What sort of voters do Republicans gain from COVID non intervention?

Politics & Elections
1

This occurred to me while I was musing about how the response from states like Texas and Florida would affect their/national politics. I excluded the entrenched voters on either side. I was easily able to imagine lots of people being turned off by the response (e.g. highly placed medical professionals, some families of victims). What I wasn’t sure of was the other side to that coin: what sort of voters would Republicans gain (voters who otherwise might not have voted or at least considered voting Democrat or third party) by their actions? Small business owners, maybe? But plenty of them fall into the hardcore side I already dismissed. Families of victims who believe in the conspiracy theories, and think hospitals and Democrats killed their loved ones? Again, how many would not already be hardcore Republican voters?

So I feel like I’m suffering a failure of imagination. Suggestions welcome (and indeed, why I posted this).

2

I’d bet a ton of the conspiracy theories have reached some people that aren’t necessarily into politics and possibly lean left. I heard qanon became big in some yoga communities for example.

3

It’s not a failure of imagination; you are just looking for a logic where there isn’t one. Republican governor and politicians aren’t trying convince people to join a non-intervention movement; they are responding to people who are reflexively opposing “interventions”, e.g. science based public health policies like distancing, mask-wearing, occupancy limits, et cetera as a violation of their freedoms, framing that objection in terms consistent with supposed Republican principles. That Republicans are just fine restricting personal freedoms when it suits them, including those explicitly guaranteed by the US Constitution, is conveniently ignored.

It is an easy pitch to make because many people, even those who are not politically active or ordinarily in line with GOP positions are understandably frustrated with months of restrictions, and the costs and sacrifices associated with them, especially when so many public health authorities have either been unclear in communications or swept aside for political convenience. Going full anti-vaccine conspiranoia was a step too far because of the evident and indisputable harms which is why you see so many Republican governors and mouthpieces backpedaling on their previous stance, at least encouraging people to get vaccinated out of one side of their mouth while still maintaining support for the “personal decision to choose” (to get sick and die or suffer long duration sequelae?) so they can position themselves as being for “freedom.”

That is about as far as trying to tease out any logic will get you. It isn’t rational; they’re appealing to peoples’ emotional response to frustration to garner votes. That it makes a pandemic somehow a political issue instead of a pragmatic one is, well, just politics.

Stranger

4

Yoga is left wing?

5

One of the most politically conservative people I know (former Army Ranger, hardcore Republican, somewhat reluctant Trumpist but animated hatred for Obama, Clinton, and I assume Biden) got me into yoga and Indian clubs to help deal with my long term shoulder problems from a badly healed dislocation. You’ll find yoga is pretty popular in both the Special Forces community and Brazilian jujitsu practitioners—both of which definitely veer toward conservative—for recovery and prehab/rehab. I’m sure that that a survey of yoga practicioneers overall would probably steer toward more progressive than the mean but if you’re thinking that everybody doing yoga is firmly on the Left side of the American political spectrum you’re probably be surprised by an actual survey.

Stranger

6

I was expressing skepticism that yoga practitioners are left leaning as a rule. My wife practices yoga and at least in the last five years the yoga studio she attended has been Trumpy as all get out.

7

My boyfriend’s buddies have typically voted D (if they vote at all) but they have been sucked in by conspiracies and are super anti mask and anti vaccine. They’re all into money and stocks (“stonks”) now too. If they manage to vote I am guessing they will vote R because that’s the only clue on any ballot of a person’s stance on masks.

They’re suburban white guys in their late 30s and early 40s. I’m thinking they have been slowly reeled in by racism, 2nd Amendment stuff, stocks and now the anti mask stuff. Like the Republicans have been trying all their crazy hard-right theories and contrarianism bit by bit every year to try and scrape away at bits of the population and whatever shred of decency these guys were still standing on has finally fell into the pit of the current GOP.

8

I suppose there is a perception that Yoga is a “New Agey” type of thing, practiced by lefty hippies.

