Trump's Chickens May Be Coming Home to Roost - Carrying H5N1 Bird Flu

AI-generated image (ChatGPT 4o)

Americans don’t think bird flu is a threat, study suggests - CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy

Elephant seals, killed by H5N1 'bird flu' on an Argentine beach.

Ralph Vanstreels, (UC Davis).

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Donald Trump panicked when he realised that, in his eagerness to undo everything associated with Barack Obama, he had dismantled critical contingency plans for dealing with pandemics and allowed the national stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE) to fall into disrepair. These actions left the United States ill-prepared for a public health crisis of such magnitude. Trump and his cronies promptly went into damage-limitation mode, i.e., blame everyone else (the buck stops over there!)

Rather than accepting responsibility, Trump—seemingly incapable of admitting error—chose to downplay the severity of the virus, which he referred to as the "Chaynees Vayrus". He repeatedly told Americans that COVID-19 was a mild illness that would "disappear" with the arrival of warmer weather in April (New York Times, 2020; Washington Post, 2020.1), ignoring both scientific advice and the obvious fact that seasonal changes vary globally, and that high temperatures do not neutralise the SARS-CoV-2 virus (WHO, 2020.2).

Having politicised the pandemic from the outset, Trump targeted public health officials such as Dr Anthony Fauci, whose science-based guidance often contradicted the president’s misleading statements (Science, 2020.3). Trump further encouraged scepticism toward basic mitigation measures such as social distancing, avoiding large gatherings, and wearing face masks. As a result, the wearing of masks was quickly stigmatised by many on the political right in the United States as a symbol of liberal or left-wing allegiance (Nature Human Behaviour, 2021). The consequences were stark: the White House itself became a hotspot for infections (BBC, 2020.4), and Trump’s campaign rallies became notorious super-spreader events (CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 2021.1).
And the death toll in the USA was the highest by far of any developed nation, and higher than almost all under-developed economies with rudimentary health services¹.

This cultivated scepticism was eagerly adopted and amplified by conspiracy theorists within the Trump-supporting QAnon movement. A flood of increasingly absurd claims followed, including that the pandemic was a hoax, that vaccines contained nanotechnology to allow government tracking via Bill Gates, and even that the vaccines could alter DNA to change an individual’s sexual orientation (MIT Technology Review, 2021.2; Pew Research Center, 2020.5).

Underlying this environment of mistrust was a population that had, for decades, been influenced by creationist front groups such as the Discovery Institute. These organisations have consistently worked to undermine public confidence in science, promoting the narrative that science is a conspiracy by a secretive elite seeking to destroy spiritual values and replace "Christian America" with a secular, left-leaning "Darwinist" society (Forrest & Gross, Creationism's Trojan Horse, 2004; Branch & Scott, National Center for Science Education, 2009).

Trumpanzee News - How QAnon Lured Gullible People Into The Trumpanzee Cult

How people get sucked into misinformation rabbit holes – and how to get them out

From our perspective in Europe, it seems almost incomprehensible how the political situation in the USA has degenerated to such an extent that Donald Trump may be elected as POTUS again, despite the incompetence, buffoonery and criminality that characterised his earlier term.

What was once the 'shining beacon on the hill', which set the rest of the world an example (albeit more than a little idealised) of how democracy operated to produce a prosperous, egalitarian society where aspiration and enterprise were rewarded and the economy worked for all, has degenerated to warring factions, full of mutual hate and fueled by the most ludicrous and lurid conspiracy theories.

A significant number of adult Americans now believe there is a 'deep state' run by senior Democrats, that operates as a Satanic paedophile cult and that the serial adulterer, insurrectionist and crook, Donald Trump, was personally appointed by God as their saviour, because God obviously takes a keen interest in US politics and would pick someone with a narcissistic personality disorder to do his work for him. This god also promised to ensure Trump was reelected 2020, so the fact that he was kicked out of office must have been due to the same deep state/Democrat conspiracy to steal the election - and then hide the evidence where even God can't guide Trump's supporters to it.

And of course, the serious criminal charges Trump is now facing in a number of different US courts, are all part of that conspiracy, as are the judges, prosecutors and prosecution witnesses, so the more damming the evidence and the more charges he faces are evidence of the conspiracy, not evidence of Trump's guilt and unsuitability to hold elected office, let alone be in charge of a nuclear arsenal and the US public finances, and able to appoint senior members of the judiciary.

The only real conspiracy in the USA is that run by the shadowy and rabidly far-right, pro-Trump QAnon, so how did the QAnon cult lure so many people down their particular paranoid rabbit hole to the extent that they are prepared to take up arms against their fellow countrymen and stage an attempted coup d'etat in the name of patriotism?

Trumpanzee News - What Causes People to Fall For Conspiracy Theories?

Bullying, power and control: why people believe in conspiracy theories and how to respond

A supporter of President Donald Trump, seen wearing a QAnon shirt, is confronted by Capitol Police officers outside the Senate Chamber during the invasion of the U.S. Capitol

Credit: AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

It's probably hard for rationl people to understand why some people fall for such ludicrous conspiracy theories as the QAnon hoax that Donald Trump was fighting the Satanic cannibalistic paedophile ring led by Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama that is secretly running the 'deep state', or that the 2020 election was stolen (apparently without leaving a trace of evidence that would stand up in court). The same fruit loops have also been convinced that the odious liar, crook, serial adulterer, and incompetent narcissist, Trump was send by God to fight Satan and that God had told various self-appointed 'prophets' that Trump would win by a landslide in 2020, so he must have done really.

