Dan Crenshaw’s opponent in his upcoming Congressional race attempted a weak hit today by releasing an ad claiming that “over 100” doctors had begged Crenshaw to “stop spreading COVID-19 disinformation.” Given we are dealing with a leftist here, I assume that’s code for “promoting anything but useless, harmful lock downs.” After all, no amount of serious, good faith discussion can happen with those that think people must live in a bubble for the next two years or that we’ll all die.
As per our usual arrangement, the Never Trump contingent immediately fell for this because they don’t have the capacity or want to take five minutes and check the facts.
ouch https://t.co/bZqnaMSUpD
— Tim Miller (@Timodc) September 29, 2020
Ouch indeed. As it turns out, nothing about this ad is reality. Instead, it follows a pattern of political partisans attempting to use their credentials as a bludgeon. Upon a closer inspection, it turns out these aren’t “Houston’s medical heroes.” In fact, many of them don’t even live in Texas.
This is untrue
I’ve looked up 10 of the doctors who signed this thing and 8 of them are from out of Texas. Three of them are still residents, less than 2 years out of medical school.
As you said: Ouch
I would be a bit embarrassed to be taken in with so little skepticism
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) September 29, 2020
Being taken with so little skepticism is to be expected for someone of Miller’s abilities, but I digress.
In reality, Crenshaw has spread no misinformation about the coronavirus. He has opined about the importance of opening schools, noting how safe children are from the disease, but that happens to also be the truth. He’s also spoken against lock downs, which studies now show did nothing to stop the virus in the long run while causing great economic and mental devastation for the country. Our scientific experts and many politicians were wrong for pushing them. Crenshaw deserves credit for calling them out, not scorn.
Regardless, this trend of having “experts” sign letters for partisan reasons is extremely damaging to trust in our institutions. In this case, people should be able to trust the medical community without worrying they are going to give biased commentary to suit their own political narratives. We’ve seen this dynamic with former DOJ officials scolding Bill Barr when he’s clearly did nothing wrong. We’ve also seen this with certain CDC and NIH officials who can’t keep their stories straight about things like masks. The public have lost trust and they are right to do so.
In the end, Crenshaw will handily defeat whoever this Democrat opponent is. It’s just sad to see so many who formerly claimed to “conservative” participate in nonsense like this.
(Please follow me on Twitter! @bonchieredstate)
