I just found out some older white guy in Texas called 911 because he was worried about Ebola. The dispatcher asked why, and he says:
I was just sitting in a restaurant next to a pilot who said he just got back from a number of European countries, including West Africa.
Brilliant. The GOP appreciates your patronage, sir.
This is the type of fear and ignorance that drives the modern right in this country.
We’ve had less than 10 cases of Ebola in the United States, and only one person has died. And people aren’t even contagious unless they’re showing symptoms. Not only that, but most people in Africa actually die from dehydration after expelling all the water and electrolytes from their systems.
But if you ask the average member of the tea party I bet you’ll get wide-eyed outrage at Obama’s leaving the gates open to imminent destruction. They’re afraid of everything. Immigrants. Taxes. Data.
Change.
We need to find a way to make people less scared. It harms our discourse and our republic.