Just when you think CNN can't go any lower they manage to prove us wrong. On Sunday afternoon's CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta, the leftist anchor brought on Atlantic writer Kurt Anderson to claim that those who are skeptical of the COVID vaccines are akin to the Aztecs committing "mass human sacrifices."
Acosta commenced the deranged segment by asking Anderson about his article in the Atlantic which he argues "the anti-vaccine right has brought human sacrifice to America." Anderson wailed that:
Once the Republican Party decided under Donald Trump to politicize this so strictly, vaccine protocols, the public health protocols, and then once we had a vaccine that was so astoundingly effective and where refusing to take it, not taking it, led to deaths very clearly and has led to more deaths by far among people who watch Fox News, who are on the right it really -- I realized that it suddenly it wasn't just a figure of speech or a piece of rhetoric that people had used from the beginning. Left and right, mass human sacrifice but that it was real.
Anderson attempted to back up his delusional and frankly downright reckless allegations by claiming to have read "anthropological historical research". Based on that research he believes "it's not just people forced to be sacrificed in, Aztec, Mexico, or Incan, South America. There were volunteers and people were treated well and encouraged to go ahead and embrace death." Anderson then said that we are living through another mass human sacrifice "all of the features I realized made it a real thing like it has been for hundreds and thousands of years. And I really at this point have no doubt that historians in the future will see it that way."
Not wanting to be left out, Acosta decided to jump headfirst into this conspiracy-laden conversation with his own anecdotes:
You’ve also heard Republican politicians talk about, well you know there are some senior citizens they’ve lived a long life. You know sort of hinting at the fact that senior citizens have lived long enough and so on. You know before vaccines became widely available there was essentially no difference in the average COVID death rate between red states and blue states, but in the last year, CNN analysis found red states have a 52 percent higher COVID death rate than blue states. In fact, the five states with the worst per capita death rates in that time all voted for Trump.
At the end of the segment, Anderson did his best to get one more outlandish comment in and give a new take on the left's anti Second Amendment rhetoric by ranting that "Republicans have for forty years now been doing a different kind of what is effectively mass human sacrifice, in terms of gun deaths. And eliminating all gun regulation."
So for those of you keeping track at home, if you are resistant to getting the COVID vaccine for religious reasons, you are akin to the Aztecs participating in mass human sacrifices. If you're a Second Amendment supporter as well? I don't even want to imagine what Jim Acosta and Kurt Anderson would call you.
This deranged segment from two leftists on CNN accusing vaccine skeptics and Second Amendment advocates of participating in mass human sacrifices was made possible by the endorsement of Fidelity and Ensure. Their contact information is linked so you can let them know about the biased news they fund.
To read the relevant transcript of this segment click "expand":
CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta
1/30/2022
5:14:54 PM
JIM ACOSTA: In the realm of COVID misinformation it seems there is no end. Experts will quash one conspiracy theory or flat out lie only for anti-vaxxers to come up with a new one. It’s a dangerous game of pandemic whack-a-mole. One of the newest conspiracies about the COVID vaccine, well we’ll let Republican Senator Ron Johnson try to explain it.
SENATOR RON JOHNSON: We’ve heard story after story. I mean, all of these athletes dropping dead on the field. But we're supposed to ignore that. Nothing happening here. Nothing to see. This is a travesty, this is a scandal.
ACOSTA: The real reason it's not a scandal is because it's not true. And then there are people who flat out refuse to follow public health guidelines to protect others just two days after her defamation trial against the New York Times was postponed because she tested positive for COVID. There she is Sarah Palin was seen dining out in New York City on Wednesday. This comes after Palin allegedly flouted New York's COVID vaccine rules by dining indoors at the same restaurant last weekend despite being unvaccinated. All of this begs the question what is the end goal of this COVID misinformation and refusal to follow public health protocols. In a new piece in "The Atlantic" author Kurt Anderson argues the anti-vaccine right has brought human sacrifice to America and with me now to talk about that, is Kurt Anderson he is also the author of "Evil Geniuses the Unmaking of America: A Recent History." Uh Kurt, let's talk about this. You write that the right's ongoing propaganda campaign against an organized political resistance to vaccination among other public health protocols has been killing many Americans for no reasonable ethically justifiable social purpose. Let's talk about that, expand on that.
