Lying is the biggest threat to our republic and the common good. Public health is compromised by dissed belief in expert opinion. Bald faced lies metastasize so quickly over social media that before you know it, 70% of Republicans believe an election was stolen, Dr. Fauci is untrustworthy and a life-saving vaccine is not good medicine but bad.
And these lies kill. More than 90% of the people dying from omicron are those not vaccinated and boosted. We have no adequate preventive for socio-political lying and once the malignant verbiage resides in the body politic we have no social medicinal to remove it.
Until we can hold accountable those responsible for poisonous untruths, our democracy will remain sick and in danger of dying.
In our cul-de-sac none of us share the same political or religious views entirely, but we have a cooperative spirit that results in shoveling others’ driveways when they’re not home, and helping out when one of us is overwhelmed by work, illness or physical limitations. We don’t argue much about politics because it gets in the way of this cooperation.
At work, looking at someone crippled by COVID, I worry about how they will recover, not just their lung function, but their financial viability. It’s so devastating and so avoidable. If only these largely vaccinated politicians would quit lying to my patients, they could feel comfortable getting vaccinated. The long hospitalization, the oxygen and the long road to some semblance of a life, if they survive: It never had to happen.
