Get ready to hear a lot of this from the hard left in the media: According to MSNBC host Chris Hayes, conservatives, Republicans and Donald Trump are ready to kill a “million” senior citizens as a way of saving the economy from the coronavirus. Hayes opened Monday's All In show by comparing it to similar “right wing ideas,” such as being okay with air pollution, even if it kills people with lung disease.
Hayes slimed, “And now, after about a week of that economic dislocation, as we continue to climb up the exponential curve of cases and of deaths, the President is now listening to voices on the right that say, ‘Really, what's a million seniors when you're thinking about the whole economy?’”
Seriously? This is what passes for opinion journalism on MSNBC? Accusing your opponents of actively seeking the deaths of a million senior citizens. The All In host then backtracked, but only “slightly,” saying, “That’s slightly caricatured, but only slightly because there's a growing chorus of voices on the right saying the benefit of keeping people alive is not worth the cost to the economy.”
The coronavirus is also just like air pollution, which conservatives also apparently support:
I should note: This has been a central conservative, right wing idea forever. It's the same reason there are arguments for why we don't need clean air regulations, even if tens of thousands of people die every year of lung disease from additional pollution. It’s just now it’s being applied in this extreme case in the midst of a global pandemic and a growing exponential curve.
Later, Hayes insisted “There's a sort of question about the value of human life and who we care for and care about and what societal decisions we make and how we calculate the tradeoffs.” The value of human life? It probably goes without saying, but Hayes is a staunch supporter of abortion.
A partial transcript is below:
MSNBC's All In
03/23/2020
8:01 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS HAYES: And now, after about a week of that economic dislocation, as we continue to climb up the exponential curve of cases and deaths, the President is now listening to voices on the right that say, “Really, what's a million seniors when you're thinking about the whole economy?” That’s slightly caricatured, but only slightly because there's a growing chorus of voices on the right saying the benefit of keeping people alive is not worth the cost to the economy.
(....)
8:03 p.m.
STEVE HILTON [on FNC's The Next Revolution, 03/22/20]: Our ruling class and their TV mouth pieces whipping up fear over this virus. They can afford an indefinite shutdown. Working Americans can’t. They’ll be crushed by it. You know that famous phrase? “The cure is worse than the disease?” That is exactly the territory we are hurtling towards.
CHRIS HAYES: There was a viral medium post making basically that argument and now right wing law professor Richard Epstein, who is circulating the version, that the cost is not worth the benefit. I should note: This has been a central conservative, right wing idea forever, it's the same reason there are arguments for why we don't need clean air regulations, even if tens of thousands of people die every year of lung disease from additional pollution. It’s just now it’s being applied in this extreme case in the midst of a global pandemic and a growing exponential curve.
(....)
HAYES: I think there's two cases here. One there's a sort of question about the value of human life and who we care for and care about and what societal decisions we make and how we calculate the tradeoffs.
