November 30, 2021

Dear Lara Logan & Fox News: Stop the Nazi Analogies.

 

You can have your opinions, but leave the Nazis out of it.

“I can’t believe they are doing that again.”

These were the words of a friend. He said this after hearing about the Omicron variant and potential lockdowns in the upcoming weeks.

I understand the frustration, but I think the they-did-this-to-us narrative is our biggest problem right now.

Does anyone really think that scientists enjoy sharing bad news with us? Does anyone still believe that this is about politics?

I guess folks who regularly watch Fox News might feel this way. I blame the rhetorics of folks like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and, now, Lara Logan for this.

Why? Let me explain.

You don’t have to be a fan of Dr. Anthony Fauci to acknowledge that he probably knows more about contagious diseases than an anchorman on Fox News. You don’t have to be a communist to believe in face masks. And you don’t have to be a scientist to know that viruses evolve over time.

Denial can be a way of responding to trauma—and I feel that’s exactly what we are witnessing these days.

The reason why folks keep bashing experts like Dr. Fauci, blame politics for a virus, and reject vaccines is not that they know any better; it’s because they don’t want to know any better.

The information is out there, but it’s not what they want to hear. The pandemic is far from being over. This winter could become even more challenging than last winter. I know, it’s frustrating.

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, we can agree to disagree on many things, but nobody is entitled to create their own facts. COVID-19 is real. People are dying.

Opposing mask mandates and vaccines while denying the dangers of this virus is not an opinion because it is based on misinformation. It’s one thing to say that you don’t like swimming and another to deny that water is wet. Saying that water isn’t wet because you don’t like swimming is not an opinion—it’s just an incorrect statement.

Unfortunately, we are already at the point where folks can’t even agree on that. It seems as if we live in different realities. One side is worried about new variants, and the other side wants to pretend that there is no pandemic.

We might have to accept that some folks are just too traumatized, frustrated, and tired to deal with facts. It’s sad, but it is what it is. It will take years to heal these wounds caused by this pandemic on so many levels.

And I don’t want to be angry at folks who are struggling. I don’t want to make fun of folks who voluntarily watch Fox News. I don’t hate people who are not capable of processing information. I blame the educational system and not the people suffering because of it.

But there is a limit. There are red lines that we should not cross—and Lara Logan just crossed that line.

Fooling folks into the they-did-this-to-us narrative is dangerous because it implies that there is someone to blame. It suggests that there is someone profiting from this pandemic—and that’s what scares people.

Fox News is feeding this fear by featuring so-called experts who blame Democrats, China, and Dr. Fauci for this pandemic. Again, it’s one thing to criticize actions or opinions, but it’s another to vilify the messenger.

How about just accepting that this pandemic is terrible? How about acknowledging that folks are dying? How about solutions?

But you know what, I don’t even expect that anymore.

I guess I have to accept that some folks are just not willing to go into another lockdown or cancel their holiday plans. If someone thinks that a trip to Florida or Mexico is more important than stopping a global pandemic, I have to accept that—but there is one thing that I will never accept or tolerate.

Dear Fox News, dear Lara Logan, dear parent at the school board meeting, please stop these Nazi comparisons.

Nobody should use the biggest crimes against humanity to make their case. The moment someone decides to compare mask mandates to the holocaust, we need to stop them immediately.

As a society, we have to be able to agree on some values and ethics—even if we disagree on almost everything else.

We can agree to disagree—and we have to get better at that—but we cannot randomly compare everything we dislike to Nazis. And yes, that also goes for Liberals putting Conservatives on the same level as Nazis.

Nobody should ever feel entitled to compare anything to the crimes committed by the Nazis. They systematically killed millions of people. Nothing justifies exploiting these crimes to make a case in any argument. It’s offensive, disrespectful, and simply not acceptable.

I don’t know how to end this pandemic—and I am pretty sure that nobody at Fox News knows how to end it. Maybe we just have to accept that this is going to be another challenging winter. And it’s totally okay to feel frustrated, angry, or scared about that.

The ongoing pandemic is scary enough, but what scares me even more is that we have reached a point where Lara Logan compares Dr. Fauci to Josef Mengele without getting interrupted on national TV.

If we accept that, we have a problem that is far bigger than COVID-19.

 

 

 

Read 3 Comments and Reply
X

Read 3 comments and reply

Top Contributors Latest

Robert Busch  |  Contribution: 160,835

author: Robert Busch

Image: Insider News/Twitter Screenshot

Image: Auschwitz Memorial/Twitter