As it became more and more apparent just how badly Trump lost, being the only presidential candidate in American political history to lose the popular vote twice and that Joe Biden had won it by a record margin, so the conspiracy theories became more and more lurid.

So why do some credulous fools fall for these unlikely theories, usually involving vast secret conspiracies such as the entire scientific community together with all their technical and administrative staff and everyone involved in publishing scientific books, periodicals and papers, or senior military leaders and heads of government of even hostile states, together with their advisors and civil service?

In the following article, reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license, Daniel Jolley, Assistant Professor in Social Psychology, University of Nottingham, UK and Anthony, Lantian, Associate Professor in Psychology, Université Paris Nanterre – Université Paris Lumières, France, explain the psychology and the social causes of this gullibility and readiness to believe the patently absurd. The article, the original of which can be read here, is reformatted for stylistic consistence.

Fake News - Why People Believe False Stories and Disinformation

Why We Fall for Disinformation | Psychology Today

In a report published recently by the US Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) a team of psychologists analysed the reasons why so many people are falling for disinformation. The problem us due to the way we have evolved to deal with information and the fact that this has ill-prepared us to deal with the vast amount of information now being directed at us by modern technology.

In fact, some of the time-tested tools make us dangerously vulnerable to disinformation, especially disinformation designed to mislead and garner support for extremist groups for whom the truth would be toxic. We see this today in the form of disinformation about, for example, COVID-19, the measures to reduce its spread and the vaccines designed to protect us from it. We also see it in relation to politics, political movements and parties, international affairs, religious fundamentalism and anti-science propaganda, such as climate change and evolution, and especially conspiracy theories such as those promulgated by QAnon and former President, Donald Trump's supporters, intended to radicalise, undermine confidence in institutions, and garner support for extreme solutions to non-existent problems.

In other words, disinformation campaigns are designed to benefit those whom the report calls 'malign actors', for whom the truth would be dangerous and who know they need their target marks to believe falsehoods and mistrust the evidence.

In the abstract to their report, the psychologists, Heather Wolters, Kasey Stricklin, Neil Carey, and Megan K. McBride, say:

QAnon/COVID Conspiracy News - The Flights of Fancy Go Stratospheric

Dr Bryan Ardis, Chiropractor and acupuncturist.
"Covid-19 is not a virus, it's snake venom" [sic]

The King Cobra Venom Pandemic: Stew Peters Unveils a New COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory | Right Wing Watch

It's amazing how, the more QAnon's ludicrous conspiracy theories are debunked, the more risible they became in trying to justify them, like toddlers caught with their hands in the cookie jar, rather than admit the game's up and they've been rumbled.

The even more amazing thing is that adults, even adults holding responsible positions, like Representative Marjorie Taylor-Green (R-GA 13) and Senator Doug Mastriano (R-PA 33) continue to fall for these tactics.

One example of how far into the stratosphere QAnon conspiracists have gone in the justification for opposing measures to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic, which is about to achieved its millionth American death, on the grounds that it's all a plot, somehow linked to a Satanic, cannibalistic paedophile, deep state conspiracy run by Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama and the Pope, and including Bill Gates, Andrew Faucci and others, is the so-called 'explosive report' by medical quackticioner, Dr. Bryan Ardis.

His 'explosive' report which he revealed on the far right Stew Peters Show, is that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 is not a virus at all but a modified snake venom which is passed on deliberately in drinking water. Seriously!

Here is how he arrived at that conclusion, not by analysis of drinking water, or by subjecting samples of the virus to biochemical analysis, but by a form of logic of which any self-respecting toddler might be proud, until they grew up enough to cringe in embarrassment at their childish thinking.

Here is his 'reasoning':

Trumpanzee QAnon Fruitloop News - Update on Covidiot Cirsten Weldon's COVID-19 Death

Cirsten Weldon, Pro-Trump, Antivaxx QAnon conspiracist.
Died of COVID-19, 04 Jan, 2022.

Cirsten Weldon, a prominent Trumpanzee and QAnon conspiracist and antivaxxer, who earned her living tell gullible fools that only idiots get vaccinated, died of COVID-19 on January 4, 2022, in Camarillo, California.

Her fellow conspiracy theorists have now dreamed up an even more preposterous conspiracy theory: that she is still alive and in 'protective custody' having faked her own death. I wonder if, like Elvis, she'll turn up working in a chip shop near you, in the not too distant future.

Is there no lower limit to the credulity of these idiots? Certainly QAnon hasn't found it yet. They even think Trump was a competent POTUS!

To begin with, as I reported at the time:

Covidiot Antivaxx News - The Child-Like QAnon Dupes are Turning to Violence to Avoid Facing the Truth.

Kirsten Weldon, Pro-Trump, Antivaxx QAnon conspiracist.
Died of COVID-19, 04 Jan, 2022.

'It's Gonna Get Bloody': Anti-Vax QAnon Conspiracy Theorist Scott McKay Threatens to Put 'Bullets Inside' Health Care Providers | Right Wing Watch

A couple of weeks ago, Cirsten Weldon, a vociferous Pro-Trump QAnon conspiracist and antivaxxer, died in hospital of COVID-19, another in a long line of similar covidiot antivaxx nutters, so doing their bit for the self-inflicted genocide being waged by Trumpanzee cult loons against their own core supporters.

According to this report in the Daily Beast: