How (Some) Conservatives Can’t (or Won’t) Think: a Textbook Example

A few years ago I was having a conversation with a conservative social services administrator about the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”). She wanted to let me know that despite all the press about how the ACA had improved people’s lives it was in fact terrible because some people under her care were gaming the system. Huh? What does the behavior of a small number of people in Lower Manhattan have to do with how the ACA has benefited millions of people across the country? Her view was akin to saying, “I can’t believe these stupid people on the highways who don’t obey the speed limits. We should just get rid of speed limits altogether.” Did she have an axe to grind? Well, being the conservative that she is, she was never a fan of President Obama. But her reasoning, if it can be called that, came back to me after I had a recent Twitter exchange with a Trump supporter about Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s response to the Covid-19 crisis in her country of New Zealand. The catalyst that sparked our exchange was this fine essay by Umair Haque. Some key highlights:

She’s not just the anti-Donald, though. She’s the anti-Bolsonaro, the anti-Boris-Johnson, the anti-Nigel, the anti-Putin, anti-Modi. She’s the literal antithesis in every way of the strongman politics that have swept across the globe like a volcanic eruption of mass…