KURT ANDERSON: Well there were always going to be people who didn't want to get a vaccine. There’s been an anti-vaccine movement before there was ever a COVID vaccine of course, for the last 20 years, and wasn't all from the right. Once the Republican Party decided under Donald Trump to politicize this so strictly, vaccine protocols, the public health protocols, and then once we had a vaccine that was so astoundingly effective and where refusing to take it, not taking it, led to deaths very clearly and has led to more deaths by far among people who watch Fox News, who are on the right it really -- I realized that it suddenly it wasn't just a figure of speech or a piece of rhetoric that people had used from the beginning. Left and right, mass human sacrifice but that it was real. And so I spent some time reading the anthropological historical research and it was amazing to me how the features of this phenomenon, which has existed of course for thousands of years, really do fit what's going on here and now. I mean whether it's, happens in societies where sort of supernatural religion and governance are intertwined. That certainly is true in the American right these days. It often involves a kind of volunteers. It's not just people forced to be sacrificed in, Aztec, Mexico, or Incan, South America. There were volunteers and people were treated well and encouraged to go ahead and embrace death. On and on and on, all of the features I realized made it a real thing like it has been for hundreds and thousands of years. And I really at this point have no doubt that historians in the future will see it that way.
ACOSTA: Yeah Kurt, I remember during the you know, beginning months of this pandemic going to a Trump rally, talking to a Trump supporter about why he didn't have a mask on. And he said if I die, I die. You know? It's that kind of mentality. And you’ve also heard Republican politicians talk about, well you know there are some senior citizens they’ve lived a long life. You know sort of hinting at the fact that senior citizens have lived long enough and so on. You know before vaccines became widely available there was essentially no difference in the average COVID death rate between red states and blue states, but in the last year, CNN analysis found red states have a 52 percent higher COVID death rate than blue states. In fact, the five states with the worst per capita death rates in that time all voted for Trump. Talk about that.
ANDERSON: Well, and it's even more intense, and what I saw when I saw this analysis last fall, on a county level. The correlation between Trumpist voting, redness of a county. At the county level. 3,000 counties ranked from most to least Trumpy, if you will, it just -- step by step. Every 10% up the line toward redness, the numbers, the chances of dying of COVID are greater. So the correlation was astonishing to me and that's what made me really begin looking at this correlation you know, as you say. Back at the beginning when people were quarantining or not, masking or not, whatever, there wasn't much difference between the rate at which Republicans and Democrats and independents died. There just wasn't. But now, in the last year, and just starting as soon as there were vaccines available, there were. And it really, strikes me that this is like, so much like the mass human sacrifices in societies in the past which took place in large complex empires, not unlike ours. It wasn't primitive what we would then call primitive tribes, they were big, complex societies and that's what we’re seeing here.
And by the way, it was done by those societies and by the elites in those societies in order to reinforce their political power and often their non-egalitarian societies, which, again, strikes me as very comparable to what's going on here and now.
ACOSTA: And Kurt this is all very grim but you did find reason for hope as you were putting this piece together. Tell us about that.
ANDERSON: Well again, as I was looking at all the anthropological scholarship and some of the more recent anthropological scholarship which is based on these massive databases from dozens and scores and hundreds of societies over hundreds and thousands of years. Yes, there is new emerging scholarship. It hasn't been formally published yet, but the researchers said, have talked about it, and they have found that over a certain size of society, in the many millions, that it's un -- it's unsustainable historically. That societies, larger societies as they get larger find the injustice involved in you old people, you weak people, you people of low status who are being sacrificed. That just became untenable and it was changed. So perhaps, perhaps, this revival of mass human sacrifice in the United States is just a passing thing that will go away, but as I was thinking about it on the other hand, the Republicans have for forty years now been doing a different kind of what is effectively mass human sacrifice, in terms of gun deaths. And eliminating all gun regulation. Which is a different version of the same kind of, of kind of belief in that –
[crosstalk]
ACOSTA: Maximalist view of freedom over lives. Yeah.
ANDERSON: Precisely.
ACOSTA: Yeah. All right, Kurt Anderson. Thank you so much for your time. Gave us a lot to think about. We appreciate it.
ANDERSON: My pleasure. Thank you.
