized propaganda to the point where within minutes of some radio personality’s edict, the followers will gather en masse to muse about liberals, or hippies, or how no matter what they say, “Lay’s” potato chips have much less flavor, and this too, is somehow a liberal’s fault.
So it was inevitable that the sheer efficiency of their messaging would one day work against them, as they have no safety valve when it comes to just how fast the modern GOP voter will close their mind or angrily assemble.
The health department crew set up shop in a building near the Georgia National Fair’s north gate, not far from the stage where a juggler and a hypnotist would later perform, a short walk to the midway where throngs of people lined up for the Grand Carousel, the Dizzy Dragon and other carnival rides. All around the clinicians, a steady stream of people flowed by. But few expressed interest in what they were hawking: COVID-19 shots, free for the taking.
It was a fine idea. The North Central Health District employees wanted to make the vaccinations accessible to more of the state’s residents, especially those who live in the rural areas that surround the Georgia National Fairgrounds and Agricenter in Perry. But — despite the workers approaching fair attendees, answering their questions about the vaccines, sharing data on the shots’ effectiveness — the results were disappointing.
Close to 500,000 people attended the fair earlier this month. And, over seven days, the health department vaccinated a total of 29 of them.
29. Not 29 percent. Not 2.9 per 1000, No, just 29 people. Too many American citizens are failing the most basic of duties to each other, and themselves.
Perry lies just south of Macon, in Houston County, which bizarrely, calls itself “Georgia’s Most Progressive County.” It is by no means the most Trumpist area of Georgia, that dishonor belongs to the counties further outstate still, but it still went for Trump by about 12 points. And like it’s outstate counterparts, its vaccination rate is shockingly low.
Rural Georgia rests at about a 38 percent vaccinated rate, compared to a still stunningly low 45 percent in urban counties. If we assume 60 percent of the 500k fair goers were unvaccinated, then it is far more likely people got Covid at the fair, then took a simple vaccine to prevent it.
The ship has clearly sailed. As it turns out, a county like Pierce has a tenfold higher likelihood of a citizen dying by Covid, than Fulton, Georgia’s largest county and the home of Atlanta.
Now we have winter coming up and with over 60 percent of rural Georgians unvaccinated, and the holidays approaching, another spike seems inevitable.
And the wingers never learn. They never stop going over cliffs, until it is too late. The right-wing wanted an automatonic army of talking point stupid, who could not or would not think for themselves, a political base of groupthink, and they got their wish. Now the army is shrinking, because the ignorant (H/T to Peter Olandt for clarifying a commonly confused character reference) “Frankenstein monsters” of a base they have created is turning on its creator.
Frankenstein’s monsters always do.
-ROC
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-ROC