Reverse Idiocracy

I didn't expect I'd have the occasion to write about Idiocracy again so soon after my recent May viewing.

But the anti-maskers -- note the similarity in that name to anti-vaxxers -- have made it so.

Of the many ways I have disagreed with the people in the MAGA crowd in the last four years, and especially in the last four months, the unwillingness to wear a mask is the one I want to talk about today. (I was going to say "the sharpest and most absurd," but truly, I consider it to be a sharper disagreement between us, and a more absurd thing to disagree about, that they hate black people.)

I should start by saying that I don't wear a mask, either. But I live in Australia, where maybe only one in 30 people can be seen wearing a mask. We just don't have coronavirus here like you do in America.

That said, when my wife diligently responded to having a sore throat by getting a COVID test, we made sure to isolate ourselves while awaiting the result. (She was negative.) And in fact, before she had a test and was just mulling over the idea, I did wear a basic surgical mask to the supermarket, as a means of protecting others from a contamination with which I might infect them.

If we lived in the U.S., we'd be wearing masks as a matter of course. We'd probably have some bespoke designer masks that we had acquired somewhere along the way these past four months.

Some people will not wear masks. They're largely of the MAGA persuasion, but not all. They don't care if they get coronavirus or give it to someone else.

Their reasoning, it appears, is that it is a restriction on their rights. That's what the sign above would indicate, but in this case, the whole "my body/my choice" argument is extremely hypocritical, if we are going to take it one step further and assume that the person carrying this sign is anti-abortion -- as the pro choice movement is, of course, where that phrasing originated. I should say, this person could be both pro choice and anti-mask -- again, trying not to make any more assumptions than necessary on who believes what.

The reason they seem to feel it infringes on their rights, though, is that they feel like a mask means you are hiding something. That's what I suspect, anyway. Whether that thing you're hiding is your own infection -- in which case, you aren't really "hiding" it, but rather, graciously trying to protect others from it -- or some secret agenda to overthrow the government -- the federal government now being something conservatives apparently support -- it's not clear. It's just that with a mask on, you can't be trusted. It's like what they used to say about people who grew beards.

One of the most absurd examples of this was when some conservative dickhead tweeted a photo of Joe Biden wearing a mask, as if the mere image were self-evidently ridiculous and/or untrustworthy. Biden was also wearing sunglasses in that shot, taking the level of "deception" one step further.

I don't actually really want to debate this issue in this post. And yes, I'm getting to the part that relates to movies.

Mike Judge's great 2006 satire, Idiocracy, presupposes that liberals who think too much are less, rather than more, likely to procreate. In an opening section that's an equal opportunity offender, these egghead liberals are lambasted for their tendency to wait on having children until they are financially stable or otherwise prepared for parenthood, mentally or emotionally. Meanwhile, careless rednecks are seen spreading their seed as far and wide as possible, causing an explosion in the population of people who have the same intellect and values that they do. And then, that population steadily weeding out everyone else over the course of 500 years.

Part of the reason it's so funny is that we secretly believe it's true. You just don't see as many conservative people waiting until they're 40 to have children as you see liberals. My wife and I are perfect examples. She's nearly 40 years older than our oldest child. We didn't wait because we were waiting to get settled in our careers, but rather, because we didn't meet each other until we were each a couple years into our 30s, and didn't marry until a few years after that. Still, others in our shoes might have been on second or third marriages by then, and already had teenagers.

What's occurring right now, though, seems to reverse Idiocracy's biological assumptions. People with conservative mindsets are now willingly taking part in behaviors that will decrease their chances of procreating, rather than increase them.

Although the more tasteful ones would scarcely own up to it, some liberals secretly rejoiced that Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Tulsa last weekend. Almost no one who attended would be caught dead wearing a mask -- and I have to wonder how those who did wear a mask explained themselves to those who didn't. Of course, not being caught dead wearing a mask meant that you could, very soon, be caught dead not wearing one. The secret rejoicing was over the notion that COVID-infected people not wearing masks would spread their infection to others, and that those people would take it home and infect their like-minded family members and acquaintances. There was an expected chain reaction of death that would purge the voter rolls of some likely Trump voters.

I don't like to openly engage in that line of reasoning because I tend to think "WWOD"? As in, What Would Obama Do? One of the great things about Barack Obama is that he taught us how to fight hard while still staying above the fray. God, I miss that guy.

But I'd be lying if I said I never thought about a thing like that, as merely a practical consideration. If nothing else, I am practical when it comes to Democratic politics. I haven't approached this election season with the idea of which Democratic candidate aligns most with my values. I've always wanted the person with the best chance of beating Trump to win the nomination, and I think we have that in Joe Biden. And if he adds Kamala Harris to his ticket, I think that will further strengthen the ticket on a practical level.

Practically speaking, having fewer voters alive who will vote for Trump also helps.

But it still amazes me that we could get to a point where conservatives -- whom we loosely and sometimes unfairly characterize as people who are only out for themselves -- would put themselves in a position where a reverse Idiocracy could be possible. Shouldn't the implied selfishness of their position make them even more likely to wear a mask? It's like they are embracing a traditionally liberal value -- the belief that society is helpful to the general cause, rather than harmful -- while liberals are telling us to be afraid of others in society, just as they should be afraid of us.

Yes indeed, somehow, it's the over-thinking liberals who are in a position to survive the current pandemic, while the conservatives will die for their beliefs.

Before Trump was elected, I had been hopeful that we would be heading towards a permanent Republican minority. Backwards ways of thinking would be steadily purged out of society as human beings inevitably evolved to be more loving and accepting of others. The election caused me to seriously rethink some of that.

But I didn't ultimately waver in my belief that society is heading in a good direction, rather than a bad one. And it's not that the bad people should be killed off, Idiocracy-style, so that the good ones may prevail. My hope was that the bad ones would steadily realize the errors of their ways as the human race evolved, and would opt to move us toward an Enligthenocracy rather than standing in its way.

And if not wearing masks helps get rid of some of those who will never evolve, and it's their violently expressed choice not to wear them, then I guess, so be it.