I am seeing a remarkable number of delusional recommendations in major media outlets. One example was the idea in an op-ed in the New York Times that we should be able to put the economy “on hold”. Spoken like someone who is independently wealthy, has a significant pool of savings, or gets paid whether they work or not. That accounts for, what? 1% of the population? .1% of the population? Even for them were the economy to be “put on hold”, they’d starve to death. What we need to do is to find a way of making political responses to problems more workable.
Or, this piece in the Washington Post: “Think about getting vaccinated like voting. It’s your civic duty.” Let’s do a little reality check. In the 2020 primaries voter turnout ranged from a low of under 3% to a high of 45%. Here in Illinois it was 25%. That won’t cut it for inoculations against SARS-CoV-2. 90% of people speed so that’s not a good analogy, either. How about “think of it like paying your taxes”. Almost 90% of people who actually owe taxes do that.
What should I speculate? That people who write for major media outlets lead very sheltered lives?
