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The Severity of COVID-19 Now Depends on Your State’s Politics

Ignoring empirical evidence, the media asks whether officials are Republicans or Democrats before evaluating the COVID-19 response success.

If we have learned anything from the coronavirus, it’s that science and statistics are now political. What is now considered science is based on the feelings of those using it. While the average American may see little merit in weighing the politics of each state as the world contends with a global pandemic, the media care for nothing else.

Indeed, the media first look at the political affiliation of local officials before evaluating the COVID-19 response success.  The media then uses their own bias-based prism for evaluation, ignoring empirical evidence. Their coverage depicts Democrat-run states as logical and resilient, while residents of Republican-led states are portrayed as science-denying troglodytes more concerned with reopening their economy than caring for the sick and immunocompromised.

The narrative-setting took place in real-time on social media, as reporters echoed commentary from their peers with frightening predictability. Democratic leaders are logical and resilient, tireless in their advocacy for their constituents against a hapless Republican president bumbling through a pandemic. Residents in those states, they’d say, happily wear masks because they actually cared about other people and believed in science. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers represent states whose residents were so desperate to reopen their local economies that they’d endanger the sick and elderly to make it happen. Their constituents are selfish, science-deniers who care not for the common good, but instead, their own comfort and privilege.

Read more at Townhall.com

Jay Shepard

Jay Shepard

Jay was elected as the National Committeeman to the Republican National Committee for Vermont in both 2012 and 2016. He currently serves as RNC Vice Chair serving on the Executive Committee as well as the Rules Committee. Jay and his wife are owners of Junction Consulting LLC; a marketing and advertising firm specializing in creating, producing and delivering corporate and political media and messaging. He is also a partner in a Behavioral Science Research Firm.