(Illustration: ‘The Order of Chaos,’ by Osnat Tzadok, and found here).

Here we are this early-evening Wednesday in California’s Central Valley, while across the country there’s shit popping like stones on pond water. As we’re still neck-deep in a dangerous pandemic, the disorder in attempts at order is way-inflamed by idiots.
Congress is half full of them.

Despite the urgent need, federal COVID relief is pending upon idiots to okay the deal — even though the vast majority of Americans support it. A new Politico/Morning Consult poll released this morning shows people know what’s right:

In the poll, which was conducted Feb. 19-22 among 2,013 registered voters and has a margin of error of 2-percentage points, 76-percent said they back the stimulus package, including 52-percent who said they “strongly” support the bill. Only 17-percent of voters said they oppose it.

Support is highest among Democrats, 70-percent of whom said they strongly back the legislation, which includes $1,400 in direct payments to some Americans, $350 billion in emergency funding for state and local governments, funding to support the reopening of K-12 schools and higher education and an extension of increased unemployment benefits until September. Nineteen percent said they somewhat support it.

A combined 71-percent of independents said they support the stimulus package, compared with 22-percent who oppose it.

While Republicans offered the lowest amount of support, more than half of GOP voters still back the stimulus package at 60-percent. Thirty percent said they somewhat or strongly oppose the package.

Why the disconnect? Republicans in Congress are fighting it, while rank-and-file GOPers out in the country way-support with a strong majority. The problem is the decisive nature of America right now, deeply divided by the T-Rump-infiuenced Republican party, with an outreach that covers a lot of ground.
And in context to COVID, the idiocy keeps the death count high due to misinformation spouted by the T-Rump and embraced by a large minority of citizens, regardless of the consequences.
During my afternoon surfing news on the InterWebs, I came across a couple of items in the scientific research category for possible explanations for our predicament.

Based on the T-Rump — just due to being an asshole-denier of eveything — people shun taking COVID seriously, and hence, would not engage in the simplest precautions required in a pandemic. A new study confirms the obvious — either science or through the T-Rump is how America operates in the fight against the virus.
The reseach was published today at Plos One. Info via Ohio State News:

Politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic had a powerful influence over adherence to social distancing guidelines in the United States and why people did, or did not, comply during the lockdown days, a new study has found.

The analysis boiled down to whom study participants trusted most: scientists or President Donald Trump.

“People who expressed a great deal of faith in President Trump, who thought he was doing an effective job of guiding us through the pandemic, were less likely to socially distance,” said Russell Fazio, senior author of the study and a professor of psychology at The Ohio State University.
“In contrast, the people who expressed a great deal of trust in scientists showed the exact opposite pattern: They were more likely to engage in social distancing.

“We were getting two-sided messages at the time from our government officials and public health scientists, so we had these two sources that were, in effect, working in opposition to one another. That pointed to the politicization of the pandemic.”
…
Statistical analyses revealed several correlations.
Trust in scientists, support for the guidelines, belief that the virus threat was not exaggerated, concern about its spread, general science literacy and COVID-19 knowledge were strongly associated with the practice of social distancing.
Trust and confidence in President Trump and the federal government’s effectiveness, belief in conspiracy theories, a political lean toward conservatism and an opinion that economic health was more important than safety were linked to lower odds of practicing social distancing.

Fazio said the findings may make one wonder what might have been had the U.S. populace been exposed to more consistent messaging.

“If there had been a single coherent voice communicating information, leading people to understand how serious the threat was and encouraging all of these preventive behaviors, including social distancing, I think we would have seen far more compliance,” he said.
“That is what comes through the data very clearly.”

A big take-away is ‘economic health was more important than safety,’ whick is insane. Republicans are seemingly predisposed to put money before living. Look at Texas.

In context, another recent study looked at havoc and the kind of peope sucked-into the T-Rump, to whom cruelty is the point, and is someone who adores chaos, the uglier, more-destructive the better.
Published on Monday at The Royal Society.
From the Abstract:

Using Latent Profile Analysis, we explore whether different subtypes underlie the uni-dimensional construct and find evidence that some people may be motivated to seek out chaos because they want to rebuild society, while others enjoy destruction for its own sake.
We demonstrate that chaos-seekers are not a unified political group but a divergent set of malcontents.
Multiple pathways can lead individuals to ‘want to watch the world burn.’

And from the study:

Individuals vary in the degree to which they crave status and, when excluded, individuals who possess an intense desire for status are more likely to view disruption and chaos as a viable strategy for obtaining the status that they crave.
Accordingly, status-obsessed yet marginalized individuals may find it more attractive to disrupt the entire social hierarchy altogether rather than to engage in a slow, seemingly futile climb up the social ladder.
…
The media and scholarly attention to disruptive behaviours, such as sharing ‘fake news,’ may suggest that a craving for chaos is exceptionally widespread.
Indeed, prior research argues that individuals who are high in Need for Chaos may comprise a significant minority of the American population.

Odd but logical mating of the T-Rump, which led to the insurrection/riot at the US Capitol building last month, and carries a threat of more to come.
Chaos unbated, and the “…opportunities they offer…”

And “…no more monkey business…”

(Illustration: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Agonizing Horse,’ found here),