Back in the day, the left was all about protesting for rights for marginalized people, and the right fought for a more individualistic, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps ideology.
Another thread from Kelly, this time on something I've also noticed in my life: this individualistic right-wing ideology in left-leaning friends:
Had a discussion with a friend on CDC isolation guidelines and how we’re fostering a culture of eugenics and forced infection. Their response? “More like we’re just finally going to stop paying people to sit at home.”
This is someone who had been a kind and logical person. This type of personality shift is one of the aspects of the pandemic that bothers me the most. This person was kind and considerate and never opposed paid time off. Now they’ve become angry, intolerant and spew right wing rhetoric despite claiming to not belong to any “side.”
It started with the stay at home orders in 2020. Despite having negligible impact on my friend (no children, work was not impacted, not a big socializer) they started becoming angry. Then the mask mandates spurred that anger on. In their mind they were young and healthy and therefore had no reason to worry and felt no responsibility to protect others (despite being close friends with a severely vulnerable person - me). Slowly they started listening to right wing podcasts and influencers. We fell out of contact when the vaccine mandates rolled out because they didn’t want any reminder of the vulnerable people “forcing” decisions on them. I tried to explain that people like me were not the ones dictating mandates - but it didn’t matter. Once mandates were dropped they got back in touch - because now their life was “back to normal.” Suddenly they could tolerate me again.
Meanwhile I’m still isolated because of my risk factors and the fact that most people won’t take any precautions to keep me safe. I attempted to mend fences and we plodded along for a while - until the CDC isolation decision last week. I was shocked when my friend expressed it was a good thing so people stopped being paid to stay home and “coddled.” The lack of compassion they showed for people who are genuinely sick and need to be able to stay home and recover was upsetting. This is what pandemic division has created. Four years of listening to right wing propaganda has turned my previously kind friend into an uncaring person. A person who sees the worst in people and only cares about those they see as similar to them. If you’re not actively contributing to the economy, if you’re not healthy, if you aren’t financially well off… you’re “less than” in their eyes.
I tell this story because this is not an unusual situation. Many disabled people have lost friends and family members in much the same way over the last four years. Being disabled can be incredibly isolating at the best of times - and we are NOT in the best of times. This is why we push back against hateful rhetoric that disabled people are less than or don’t deserve safe access to healthcare and public spaces. This is why we are being loud about the CDC decision to reduce isolation requirements to one day. It’s not because it’s fun for us - we want the pandemic to be over as much as everyone else (probably more). But we also recognize that if people who love us are turning on us because they blame us for losing their sense of “normal” - we aren’t safe anywhere. How can we possibly get strangers to care enough to do the right thing when people who supposedly love us are unwilling?
So please - be kinder to disabled people speaking up for their safety. You’re just one infection or accident away from becoming like us and you won’t be treated any better when that happens. If we protect our MOST vulnerable we will ALL benefit. The division and anger and constant “othering” of people needs to stop. Covid doesn’t care if you’re left or right leaning - healthy or unhealthy. We all share the air, and until we start working together things are never going to improve. We can choose to be more compassionate. We can choose to support clean air initiatives, masking in healthcare and paid sick time so people CAN isolate when ill. We don’t need to accept constant sickness as our new normal. We can fight back.
Then someone commented,
You’re demanding that everyone cater to you, while saying because they don’t want cater to you, they’re bad people. You’re also saying that because of your much greater needs, you qualify as a larger victim, and that you therefor have more rights in society as someone higher up on the victimhood scale. People completely resent this. I want a stay at home Cush job. I want people to listen to my concerns about my health even when it means they have to inconvenience themselves. I have to wear ear plugs because my hearing is hypersensitive, you don’t see me bitching that concerts are too loud. Ultimately, you are more sickly because you are stressed about it. Live your life, or don’t, but stop telling other people they have to stop living theirs.
Kelly's response:
Actually you missed the point entirely and are proving mine without even realizing it. If you can’t have compassion for those less fortunate than you - scroll on by. I was incredibly fit and healthy - until I wasn’t. I advocate to try and help others so they don’t learn the hard way.
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