Infinite Quack

‘Reach Out to Trump Supporters,’ They Said. I Tried. I Give Up. Don’t waste your time reaching out to Trump voters like I did. Instead, invest your time organizing your community, registering new voters and supporting candidates who reflect progressive values that uplift everyone, not just those who wear MAGA hats, in local and state elections. Work also to protect Americans against lies and conspiracy theories churned out by the right wing media and political ecosystem. The right-wing conspiracy theory funhouse of Alternative Facts is essentially a cult. People who are happy listening to that day after day... they aren't about to be talked out of those ideas by rational arguments. What would  talk them out of it? Perhaps, nothing. People have to realize the truth on their own, sometimes. They will leave the cult only when they're ready. But don't wait for them. Try to make progress despite  them, progress that will benefit the whole society including  them. Someday, once...

America, we need to talk about how the multiple crises we're facing are interconnected. There are so many to choose from, and two that are probably foremost in the reader's thoughts recently, but I want to discuss five of them. (There are others. I’m not even including climate change.) Let's dub 2020 the Year of the Disaster-Plex, shall we? For many of us, the year the scales fell from our eyes. This lousy year hit us with the Covid-19 crisis first. Viruses happen, and the worst ones are the plagues: when viruses jump from other species into ours (1) . So long as we live in close proximity to animals and have less-than-perfect sanitary practices, this will keep happening from time to time. It's bound to be more common now that there are several billion of us, and we keep flying around the world in metal boxes. This one is unusually nasty because it's a stealth virus. When a plague can spread through multiple people who catch it and cough it along, without even knowi...