https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1380862134221946881
Nearly 40% of Marines have declined the Covid-19 vaccine
Nearly 40% of US Marines are declining Covid-19 vaccinations, according to data provided to CNN on Friday by the service, the first branch to disclose service-wide numbers on acceptance and declina…
cnn.com
7:36 AM · Apr 10, 2021
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/09/politics/marines-coronavirus-vaccines/index.html
>Nearly 40% of Marines have declined the Covid-19 vaccine
this means it's probably closer to 60%
https://twitter.com/Sam6869/status/1380965595261267968
'An existential threat': The Republicans calling for their party to reject QAnon conspiracy theories https://cnn.com/2021/04/10/politics/qanon-republican-party-congress/index.html #CNN #GOP #QOP #ConspiracyTheories #QANon #QANonsense
'An existential threat': The Republicans calling for their party to reject QAnon conspiracy theories
Republican Rep. Peter Meijer has a warning for his party: He fears baseless conspiracy theories like QAnon will destroy the GOP from within if Republicans don't decisively and unequivocally condemn…
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/10/politics/qanon-republican-party-congress/index.html
Republican Rep. Peter Meijer has a warning for his party: He fears baseless conspiracy theories like QAnon will destroy the GOP from within if Republicans don't decisively and unequivocally condemn the false and dangerous beliefs and take action to stop their spread.
"The fact that a significant plurality, if not potentially a majority, of our voters have been deceived into this creation of an alternate reality could very well be an existential threat to the party," Meijer, who was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump for inciting the deadly attack at the US Capitol, told CNN in an interview.
Frequently described as a virtual cult, QAnon is a sprawling far-right conspiracy theory that promotes the absurd and false claim that Trump has been locked in a battle against a shadowy cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles made up of prominent Democratic politicians and liberal celebrities. Members of the violent pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol had ties to QAnon, and the conspiracy theory has made its way from online message boards into the political mainstream in recent years.
"When we say QAnon, you have the sort of extreme forms, but you also just have this softer, gradual undermining of any shared, collective sense of truth," Meijer said. The Michigan freshman believes conspiracy theories fuel "incredibly unrealistic and unachievable expectations" and "a cycle of disillusionment and alienation" that could lead conservative voters to sit out elections or, in a worst-case scenario, turn to political violence, like what happened on January 6.
How deeply far-right conspiracy theories take hold within the Republican Party, and what the party does to either embrace or reject them, will have major consequences for the future of the GOP and American politics.
Meijer is far from the only Republican in Congress disturbed by the rise of QAnon, but he is one of a rare few willing to publicly and repeatedly denounce it.