This ‘two-siding’ approach is exactly what the media does and normalizes radical actions as a ruse for freedom. But there is no equivalent, one side is on the side of public health, the other is promoting practices that put people in danger under the disguise of freedoms. History will not treat those who forgo science kindly. To claim we are to stop hating implies the left must forgo science to appease the radical right. That is a false choice. Japan is able to do this because their people are considerate, mask wearing, public health followers… they don’t question science, or paint public health mandates as political theater. There is no scientific consensus that backs the anti masking, anti vax approach. The political theater created by the right is just plain stupidity and has no basis or consideration for the public health. Bending our policies to appease an approach that endangers all is not American. What’s next? Unban dangerous pesticides or start putting lead in our water because of a stupid political view? GTFAH

That's not my point. By treating them as "the other side", we've closed their ears to our message. I can't help but think that a different strategy would have left far fewer dead.

We're not just winning for science. We're winning for people. Their thoughts, minds, intentions, and health. The long term direction for this country. There's a meta game, and the far left and far right are both ruining it.

There is no ‘coming together’ with the denial of facts. The ‘left’ did not create ‘sides’. I believe the leaders on the ‘right’ created a public health crisis by fanning the flames of anti-science to fill their donation coffers and put people at risk. There definitely could have been more lives saved, and it’s not by denying facts but by accepting facts as facts and not demonizing our public health officials such as Dr Fauci. The ‘right’ is clearly in the wrong (as our hospitals are filled now with the unvaccinated) and bending our policies to make the stupid happy is not only inhumane, but not a rationale approach in governance. The approach should be to attack the misinformation, ban and penalize public voices that advocate mistruths, and remove funds from public officials using misinformation to fill their coffers. As the ‘right’ loved to portray: Facts don’t care about your feelings

Some of the hyper-online left believe some of things, sure. It's way less monolithic in meatspace.

The voices and apparent influence of the hyper-online (in general) has been amplified by the social isolation imposed by pandemic response. People spend less time with others "in meatspace" and a substantial portion of their online socialization is on social media platforms where the hyper-online dominate.

It would never work as well in America.

Voluntary measures tend to work well in places where people have a reasonable trust in their government, scientific and medical authorities etc.

When the government of Japan says "Please get vaccinated of your own decision, understanding both the effectiveness in preventing infectious diseases and the risk of side effects. No vaccination will be given without consent.", they can be confident that the people of Japan will take rational, sensible, well-informed action. A large proportion will get vaccinated purely because the government recommend it.

Look me in the eye and tell me you believe the same about the US populace.

That's putting things pretty charitably for a society that pushes conformity to the point of it being fairly unhealthy.

Japanese peoples' trust in govt for 2020 was actually less than that of the US's. Their vaccination rates are more likely due to their community-oriented culture rather than their trust in government officials.

https://data.oecd.org/gga/trust-in-government.htm

Interesting...

Thanks for that link, though I find it a little bit ambiguous that the measure is trust but the question asked is "In this country, do you have confidence in… national government?", which I think is slightly different to what I was alluding to which is trust in the motives of government.

For instance I trust the motives of the health establishment in the UK, but I have considerably less confidence that I will get the best outcomes from it.

Does that make sense? I wonder if it applies here and people in Japan are not confident in the ability of their government to deliver good outcomes. Whereas in the US a significant number question the motives.

Or I could just be wrong :) Always worth entertaining that possibility.

Yes, the community-oriented culture thing seems like a great explanation.

Yes that does make sense.

Perhaps this is a slightly more useful analysis: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/07/20/tokyo-olymp...

They look at peoples' opinion on specifically covid related policy, although they still don't address how this relates to opinion on health outcomes. At the same time I'm not sure if useful conclusions on vaccine policy can be drawn from these stats. Largely because the above numbers are from right before the Olympics, which would have politicized covid policy the same way it has been politicized in the US. However, while that politicization would have ended with the Olympics, the US is still stuck in the stupidity of politicizing a disease.

Perhaps a key difference between the two is that we in the US have a problem where political affiliation seemingly trumps everything. A vaccine must be rushed and risky if a republican is in charge or it must be an attempt to take away basic freedoms if a democrat is in charge etc.

Maybe if we didn't have that issue, the so-called individualists would actually act like individualists and look at all the evidence for the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

I did before the CDC waffled on mask guidance. I know why they did it, but it seriously hurt credibility for a whole lot of folks and will have long term ramifications. It became something to latch onto, and it was obvious almost immediately as it happened.

If the Republicans were pro-vaccination, the numbers would change overnight. The reason they're not is because the establishment threatened the ego of Trump, and he couldn't have any group challenge his ego.

This is all political fighting, and it's stupid.

I was pretty horrified, watching from overseas, as a lot of the covid stuff turned into a partisan R/D points-scoring exercise.

Our politicians in the UK are pretty damned incompetent, arrogant and nakedly self-interested. But to their credit they didn't turn much of it into a party-political exercise.

They f*cked it up in so many other ways though!

(I am now resident elsewhere and glad to be off plague island)

"Far-left liberal" is an oxymoron.

Liberalism is an economically right-wing, pro-capitalist ideology (this part is incompatible with leftism!), that is socially liberal (this part isn't).

In the US, due to the two-party system, liberals and leftists are forced to share a party, but that doesn't mean they want the same things.

If someone says "far left" or "far right" in America I usually interpret them talking about political culture rather than policy.

I understand that and as a leftist I find it unfortunate that my label is being used to describe people that believe in things I oppose, hence the correction.

I used to refer to people who behave poorly on the left and right as "extremists" but people then assume I oppose socialist policies, rather than me attempting to reign in behavior. I'm not sure there's better words in a contextual language like English.

You have really met the essence of this issue. There's aspects of conforming that will be long lasting and change the way politicians wield the federal bureaucracy. It is immensely important to keep perspective on the long term. Consider the impact of forcing the skeptical out of the military and from almost all federal positions. That is what we have just accomplished. No not 'skeptics', but skeptical people who will challenge a directive. People who believe that, possibly, an order might be unlawful even if it comes from a superior.