Fear. Pandemic protests are global. News narratives frustrate the White House. Germans and Aussies detest prevention measures. 600 were detained in Berlin. Meanwhile, Taiwan is down from a whopping 500 new cases in one day to 12. They wear masks, and check in at stores by either scribbling a name and phone number on a scrap of paper or sending a QR-code text message, then using a body-temperature hand-sanitizer combo machine. While the West divides in two paranoid groups, each calling the other paranoid, Taiwan re-opens dine-in restaurants.
Elections have consequences. They are coming, sooner for California, where a Democratic governor may have fallen out of favor and faces a recall vote. Trump raised lots of money—after losing in an election to many documented rule-breaking and suspicious-resulting precincts, in concert with Republicans who certified the rule-breaking precincts. Why would anyone suspect that Republicans helped voter fraud steal an election from one of the most popular and war-ending presidents of all time? It’s not like their party made $100M from his fundraising after he lost. No wait, they did.
That’s the problem with conspiracy theories. Most of them blame the wrong guy. If masks and other virus measures were part of a conspiracy theory, the theory should include the absolute necessity of public panic from both kinds of kooks. Without the vaxxers and anti-maskers fearing each other, America might have its numbers down to where Taiwan has. And, any election conspiracy theory should include that the RNC saw a profit in losing—just as they have for many decades.
It only grows more evident—the answers to America’s problems aren’t in any flavor of kookery, but in dropping fear and division so as to see the bigger picture.