It was CNN’s Chris Cillizza (who just signed a three-year contract with CNN for his news analysis) who called Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to lift Texas’ mask mandate “head-scratching” and “anti-science.” You’ll see that a way down in Drew Holden’s thread taking a look at all the pearl-clutching done three weeks ago when Abbott allowed all businesses to open at 100 percent capacity.
?THREAD?
Tomorrow will be 3 weeks since Texas lifted it’s mask mandate. Coronavirus cases have been steadily declining since, w/ yesterday the 18th day in a row of decreases.
But you may remember the left & the media promised the reverse would happen. And I’ve got receipts.⤵️
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
The only place to start this thread is with @JoeBiden, whom you may remember referred to Texas’s opening up as “Neanderthal thinking.”
Perhaps the White House would like to follow up about why? pic.twitter.com/W0BHmBotVm
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
Other governors also took shots. Here’s @GavinNewsom, whose decision to keep his state shut down cost the state 52,000 jobs. pic.twitter.com/eLaySWPQ9p
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
Perhaps the most ridiculously performative politician was (once again) @BetoORourke, who called lifting the mask mandate a “death warrant” on every outlet who would have him on (including @CNN and @MSNBC) pic.twitter.com/CDNHg4N1fB
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
“Abbott is killing the people of Texas,” says the guy who thought he could be president.
We even had former legislators from other states chime in.
Unlike Texas, @alfranken’s home state of Minnesota has seen its total number of cases increase since early March – having doubled since Abbott’s announcement. Per 100k rates there are higher than TX now. pic.twitter.com/MWS6n1PeGN
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
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We had other legislators who still have jobs get involved in the histrionics, too. Here’s @JulianCastro. pic.twitter.com/z8xXrXbsdk
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
I want to pause to drive the point home. Yesterday Texas reported 4007 new cases. Here are a couple states w/ more than double that total reported:
Michigan – 9297 (population 1/3 of Texas, still shut down)
New York – 8972The 7-day average is higher in New Jersey than TX, too.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
One of the things we’ve seen throughout the pandemic is news outlets using experts to tell the story they’re more interested in believing.
That these experts are so often wrong seems not to have dissuaded @NBCNews and @LesterHoltNBC from going back to the well. pic.twitter.com/b7wVjqxV9T
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
It’s funny — President Biden finally held a press conference after 64 days in office, and not one member of the press asked him about the pandemic.
But probably the worst offender on this is @CNN.
By focusing only on the voices who are the most frightened and pessimistic, you create the impression that there’s only one right way to think and feel about these things.
Look at that first headline! This is straight news! pic.twitter.com/di02Ju6Zye
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
And it wasn’t just their main channel that got involved – particular reporters and shows were pushing the same thing. Here we’ve got @biannagolodryga and @OutFrontCNN. pic.twitter.com/SDVcZFyHHe
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
And it of course wouldn’t be a thread unless @ChrisCillizza found his way onto it. pic.twitter.com/OH6LAOOEfj
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
Again, the power of narrative here can’t be overstated. When outlets only talk to people who are scared, it communicates that every reasonable person is scared (which is commentary) even as the reporting reads as straight news.
Here’s two more examples from @nytimes. pic.twitter.com/wswQW1dnVe
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
And there are plenty more, I just don’t have the space. But as usual @MSNBC was a particularly egregious example of the broader phenomena. pic.twitter.com/emSSYggiyd
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
As an aside, when you look at mainstream media coverage about how Texas’s decision was going to be a disaster, for some reason nearly all the stories are from the first week of March, and there haven’t been really any since mid-March, before the predictions came due.
Wonder why?
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
That happened with a lot of so-called “superspreader” events, almost all of which were conservative gatherings or in red states.
Anyway, it won’t surprise you that we also had lots and lots of blue checks in hysterics about this plan. @MMFlint was perhaps the most well-known for his pretty appalling take. pic.twitter.com/oWWI6usIMj
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
But there were a lot of other people whose contention basically boiled down to “Abbot is killing people!” which, if that were the plan, hasn’t played out. Here’s @JohnWDean, who is quickly becoming a household name on these threads. pic.twitter.com/GeF31MGpKv
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
You had to know from @mcmurphy_pat’s artwork that there was no way @JRubinBlogger wasn’t going to find her way onto this list. pic.twitter.com/TNyrO9aY7X
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
And where left-wing conspiracy theories about evil Republicans go, @JoyAnnReid is always close behind. This was no exception. pic.twitter.com/xAfpmgygJG
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
As ever, the Twitter doctors got involved in this one. You would think that a collection of people who had been so consistently wrong on matters of consequence would be chastened. @DrEricDing and @DrJoeHanson certainly aren’t. pic.twitter.com/d8O82F1dAj
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
@paulkrugman also predicted the internet wouldn’t be as important as the fax machine, so maybe at this rate he should give up predicting the future. pic.twitter.com/HMwATtJhXU
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
I’m just a man, staring at a phone screen, begging Comedy Central to find someone funny for any of their shows. @TheDailyShow. pic.twitter.com/M0ZQrNfcBU
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
I don’t have the time, space or patience to include everyone, but there were tons of people lamenting this. Many of them are just bad actors but adding them for reference:@meenaharris @KeithOlbermann (go figure)@GeorgeTakei @mmpadellan (I hope he at least got paid) pic.twitter.com/chWzWKa0tn
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
I know it’s naive, but at some point I really would’ve hoped that the people who have been wrong at every turn during all this would stop shouting when anyone dares do something other than what His Highness Dr Fauci recommends.
Apparently not.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
And a big part of this is that, for lots of people who are comfortable, they simply don’t care. The lockdown hasn’t been that bad for them and they can’t imagine that it’s causing suffering for others. I wrote about that back in December: https://t.co/98I5IUaa8H
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
A British columnist just wrote last week about her anxiety over the lockdown ending.
Maybe we’ll get to a better place on this stuff one day soon. But so long as we’ve got a bunch of self-appointed and self-important experts suggesting an approach is dead on arrival – and refusing to correct the record when it isn’t – color me skeptical.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 30, 2021
Related:
No mask required? Rochelle Walensky says CDC data suggest that ‘vaccinated people do not carry the virus’ https://t.co/qNr6MqWWPA
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) March 30, 2021