How the Right Weaponizes Monkeypox
By Kevin Howley, August 9, 2022
Last week, the Biden administration declared Monkeypox a national health emergency. The White House announcement came two weeks after the World Health Organization (WHO) pronounced the viral disease outbreak a global emergency. For US public health experts, the President’s declaration was long overdue.
Stella Safo, an HIV primary care physician and the founder of Just Equity for Health, said: “We’ve been watching a slow moving trainwreck. The concern is that if you don’t declare a state of emergency for a new infectious disease, we won’t get the resources and the attention we need to really control it.”
In its latest report on the growing crisis, WHO noted: “In the last week of July, the United States saw the largest spike in cases.” That news ought to be cause for alarm, but in the right wing media sphere, it’s an occasion to whip up the Republican base ahead of the midterms—and to do a little old-fashioned gay bashing in the bargain.
Infectious disease experts are quick to point out that while Monkeypox primarily affects men who have sex with men, it is not a “gay disease.”
Try telling that to conservatives and the religious self-righteous eager to exploit the health emergency to score political points.
Sampling right wing media demonstrates how Republican operatives and so-called “Christian” conservatives are weaponizing Monkeypox for a variety of nefarious ends.
Health Emergency or Leftwing Hysteria
Following Biden’s emergency declaration, RedState set the tone for subsequent coverage and commentary in conservative media. “To the leftwing hysteric, declaring Monkeypox a public health emergency seems like common sense. To the rest of us, it’s completely asinine and political.”
The Free Beacon leveraged valid criticism of the White House’s sluggish response to the health emergency to take a swipe at affirmative action in the person of Xavier Becerra, Biden’s Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). “Alas, Becerra probably won’t be fired for the same reason he was hired. Because of his race and the so-called diversity he brings to the administration.”
Likening the Monkeypox outbreak to the early years of the AIDS crisis, WND offered this none-too subtle advice for gay men: “When we follow the Creator’s instruction manual, we have a much better chance of survival.” This from commentary labeled, without a hint of irony, “Judgement and Mercy.”
Headlined, “Here We Go Again—The Woke Democratization of Monkeypox,” The American Spectator taps into Covid fatigue to downplay the risk associated with this latest epidemic. “We’re seeing yet another attempt at making a fairly specific pathogen into something for all of us—as indeed has been the case with Covid, in which virtually everyone who has died had at least one comorbidity and probably several.” In other words, for some conservatives, over 1 million (and counting) Americans dying from Covid is a nothing burger.
DeSantis and Carlson Weigh In
Echoing the GOP’s irresponsible response to Covid-19, conservatives are the ones politicizing a public health crisis. To that end, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis got out in front of the White House’s emergency declaration earlier in the week with an unhealthy dose of fear mongering.
“You see some of these states [California, Illinois, New York] declaring states of emergency,” DeSantis told reporters. “They’re going to abuse those emergency powers to restrict your freedom. I guarantee you that’s what will happen.”
The would-be 2024 Republican presidential candidate said as much despite the inconvenient truth that, as of this writing, Florida has upwards of 500 confirmed Monkeypox cases—the third highest infection rate in the country.
Finally, noting concerns about the racist overtones of the label, Fox News troll Tucker Carlson encouraged viewers to vent their homophobic and partisan sentiments by renaming Monkeypox.
“As long as they’re going to change the name,” Carlson said, “we should have some role in naming it. It shouldn’t be left up to Tony Fauci and Deborah Birx, so what should we call it?”
Tucker Carlson further goaded his audience. “Democracypox? Schlong Covid? Tweet us your suggestions. We’ll read the best ones tomorrow.”
Leave it to Mr. Carlson, who’s made a career of cheerleading authoritarians, both foreign and domestic, to crowdsource intolerance and indifference in the midst of another public health emergency.
Kevin Howley is a writer and educator whose work has appeared in Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, Social Movement Studies, and Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture. His most recent book is Drones: Media Discourse and the Public Imagination.
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While Infectious disease experts explain that Monkeypox primarily affects men who have sex with men, they insist it is not a gay disease. Try telling that to conservatives eager to exploit the health emergency to score political points. (Photo: bkreader)
