Because we all know Mother Jones is totally an expert on the GOP and the right-leaning media.
Oh, wait.
The only conservatives who took COVID-19 seriously were the conspiracy theorists https://t.co/oDvBq78PIl
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) March 26, 2020
*sigh*
From Mother Jones (sorry!):
The mainstream GOP response to the virus in its early days was yet another example of just how much Trump has taken over the party. The blind, cult-like loyalty among Republican members of Congress left a leadership void that meant that the only meaningful action they took before Trump decided to embrace the role of “wartime president” was apparently to sell off some stock. As long as Trump was insisting that the worst thing about the virus was his media coverage, the only people in Trump’s orbit sending up emergency flares about the need to combat the virus were people on the fringes like Cernovich. The conspiracy theorists turned out to be right about the coronavirus.
These outliers share something in common beyond a penchant for conspiracy theories and an appreciation for the public health implications of ignoring what would become a pandemic: They all traffic in a visceral disdain for China. Consider Steve Bannon, who has been broadcasting a pandemic podcast and radio show since January 25 and who likes to refer to the Chinese Communist Party as “gangsters.”
How dare anyone call communists ‘gangsters’.
Really?
Glenn Greenwald was front and center with a teensy bit of fact-checking:
This @MotherJones story is completely false. Back **in January**, when most of the media was obsessed with an inconsequential impeachment proceeding, @TuckerCarlson was urging attention be paid to the coronavirus. Whatever you think of him, you don't get to re-write history: https://t.co/J6pywGUjS4 pic.twitter.com/TYTuqJ5zqS
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 26, 2020
It’s like they’ve completely forgotten that whole silly ‘impeachment’ thing.
But wait, there’s more:
What unmitigated audacity and dishonesty from @MotherJones!! Today they're claiming no conservatives took coronavirus seriously except conspiracy theorists.
Literally *the day after* Carlson urged people to pay attention to it in January, this is what Mother Jones published: pic.twitter.com/YsZCmOzAcv
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 26, 2020
Ummm … WOW.
It's amazing: @MotherJones is now claiming that conservatives refused to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously, when they published an article in late January insisting the flu was worse & citing the CDC to say the risk is "low" to the US public https://t.co/VDmu76GEIu
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 26, 2020
The story is actually still up!
From Mother Jones again:
The coronavirus outbreak sounds something like the beginning of an apocalyptic sci-fi movie: After possibly originating from an animal market in Wuhan, China, the new virus has infected around 6,000 people and killed more than 100 in China alone. And while the virus has infected five people in the United States as of Wednesday, authorities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are urging people in the US to stay calm; the new coronavirus (officially called 2019-nCoV), the CDC insists, isn’t spreading in the country. “While CDC considers this is a very serious public health threat,” the agency’s “situation summary” reads, “based on current information, the immediate health risk from 2019-nCoV to the general American public is considered low at this time.”
Experts in the US are instead calling out an even more widespread virus that’s sweeping the nation this year (and every year): the flu! People, the flu. Just because you know it and it doesn’t sound like the apocalypse doesn’t mean it isn’t incredibly dangerous. Influenza infects tens of millions of people each year and kills tens of thousands in the US, and the CDC is reminding people it’s not too late to get vaccinated.
So Mother Jones wasn’t taking it seriously enough either.
Really informative coronavirus content here from @MotherJones! Any thoughts on this, @jackiefmogensen @smencimer @ClaraJeffery? pic.twitter.com/qqMFuJ3Ibr
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) March 26, 2020
But you know, only conspiracy theorists on the Left were taking it seriously.
HA HA HA HA HA
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