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# It’s Just Politics
- URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/its-just-politics/
- Published: 2020-05-20T14:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2020-05-20T14:00:00.000Z
- Author: Matt Birchler
- Tags: Links, covid-19, #Import 2023-06-01 22:41, #Import 2025-03-29 19:29

[Opinion | When the Mask You’re Wearing ‘Tastes Like Socialism’ - The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/opinion/coronavirus-trump-partisanship.html?ref=birchtree.me)

> From the perspective of moral foundations theory, conservatives’ greater concern for purity and fear of contamination would suggest that they would respond more vigorously to a virus than would liberals. This was indeed the case with the Ebola crisis during the Obama Administration when conservative voices often expressed extreme concern about and even fear of Ebola spreading in the United States, while roundly criticizing President Obama’s more measured reaction.

It’s worth noting Ebola claimed 2 lives in the US, and only 4 people contracted it in the US. [The Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola%5Fvirus%5Fcases%5Fin%5Fthe%5FUnited%5FStates?ref=birchtree.me) on the topic has multiple paragraphs devoted to all 4 people! About 1,600 people died yesterday from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, which is an improvement from a few weeks ago, if you wanted to compare the scale of these viruses.