9

I think you mistake what republicans are looking to gain. They aren’t trying to convert democrat or third-party voters to republican voters. They are trying to convert casual republican supporters who wouldn’t necessarily get out to vote into reliable republican voters, and “they’re making us do stuff for no reason” will do that.

The best thing that could have happened for the republicans would have been that COVID restrictions came in fast and hard enough that the death toll topped out at 10000 or so. Then they could say that the reaction was overblown/a power grab by the libs/communism on the rise/George Soros/whatever with no news stories about overloaded hospitals and people dying horrible deaths on ventilators to counteract that message.

Even now a lot of the strategy is to deny the seriousness of the disease and pretending the death toll is overstated to make it more like the “ideal” case for them.

10

On thing that is totally obvious with republicans in regards to covid is they are in a complete apeshit panic over Covid. They can not handle it, can’t act in any meaningful to stop it, so one way is to ignore it, pretend it’s a flu, pretend that the scientific community and US government is lying and ignoring the rest of the world also confirming it, which restored their sense of normality. They grasp onto any statement that supports their wish that COVID does not exist, even taking a meaningless horse medication compound to make the COVID boggieman go away and restore to a sense that all is normal.

11

One of the most pro-Trump, anti-mask, anti-vaccine, personal-freedom-is-everything, Democrats-want-to-destroy-America people I know is a yoga instructor.

12

Republican politicians are responding rationally to a set of incentives in a system that is deeply broken and byzantine to political outsiders. Because of gerrymandering and increased partisanship, the overwhelming majority of politicians run in non-competitive districts. This means the main risk they face is from a primary challenge. Primary elections are low turnout elections by the most rabid members of each party so even a small number of people mad at you can dethrone you if they get organized enough (as Eric Cantor’s long shadow over the Republican party demonstrated).

Thus, the incentive from a Republican politician is to never do anything that will piss off the small cadre of kooks and conspiracy theorists who could be convinced that you’ve now become the devil and will attack and smear you with cult like devotion. As long as you don’t engage in anything that could be spun as an attractive conspiracy, then your political future is safe.

Thus, appease the crazies on the social issues they care about and then have your corrupt way with the economic issues that they’re indifferent to and you can have a long career as a republican politician.

13

This. In general the big argument all along has basically been “The government can’t tell me what to do!” or “These government policies are hurting my small business”.

There’s a large chunk of people out there who still have a more or less toddler-and-vegetables mentality when it comes to someone “telling them what they have to do”, and will resist it tooth and nail, even when it’s sensible, logical and polite to do so. To them, their right to self-determination trumps anything else, including science, logic, good sense, or social norms.

The kicker from what I see is that they’re kind of ill-equipped to exercise this self-determination; they only dig their heels in and go full 3-year-old when “trusted” sources tell them they’re being told what to do. It’s not like they’re listening to the news, seeing the pandemic coverage, critically thinking about it, and making a conscious decision to NOT wear masks or get vaccinated. It’s totally a matter of them watching their news, having some dickhead like Tucker Carlson throw shade at vaccinations and masks for being government overreach and Democrat-related, and their brains shut off, and they refuse like a toddler refuses to eat vegetables. There’s no logic or common sense there- they’ve made up their minds, and NOTHING is going to change it.

I have zero doubt that if in early 2020, the Republican/conservative side of things had taken a personal responsibility tack- sort of a “We won’t tell you what to do, but we’re going to remind you that the responsible person’s behavior is to wear masks and get vaccinated” approach, combined with some shade thrown at minorities for being “irresponsible” for not doing so, we’d have super-high mask compliance and vaccination rates among that crowd.

But that didn’t happen; instead, the cynical bastards in charge made it into a matter of personal liberty, and they dug their heels in. And in a further “benefit” for those bastards, now it’s an identity thing- not wearing a mask or getting vaccinated has been a way to trumpet your opinions and stance, and also reinforces one’s identity as a conservative and Republican.

