The dangerous role of machismo in COVID19 politics

On of the things the COVID19 crisis has exposed is the kind of macho, bullish politics practiced by many on the Right. We've all seen leaders such as US president, Donald Trump and  UK prime minister, Boris Johnson play down the pandemic, dismiss experts' fears as overblown and even continue to deliberately flaunt advice on social distancing. during public appearances.

In addition we've seen  how private health provision, which has been flaunted by economic conservatives, as a universal panacea for public health woes is in no better position to deal with these kind of mass public health issues. Indeed many of the base elements on which modern Conservative dogma is based; supremacy of the private sector, the advantages of a  smaller state and the primacy of individual freedom over all other considerations, have proven to be catastrophic in dealing with a pandemic. Left unchecked  the ideas of the free market ultras will literally end up wrecking the  global economy and along with it, millions of people's lives.

In its most insidious form, this new political and ideological machismo is being expressed in the form of a return of the idea of Eugenics and the belief that the older and more vulnerable must be sacrificed in order for the global economy to survive. This is being expressed more bluntly in US conservative circles but there is a British version ,which although framed more delicately, is just as dangerous, We can see in the idea of 'herd immunity' which the  ruling British Conservative Party was so happy to promote until they realised that it would end up crushing the nation's public health system