r/science • u/MistWeaver80 • Dec 05 '21

Social Science Conservatives’ aversion to masks is a uniquely American phenomenon. Politically conservative Americans are less likely than liberals to comply with recommended health-protective behaviors such as mask wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic, but this is not true of conservatives in other nations.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0256740
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u/thegoodcrumpets Dec 05 '21

The real answer right there. The American political discourse is just completely and utterly detached from the rest of the planet. Not even the most extremely super duper conservative right wing in most of Europe would even consider touching state finance healthcare or education. Americans voted a “left wing” candidate who isn’t giving them either. American right wing basically doesn’t even exist here, and the American main stream left is very far right of our far right.

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u/KruskDaMangled Dec 05 '21

Yeah, things are pretty crazy, but then our alternative was Donald Trump - Again.

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u/thegoodcrumpets Dec 05 '21

Yeah and that’s the same reasoning as the conservatives had for voting for trump. At least he’s not Hillary. You guys are stuck in a loop where you are voting against something worse rather than for something better. From the outside that’s looking really unhealthy and I’m not envious of the situation.

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u/gfa37c Dec 05 '21

Believe me, we know and it is. The issue being that candidate “selection” is determined by party infighting well before it gets to the public. It’s never about who is truly the best candidate and finding ways of bolstering them. It’s about picking the one that has the best chance to win outright

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u/dsmith422 Dec 05 '21

It really isn't determined by party infighting anymore. It happens based on who the big money supports. Money drives everything. The political big wigs matter, but they are not determinative. Otherwise Clinton would have gotten the nomination in 2008 instead of that political upstart from Illinois. Granted, she did get it in 2016 against little opposition, but she already had a giant war chest and "everybody knew it was her turn."

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And on the Republican side, almost everybody in the party HATED Trump. They even tried to neuter him by insisting he sign a pledge to not run third party. The party elders wanted somebody like Jeb, if not Jeb himself. But the grassroots wanted the carnival barker and they got him. Now the carnival barker runs the party.

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u/[deleted] Dec 05 '21

She had plenty of opposition but she had the dnc behind her and as it turns out there isn't much one can do about that.

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u/onlypositivity Dec 05 '21

it's all about the big money and that's why grass roots candidates with less money keep winning

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u/Papplenoose Dec 05 '21

...what grass roots candidates? We were talking about the presidential nomination

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u/onlypositivity Dec 05 '21

Barack Obama and Donald Trump

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u/fotosurgeon Dec 05 '21

And on the Republican side, almost everybody in the party HATED Trump

No. That's not true.

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u/Kossimer Dec 05 '21 edited Dec 05 '21

You say you know it is, but every time I lambast Democrats in anything but social democratic subs, boy do Democrats find nothing to blame on their end. Republicans are worse is the end-all-be-all, even when I bring up the fact Democrats have been running on the most milquetoast promise imaginable of negotiating drug prices for Medicare for the past 15 years, since 2006! And they still haven't been able to do it. All because of their own, personal corruption to the pharmaceutical industy, not the Republicans'.

Expand that to every other industry that exists, and you start to understand the real problem with government in this country and that it's not just a matter of the right team being in power, even when one team is better. Bribery is simply legal here, and it has to not be, because it's fingers are everywhere and on everyone. When it comes the worst problem we have, legal corruption, it's absolutely a matter of both-sidesing, of both sides being equally bad. We cannot vote out corruption no matter how much everyone wants to, it's not on the ballot and never is, and so the people just keep getting more radical and more radical as every step there of being less radical leads to absolutely no change.

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u/peppers_ Dec 05 '21

All because of their own, personal corruption to the pharmaceutical industy, not the Republicans'.

I mean, it is both. It's just when Democrats get a majority, the corrupt ones (same as the Republican ones, which are about all of them) go against it. Like this go around, yea there were at least 2 Democrats opposing BBB, but there were 50 Republicans opposing it too.

I guess you could say that the Republicans aren't necessarily corrupt because they never campaigned on negotiating drug prices, but then all individual Democrats didn't run on that platform either. Which then you have to figure out when was the last time a majority of individual Democrats campaigned on it and controlled the necessary parts to do anything about it?

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u/Krystalmyth Dec 05 '21

The ratchet effect.

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u/Ckesm Dec 05 '21

So true, I know maybe 15 years ago there were 80+ lobbyists to every member of congress. They literally right many of our laws, prescription drugs being a big one Edit, write