So with this reinforcement, they’ve set themselves apart, and primed themselves to be targets for whatever Republican candidates come along. That’s how the GOP stands to gain by not intervening- they basically let their voters self-segregate and pull themselves further right.

14

Much wisdom in this post, let’s start with this sentence here.
The Republican Party might as well make banners that say:
Personal Liberty For All !! (Pregnant Women Excluded!)

Exactly this! Except they could not because their orange leader was determined to deny COVID was anything but a hoax because to admit otherwise was to admit his own failures.

The fact that these simple minded beasts need someone, anyone, even Trump or Tucker Carlson to tell them what to think is kind of pathetic in my view. I know lots of them and their need to identify for the new incarnation of their religious beliefs (the GOP, especially as headed by Trump) by their actions is amazing. I am routinely asked if I do not see the eminent signs that the world is about to end very soon- some of them truly believe a rapture is imminent. I usually reply that I can see them and their fellows trying to end life as we know it in the United States.

This is the most amazing and true part to me. They literally are able to jujitsu themselves, using their own weight and momentum to push themselves to the right. If we tried to do it they would resist with significant effort, but they are pleased to do it to themselves. I place the blame with the religious right- the White Evangelical organizations like The Heritage Foundation and its many clones.

15

I’ll take a stab at the OP: Libertarians. This has been hinted at by several posters, but I don’t they named it. Asking you to wear a mask to possibly protect me is totally against their creed.

16

Good point.

I went to a Libertarian college, and their favorite phrase (I think it was from Ayn Rand) was: “The Virtue of Selfishness”. The world only works when everyone’s looking out for themselves. Start to feel any kind of charity, and it all gets gummed up.

So, they’d say “Pfft! Me do something to make YOU safer? Forget it, hippie pinko.”

17

A lot of conservative Christians (who are also politically conservative, incidentally) are adamantly opposed to yoga because of its Hindu roots.

Purely as a statistical matter, there are probably more political liberals than conservatives who practice yoga.

18

What sort of voters do Republicans gain from COVID non intervention? Dead ones.

They also gain traction among the “we’re never wrong, never back down, government is evil” crowd. There are voters who think they can become experts on any topic by five minutes of googling. These voters have no use for science or reason and certainly no use for government scientists. They think personal liberty is everything and collective responsibility is nothing. They would have kept their lights burning during WW II blackouts, they would have counterfeited ration stamps, they would have kept smallpox alive. They’re dunderheads, and unfortunately they have a party that caters to their every wrong thought.

19

There are different types of “intervention.”

Vaccines are a no brainer, everyone should get it. If everyone got it when it became available, then we’d probably be a completely different situation than we are now.

Mask mandates are a bit more inconvenient. It’s another object you need to carry around with you, another article of clothing to be washed. They aren’t really all that comfortable to wear, and there are certain situations where they are impossible to wear (like while eating).

Then there are the shutdowns and occupancy limits. Those are where people have much more invested in objecting to them. People are losing their businesses due to being shut down. The PPP loans helped, I don’t know if I would have been able to come back after the shutdown without it, but for some industries, ones that are still shut down or at reduced capacity, it really isn’t enough.

I would personally have a hard time deciding whether I would vote for someone who is against vaccines, mask mandates, and shutdowns, or someone who is for vaccines, mask mandates, but is threatening another shutdown. If I felt that they were going to pass another round of PPP in the case of another shutdown, then I’d probably go with the latter, but I don’t know if there is political will for doing that again. I’d have difficulty voting for someone who was planning on putting me out of business, even if it was for the “greater good.”

And it’s not just about the money. Sure, the 2 months off were restful and useful, the first time off I had taken in 7 years, but I don’t just work for the money, I work because I enjoy what I do. I provide a necessary service, the 2 month interruption, along with 2 month backlog once we got back up and running, meant that there were dogs in some pretty bad shape. A whole lot of shavedowns took place for dogs that go matted up while waiting to get an appointment.

20

AND THEY VOTE!