Don't blame the victims for the fringe right-wing eugenics menace.
It's hard for me to remember much less find examples of exact instances of this, so if anyone has any, please send me them.
I distinctly remember often being blamed for the covid contrarians in a way. And I remember even making the comment that it was like the way people blame the woman for being the victim of domestic abuse. There were liberal or "centrists" online who said "extreme" people avoiding covid (like immunocompromised and disabled!) were the ones who "kept it going" for the likes of Vinay Prasad or even Alex Jones. That the right-wingers like Jay Bhattacharya were being given material by the "extreme" covid cautious on the other side and were simply reacting to that. I distinctly remember people among (hashtag) medtwitter making this argument at times. Some were I think saying if we all just relaxed and shut up, that if disabled and immunocompromised people online just recognized covid was mild and stopped masking and just put up with the risk of dying or becoming further disabled, the extreme far right would stop being anti-vax as a reaction, and more people would get vaccinated. There was always this bizarre claim that masks actually promoted anti-vax even though all the evidence always pointed to the most likely to be vaccinated were the people still masking! Of course much of that was probably due to right-wing propaganda advertising. These people were not even subtle with their anti-mask propaganda tactics, but people fell for it anyway.
Twitter from @theSGLF: State Government Leadership Foundation (SGLF) Feb 9, 2022 Our latest ad is making an impact and liberals are now agreeing with what conservatives have been saying all along: mask mandates do more harm than good.
I was reminded of all this when I listened to this interview from Brittany Page with Toby Buckle who wrote an article recently about how the alarmists were right about Trump, and why we shouldn't listen to the people who got it wrong. I haven't even made it through the article, I'm just so filled with resentment and animosity because it's so much a parallel to the backlash from so many "moderates" to any part of the public health disability justice movement in response to the pandemic. People who warned about the dangers of these people were proven right. We warned everybody it wouldn't stop at the most vulnerable, it never does. But we were called alarmist.
tweet by @jackmurphylive says “If covid had been left to do it’s thing our nation would have become as a result, healthier, fitter, and younger - ie stronger. 10:32 PM 11 December 2021 - This is the Alt-right podcaster espoused eugenics pseudoscience, then founded a concierge medical clinic.
And still, people go back to the repeatedly wrong people who said we were alarmist, people who ridiculed and insulted us for just wanting to survive, and blamed us for the right-wing extremist fringe weirdo covid deniers who claim it was some plot by Dr. Fauci. These people are racking up more covid influencer follows on bluesky this time. It's like a repeat of covid twitter, and it disgusts me, because it's very personal, and I endured trauma overlaid upon trauma ever since the bungling from the start of the pandemic, from basically all politicians who all did their best to prioritize the economy. They still find our rejection of dying for the economy an offense that requires marketing study scrutiny. And then on top of that to be publicly ridiculed and even attacked by prominent scientists and doctors on social media was more than any single person should have to bear. I’m a sepsis survivor, and I was treated so nastily by so many doctors who were strangers to me, it’s gobsmacking frankly.
So if you wonder why I sound cranky, I guess I have to revisit a particular incident from 2022 where I was haranged and harassed by the suicide troll fans of a skeptic-twitter author who wanted me pilloried for saying something was eugenicist. It was something said by a hotshot twitter scientist influencer who made a comment very similar to then CDC Director Rochelle Walensky's comment about how it was so "encouraging" that the deaths were at that point just among disabled people. It was considered gauche and inappropriate to dare bring up the eugenics ideology that started heavily swirling all around us from the outset of the pandemic, encouraging people to morally disengage and find mental pretzel logic bogus pseudoscience rationales to justify not disengaging from the economy. We were supposed to look the other way when “young healthy people” celebrated that covid was mild for them, while others died. We were supposed to let them celebrate our banishment from public, essentially. And it continued into the Biden administration, obviously, because Jeff Zients was hell bent on making sure nothing stood in the way of corporate interests. And so anyone daring to say the pandemic was still carrying out a eugenics scheme started by the first Trump administration, was also, by liberal influencers, shadowbanned, ridiculed, harassed, or otherwise encouraged to remain silent or shut up about being the victim of any of this.
Now, they're all worried because just like people like me had warned over and over and over and over again, they want to do away with every form of infection control, including vaccines, and even hospital infection control.
Now I see more people embracing the term "eugenics" with regard to the Trump regime's RFKJr policies. And yes, some of the same people who shunned me and ridiculed me for using it even just 3 or 4 years ago are having a social media rennaissance by supposedly championing the cause of the victims of eugenics. And I've not had one of these (hashtag) medtwitter people reach out to me with an apology or even an acknowledgement that I was right, that I was right to be alarmist.
Some of these people know how to contact me, and they even know that I'm on bluesky because the author who sent the suicide trolls to harass me had already blocked me on bluesky.
Has anyone else heard of any published mea culpas? I'd love to be able to add them below. I do believe in redemption. But I absolutely want to warn people not to listen to these assholes who said it was alarmist and rude to worry about the acceptance of eugenics.
A list of mea culpas for bashing people as alarmist about the covid denial and eugenics policies will be placed below:
There are none I know about yet.