Omicron update

Many people (including epidemiologists and other scientists) are frustrated with the lack of centralized, reliable science communication around the issue of Covid. Here I have pulled together recent reports from the US and other countries to answer some common questions about Omicron, the extent of protection offered by vaccination and boosters, whether or not Omicron is mild for those who are vaccinated and whether or not it will lead to such high levels of immunity that Covid will soon become downgraded from "pandemic' to "endemic" (i.e. present in society but well under control like influenza and other managed illnesses). I will provide citations for all answers. Of course, this does not mean everything quoted will stand the test of time. Even the best empirical science on this disease is evolving at a rate considerably slower than the virus itself and its spread.

1) If you are fully vaxxed can you still get Omicron?

 In December, the NY Times reported that only mRNA vaccines ( Pfizer and Moderna) protect against Omicron infection.

"The Pfizer and Moderna shots use the new mRNA technology, which has consistently offered the best protection against infection with every variant. All of the other vaccines are based on older methods of triggering an immune response.

"The Chinese vaccines Sinopharm and Sinovac — which make up almost half of all shots delivered globally — offer almost zero protection from Omicron infection. The great majority of people in China have received these shots, which are also widely used in low-and middle-income countries such as Mexico and Brazil.

A preliminary effectiveness study in Britain found that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine showed no ability to stop Omicron infection six months after vaccination. Ninety percent of vaccinated people in India received this shot, under the brand name Covishield; it has also been widely used across much of sub-Saharan Africa, where Covax, the global Covid vaccine program, has distributed 67 million doses of it to 44 countries." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/19/health/omicron-vaccines-efficacy.html

Since then, it has become clear that no vaccines in existence can block Omicron infections, even if some appear to do a better job than others based on initial data. The topic has switched to preventing serious illness, hospitalization, and death. Here the data has been less than perfectly clear and unequivocal.

 

2)Does full vaccination (2 shots of Pfizer or Moderna or 1 shot of J&J) prevent moderate to severe illness, hospitalization and death? 

Vaccines do not prevent mild illness which is now widespread among both those vaccinated and unvaccinated. The NIH recognizes a continuum from mild to severe illness along the following lines (these definitions are taken from the NIH website; see link below):

MILD:   

"Patients with mild illness may exhibit a variety of signs and symptoms (e.g., fever, cough, sore throat, malaise, headache, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of taste and smell). They do not have shortness of breath, dyspnea on exertion, or abnormal imaging. Most mildly ill patients can be managed in an ambulatory setting or at home through telemedicine or telephone visits. No imaging or specific laboratory evaluations are routinely indicated in otherwise healthy patients with mild COVID-19. Older patients and those with underlying comorbidities are at higher risk of disease progression; therefore, health care providers should monitor these patients closely until clinical recovery is achieved."

MODERATE:

"Moderate illness is defined as evidence of lower respiratory disease during clinical assessment or imaging, with SpO₂ ≥94% on room air at sea level [at or below 94% oxygen saturation. where normal parameters are 96-100%] Given that pulmonary disease can progress rapidly in patients with COVID-19, patients with moderate disease should be closely monitored. If bacterial pneumonia or sepsis is suspected, administer empiric antibiotic treatment, re-evaluate the patient daily, and de-escalate or stop antibiotics if there is no evidence of bacterial infection." 

SEVERE:

Patients with COVID-19 are considered to have severe illness if they have SpO₂ <94% on room air at sea level... [again this means oxygen saturation levels below 94%, where 94-100% are considered within normal range]. These patients may experience rapid clinical deterioration. Oxygen therapy should be administered immediately using a nasal cannula or a high-flow oxygen device.  If secondary bacterial pneumonia or sepsis is suspected, administer empiric antibiotics, re-evaluate the patient daily, and de-escalate or stop antibiotics if there is no evidence of bacterial infection.  

SOURCE: https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/overview/clinical-spectrum/

DISCUSSION: 

Mild, moderate and severe are not discrete or neatly contained categories but continuous with the ever-present danger of progression. Depending on who gets a "mild" or "moderate" case, the threat level of progression will vary. Of course, all severe cases are very dangerous. So, on average, a young and healthy person with mild symptoms can probably recover at home in much the same way as the flu. However, a middle aged person who is obese, diabetic or who has cardio-vascular problems, or a host of other relatively common conditions must be very vigilant about avoiding "mild" infection, and monitoring it closely with a doctor if one occurs. This is even more important with "moderate" infections among people with such underlying conditions who develop respiratory symptoms or even slight decrease in Oxygen levels (which most of us at home cannot ascertain). 

Thus, since real cases are fluid and can change rapidly in real-time, and since our data base is very limited in the US, categorical statements about the benefits of vaccination on preventing moderate to serious illness are often lacking in statistical evidence that might support them. The best way to ask the question is to ask:

3)HOW MANY CURRENTLY HOSPITALIZED COVID PATIENTS ARE FULLY VACCINATED?

I've noticed that the CDC, the New York Times Covid Dashboard and other widely used cites DO NOT collect and share data on the percentage of people in hospitals who were vaccinated, and which vaccines they used. However, the state of Massachusetts does share some such data, and The Boston Globe keeps track of the ratio of vaccinated to unvaccinated Covid patients in the hospital.

About half of the Mass. patients hospitalized for Covid ARE FULLY VACCINATED. 

The most recent data on is from January 13, 2022. At that time there were 3,180 Covid hospital patients. Of those, 1,547 were vaccinated.   460 of all hospitalized patients were in ICU units (these numbers are all much lower than many other states, including my own, i.e. NY). https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/10/nation/latest-coronavirus-numbers-massachusetts/

Though the NY Times does not report these things, an article in that paper yesterday (1/17) written about the toll Omicron is taking on Nurses in a Brooklyn Hospital contained information consistent with that which the Boston Globe has been reporting since Omicron broke (indicating about 1/2 of those hospitalized on avg. are vaccinated fully).  I quote from the relevant sections of the Times piece: In the article, we read that the vaccinated in ICU in  Brooklyn Hospital Center comprise a little under 1/2 of ICU patients there. That ICU is filled to capacity. 

"Dr. de Souza said that the emergency room had more Covid-19 patients last week than at any point since the first wave. On Tuesday, four Covid patients, including a retired doctor, died, Dr. de Souza said.

On Wednesday, a tear streamed down her cheek as she looked out on patients. More kept arriving, with many staying for days. There was little room for them upstairs. The 18 intensive care beds on the hospital’s sixth floor were full, mainly with Covid-19 patients.

The Covid patients were older, generally over 60. Some had come from nursing homes. Just over half were unvaccinated.... [i.e. nearly half WERE vaccinated]

Laverne Cook, 68, began to stir. She had oxygen tubes in her nostrils and she said she was beginning to feel better. She had arrived about five hours earlier. Dizzy, weak and struggling to breathe, she had called an ambulance. Although fully vaccinated, she had not gotten a booster shot, ignoring her granddaughter’s pleas....

there was no time to check a patient’s vital signs. “They’re not being done, because there is no staff,” she said.  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/15/nyregion/brooklyn-omicron-cases.html

It is suggested in the last paragraph, that she and others like her might have fared better with a booster, though evidence for that is less than crystal clear, and we are told that fully vaccinated patients will seldom get seriously ill. The facts appear to be more complex. 

 

Recently Rochelle Wolensky at the CDC stated, in an early January televised press briefing, that only a very tiny fraction of vaccinated patients will get ill from Omicron, and that those patients who do are usually "older" and "have as many as four co-morbidities."  https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2022/01/05/press-briefing-by-white-house-covid-19-response-team-and-public-health-officials-77/This could mean, for example, an over 60 year old with obesity (BMI over 30), Hypertension, Depression and high cholesterol would be more likely to become ill with complications. This was framed as "good news." The problem is that she was citing a study conducted BEFORE Omicron spread in the US. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/pdfs/mm7101a4-H.pdf Is the fraction now as tiny? She had no data to address that question which is what the disscussion was about. We do know that if states want to release data on how many in ICUs are vaccinated, how many who are intubated were vaccinated etc., it could be done as the records are kept by these hospitals. Thus, in Mass. some of this data is available, and the article as evident from the Boston Globe daily reports.  The article on NY hospital patients in Brooklyn shows that journalists could cover hospitals and ICUs with an eye to vaccinated vs. non-vaccinated patient ratios, but we don't see such data routinely. What info is available appears to  paint a picture of greater illness among the vaccinated (esp. over 60 and with other conditions) than previously was the case. Such underlying conditions as the ones I mentioned or Diabetes, Kidney problems, Asthma and others are liabilities whether one is  or is not vaxxed. 

In sum, at present there is no truly solid data to address the issues of illness among the vaccinated in the age of Omicron, but there is enough evidence of vaccinated patients in hospitals becoming ill and dying to militate against rosy pronouncements that Omicron is "mild" if you have been vaccinated. That depends on various factors mentioned (age, underlying health) which millions and millions of Americans in all our families must deal with. 

 

If Wolensky erred on the side of optimism, the current head of the  FDA, Janet Woodcock, without citing any evidence, recently stated in a Senate Hearing,  that "we are all going to get Omicron." Calling it a "Natural Disaster," and warning of immanent collapse of essential health and transportation services in the country if we do not act immediately to prevent it. She said:

"I think it's hard to process what's actually happening right now, which is [that] most people are gonna get COVID...What we need to do is make sure that the hospitals can still function [and that] transportation [and] other essential services are not disrupted while this happens." https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/01/fda-head-omicron-is-a-natural-disaster-most-people-are-gonna-get-covid/

This was widely criticized by epidemiologists as being unjustified by any evidence, and also being counterproductive since on such an assumption protective measures would appear futile to many. If we're all "gonna get it" why socially distance, wear masks etc.? Dr. Fauci was more nuanced saying most people will be exposed (though they won't necessarily all "get Covid"). He refused to predict whether this will lead to greater immunity against future Covid variants or not, as many have speculated. That depends on the nature of subsequent variants, he said flatly. 

 

4) What about boosters and second boosters to mitigate contagion and illness?

Here I will cite 2 recent, but preliminary findings that could be force us to reevaluate the current model based largely on 3nd and 4th jabs for added protection against Omicron.

 

A) Israel: From Bloomberg Reports today:

 

Fourth Pfizer Dose Is Insufficient to Ward Off Omicron, Israeli Trial Suggests

• Preliminary data found inoculation did increase antibodies
• Those with 4th shot only slightly less likely to get variant

 

Updated onJanuary 18, 2022, 1:21 AM EST

A fourth dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was insufficient to prevent infection with the omicron variant of Covid-19, according to preliminary data from a trial in Israel released Monday.

Two weeks after the start of the trial of 154 medical personnel at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, researchers found the vaccine raised antibody levels

But that only offered a partial defense against omicron, according to Gili Regev-Yochay, the trial’s lead researcher. Vaccines which were more effective against previous variants offer less protection with omicron, she said. [It still seems to mitigate severe illness, but not as much as with earlier variants].

 

 

Meanwhile, the EU announced that based on preliminary findings, use of boosters can affect the immune system adversely. They recommended great caution in 3rd, 4th and further boosters, recommending a shift to a different model such as seasonal vaccinations as with Influenza. If their findings are true, they present a policy challenge for those first world countries (including the US) who are now emphasizing boosters as the answer. First of all, they don't do as much as was supposed according to the Israeli scientists cited above. Secondly, they may actually do harm to our immune systems, according to a new EU study from which I quote here:

Frequent Boosters Spur Warning on Immune Response

Bloomberg:

January 11, 2022, 12:10 PM EST

European Union regulators warned that frequent Covid-19 booster shots could adversely affect the immune response and may not be feasible.  

Repeat booster doses every four months could eventually weaken the immune response and tire out people, according to the European Medicines Agency. Instead, countries should leave more time between booster programs and tie them to the onset of the cold season in each hemisphere, following the blueprint set out by influenza vaccination strategies, the agency said. 

The advice comes as some countries consider the possibility of offering people second booster shots in a bid to provide further protection against surging omicron infections. Earlier this month Israel became the first nation to start administering a second booster, or fourth shot, to those over 60. The U.K. has said that boosters are providing good levels of protection and there is no need for a second booster shot at the moment, but will review data as it evolves.

Boosters “can be done once, or maybe twice, but it’s not something that we can think should be repeated constantly,” Marco Cavaleri, the EMA head of biological health threats and vaccines strategy, said at a press briefing on Tuesday. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-11/repeat-booster-shots-risk-overloading-immune-system-ema-says

 I hope this round-up of info on the Omicron variant of  Covid helps round out the picture for those who, like me, have been confused by seemingly conflicting and empirically unjustified statements from journalists, pundits and health experts in the news.

 

 

Voting rights update

After yesterday's positivity, not sure if this will sit well. Probably not.

The New York Times reports that the Dems have given up on a voter protection bill. Kyrsten Sinema said she opposes it. Apparently her opposition is non-negotiable. So that's the end of that. The NYT writes:

Democratic officials and activists now say they are resigned to having to spend and organize their way around the new voting restrictions — a prospect many view with hard-earned skepticism, citing the difficulty of educating masses of voters on how to comply with the new rules.

They say it would require them to compensate by spending tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars more on voter-registration and turnout programs — funds that might otherwise have gone to promoting Democratic candidates.  

Republicans, whose decades-long push to curtail voting access was put into overdrive by Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud after his defeat, are planning a renewed push to enact new restrictions during this year’s state legislative sessions.

What's next? The NYT wrote about that last December:

After passing 33 laws of voting limits in 19 states this year, Republicans in at least five states — Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Oklahoma and New Hampshire — have filed bills before the next legislative sessions have even started that seek to restrict voting in some way, including by limiting mail voting. In over 20 states, more than 245 similar bills put forward this year could be carried into 2022, according to Voting Rights Lab, a group that works to expand access to the ballot.

In many places, Democrats will be largely powerless to push back at the state level, where they remain overmatched in Republican-controlled legislatures. G.O.P. state lawmakers across the country have enacted wide-ranging cutbacks to voting access this year and have used aggressive gerrymandering to lock in the party’s statehouse power for the next decade.

At present, it looks like in the 2022 and 2024 elections, the nation will get to see how effective Republican election subversion efforts will be. If they are effective enough, the Dems will not be able to control the House, Senate or White House for the foreseeable future. If so, the GOP will proudly tells us that elections have integrity. And since there is election integrity, people can relax about all that massive Democratic Party voter fraud, socialism-communism and deep state pedophilia.  

Alleged Democratic Party socialism and its deep state pedophilia will be replaced by actual Republican Party neo-fascism and its kleptocratic deep state pedophilia and fornication brigades.

But if the results of the 2022 elections do not demonstrate election integrity to Republican Party satisfaction, there will another round of election integrity laws passed. The same could happen again in 2024 if those elections are not secure enough to satisfy the Republican Party. And again in 2026 and 2028 and so on until GOP satisfaction is achieved.

Once elections are secure, then America will get to see how far and fast the Republican Party will go to establish its dream of a neo-fascist, neoliberal, White Christian nationalist state.

Decades of focused propaganda, planning and discipline have paid off for the GOP, Christian nationalism and hard core conservative neoliberalism. It will be interesting to see how Democrats respond at the state level, which seems to be the only place they can respond now. 

A rather long soliloquy by your fellow Snowflake

 PD and larrymotuz have suggested I post a positive OP, or an optimistic one, compared to a gloom and doom one.

In contemplating how to word it, I found the task more challenging than I thought, because let's face it, we have:

Political division, Trumpism, Covid, increasing climate disasters, and disinformation tearing us all apart.

I did, in a comment on a previous thread, also point out, that despite the gloom and doom that we are all focused on, good things are happening:

An almost all white jury found the McMichaels guilty, in Georgia no less. When did that ever happen before? Even Kim Potter was found guilty of manslaughter, a verdict I didn't expect.

While we as a species are moving at a snail's pace addressing climate, individual cities and states have taken climate action. Now some countries are taking action, such as proposed bans on plastics.

The biggest fear here in the U.S. surrounds the advancement of Fascism. I can't play along with that. My parents lived under Fascism (Nazi Germany), so until I see Jews wearing stars, people being ripped out of their homes, or brownshirts on the streets, I will refrain from using that word.

HOWEVER, there is no doubt that one faction of the U.S. wants to move towards minority or even one party rule. Rightwing Extremism? Totalitarianism? Call it what you will, but the move to suppress the vote, to roll back progress on women's rights, are real.

So how do I put lipstick on a this pig? How do I post an OP with a positive outlook? How do I word it? Without seeming to be a liberal hippie Snowflake wearing rose-colored glasses?

The only way I can think of, is observation. Personal observation. Maybe if I lived in Texas or Mississippi, my personal observations would be different. But I grew up and currently live in Minnesota and spent 30 years of my life in that socialist paradise north of the border, Canada.

I also, not by design, it just happened, surrounded myself with positive people, open-minded people, progressive thinking people, AND this time, with design, kept my distance from bigots and haters. 

I also, for the most part, have avoided CNN and FOX, avoided WAPO and NYPost, and tend to gravitate towards NPR, PBS, BBC, Reuters, and other media outlets that are less hyperbolic and more analytical.

I also observe. I have posted the following so many times, I fear becoming redundant. BUT because DP and larrymotuz asked me to go ahead and post a positive OP, here is what I have observed:

Black and white kids walking to school together. I work part-time as a school crossing guard, and notice boys with effeminate features walking side by side with the jocks. I see opening gay couples walking hand in hand in my home town. 

On a larger scale, when a disaster occurs, I see videos and news clips of white men in motor boats rescuing black people from their roofs. I see white youth marching with BLM protestors. I have read stories of a white community helping their Muslim neighbors rebuilt their mosques after they were burned down. THESE STORIES SELDOM MAKE THE HEADLINES. Why is that?

The storming of the Capitol was something I never expected to see, but I also NEVER expected to see a black President. Nor do I expect to ever see a gay President, but with the rise in popularity of Pete Buttigieg, could it happen? I never expected to see homeowners putting up solar panels. The list goes on.

The old adage of a person sees what they want to see might apply here. I don't mean that in a disparaging way. Maybe I am at fault here for NOT seeing the worst in our fellow man, not worrying enough about the "fall of democracy", of being TOO positive, so I will conclude this long soliloquy by stating the following:

At the end of the day, regardless of what surrounds you, how do YOU want to live your life? I prefer to live it in the service of my fellow man, in promoting positivity, of living a contented and happy life.

I guess that makes me a SNOWFLAKE.

Engaging at r/changemyview: Impressions of a difficult social and political situation

Yesterday I engaged at a site called r/changemyview (1.4 million members).  My post is here. It is based on comments by PD on this blog in another post. r/changemyview is a site for discussion, not debate or advocacy, making it very constraining and difficult to engage at without straying outside the rules. The rules are relentlessly monitored by bots. Bots flag apparent violations and give warnings, and then mods follow up. The mods there almost yanked my post twice because it looked too much like political advocacy and because my mind wasn't being changed -- I got two bot warnings for two different rule violations and talked my way (with the mods) out of them deleting my post (its still there so far today). r/changemyview is for people to post opinions and discuss reasons to change them, not to bicker about things. Conservatives and liberals hang out there. One response was this:

In regard to your reply:

• The culture of the United States and the values of Christianity are bound together; if the US abandoned Christian values for, say, Confucian ones, its identity would certainly change. More to your point, though, Christian nationalists, who have as their explicit agenda the transformation of the US government into a formally Christian institution, do not seem to me to wield sufficient influence to accomplish such an aim in so short a time frame.

• Following this, various political leaders in the US already allow religion to influence policy, as it provides them with a moral framework - metaphysical and practical both. It is encoded into the US constitution (all men are created equal). If you don't believe, on account of this, that we are already in a theocracy, what further standard must be met? You can try to put an end to this, but as is often the case with arguments supporting strict separation between church and state, if you forbid any religious influence in politics the result would be that only the religiously unaffiliated would be eligible for office. In a country where the vast majority of the population has claims membership in some religion, this precludes the possibility of a genuinely representative democracy.

• Fascism is infamously difficult to define in a useful way, as is demonstrated by this video. A distillation of this presenter's description might be the rallying of the majority by a charismatic demagogue around in defense of the status quo against agents of change. Yet it is trivial to apply this description to just about any central political figure with minor alterations of framework. Indeed, if you look to other definitions or descriptions of fascism they characteristically include small, seemingly arbitrary qualifications intended to gesture at a particular individual or movement. America could be described as meeting these qualification in the past, and I'm sure could be used to describe some political arena in America today. The question remains - what do you see changing in two to four years that will make the description of the entire country as neo-fascist apt? Plus, there is also the minor issue of clarifying how "neo-fascist" differs from "fascist".

• As for a kleptocracy, I can see things worsening as corporations tighten their grip on tech infrastructure, since this poses a serious threat to the ability of individuals to communicate and access information regardless of their political affiliation. Likewise, the reaction of the finance sector to the Panama and Paradise leaks - the return to purely paper transactions to avoid such blunders in the future - continue to pose a danger to sovereignty and accountability. However, I don't think that the solutions you have provided will address this in the least. It is a structural issue; it can only be solved by obviating the entities involved, not destroying them.

---

In all of these cases, I can see typical fluctuations in the political landscape. While novel problems posed by internet exposure, big tech, AI, and soon enough, gene editing will need to be addressed, it does not seem that the problems we are facing are too much for our institutions to bear.

My response:
1. The evidence I am aware of strongly indicates that Christian nationalism, along with special interest money and hard core neocapitalist ideology are the two top influencers in the GOP. Christian nationalism is not well known or understood by most of the public, in part because that political movement intentionally tries to stay out of the public eye while influencing government as quietly as it can. The professional mainstream media does a poor job of explaining it. That's professional malpractice IMO. From what I can tell, the right wing media doesn't talk much about it. The six Republicans on the Supreme Court are all Christian nationalists. That's real power and influence.

The US Constitution was intentionally written to be secular, not religious, including not Christian. One can imagine that most non-religious people feel little or no affinity or identity with Christianity or any other religion. It is hard to see Confucianism or something else displacing Christianity in the US as the dominant religion for a very long time, if ever.

2. One can assert or believe that the concept of 'all men are created equal' is religious or Christian. It is in the US constitution, but my understanding of history was that it was secular and not meant to be an ideal or moral value grounded in any religion. History indicates that the Constitution was knowingly drafted to be secular, not religious or Christian. That raises a question. Do you believe that to be moral and good a person has to be Christian, or can atheists, agnostics, or people who believe in other religions or non-Christian spiritual beliefs can also be moral and good?

3. Asking what could change in two to four years would make the entire country neo-fascist arguably is one of the central questions question here, maybe the central question. Looking at what neocapitalism and Christian nationalism wants and how those movements have acted in the last 70 years or so, especially the last ~5-10 years, is in my opinion the best place to look for the most possible outcomes.

 
Neocapitalism: Neocapitalists want deregulated markets with little or no government interference or oversight. In reality that has usually played out by deregulation of companies with the flow of power going from government, which loses the power to regulate, to companies, which gain the power to act without the prior restraint. Power rarely, if ever, flows to individuals. Companies almost always use that power to advance their interest in increasing profits, which these days is almost always a matter of socializing costs, damage and risks, while privatizing and trickling profits up to the elites at the top. Despite propaganda to the contrary, standard neoliberal ideology holds that having a social conscience is subversive because it impairs profits, the only significant moral value for capitalism. Damage to humans, democracy or the environment is not a core concern of hard core capitalists.

Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman was blunt about it: “Social responsibility is a fundamentally subversive doctrine" in a free society, and have said that in such a society, "there is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.” He believed that the only responsibility that a corporation has is to the shareholder. Friedman explained himself in this 1970 article. 

Big businesses operating in free competition without deception or fraud is a mirage.

Christian nationalism: Core Christian nationalist ideology (CNI) holds that the US was chosen by God to rule over all other countries. The people who should rule America are wealthy White men because men are superior to women and owning wealth is God's sign of moral approval. CNI includes (i) a American founding myth (falsehood) that the US Constitution is a Christian document intended to cement Christianity as the dominant force in government, society and commerce, (ii) White Europeans are above non-Whites from other places, and the non-Whites should be subservient to Whites, (iii) the LGBQT community is sinful, (iv) White people should be free to openly discriminate against non-Whites, non-Christians and especially atheists, agnostics and the hated LGBQT community, (v) a persecution myth (falsehood) that says that Christians in America are severely persecuted and Democrats are evil socialists-communists who want to round Christians up, put them in re-education or concentration camps and turn them into atheistic socialists or communists, (vi) there is no such thing as church-state separation because the US Constitution is a pro-Christian document, and (vii) all secular and pluralist education and public schools need to be replaced with private religious schools because secularism is evil and public schools teach secularism and pluralism.

The CNI attitude toward voters and elections is summed up nicely by comments in this 40 second video from 1980 by Paul Weyrich, an influential hard core Christian nationalist. There, he publicly criticized "goo goo" government and universal suffrage. As Weyrich makes crystal clear, Christian nationalists have known for decades that they are in a minority and that is a big part of why the movement operates in as much secrecy as it can. CNI ideology also includes animosity toward government because government usurps the proper role of the Christian church in dictating how people should live and what they should believe.

 
What might one reasonably believe we would get if hard core neoliberalism is combined with hard core CNI, the two of which heavily overlap in the Republican Party? My read of it is this based on combining the two overlapping ideologies:

A. Complete collapse of church state separation with full blown political advocacy from the pulpit, For example, something along the lines of this: 'You will burn in hell forever if you vote for a Democrat. So, if you plan to vote for a Democrat, get out of this church right now and do not come back'.
B. Greatly expanded access to revenue flows from taxpayers to religious groups to fund their operations (this process is already well underway - billions already annually flow from taxpayers to religious groups and the tap is constantly being forced farther open by Christian nationalist Supreme Court decisions).
C. Significant curtailment of civil liberties for non-Christians and non-Republicans, e.g., impairment of voting rights, strict limits on access to abortions in Red states, and open discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities, especially the LGBQT community and atheists.
D. Deregulation of businesses with (i) a concomitant flow of power from government to businesses, and (ii) decreased consumer protections, mostly resulting from the power flow to businesses.
E. Continued stonewalling and blocking of efforts to deal with climate change (mainly a neoliberalism thing).
F. Erosion of secular public education, while religious education continues to displace secularism and pluralism.
G. Continuing stagnation of wages and continuing increase in wealth inequality.
H. Continuing erosion of civil society, social trust and trust in government, inconvenient science (climate science) and the professional news media, all of will which continue to be attacked.

4. As far as kleptocracy goes, corporations have already gone a long way to subverting and corrupting government. The US Capitol is seen as a profit center that can generate great returns on investments (campaign contributions and lobbying). As argued by some, corruption has already been legalized to a significant extent. The process of subversion and corruption will continue. This 6 minute video explains the relevance of money in politics, i.e., money matters, while what average want does not matter.

So, do you see the situation as typical fluctuations in the political landscape, or is it possible that the situation we are in is not typical of American politics at least since, say the end of World War II? Is the narrative I laid out reasonable or not?

Some of the comments from conservatives made it crystal clear, yet again, that conservatives see an imminent major threat to democracy from Democrats and none from Republicans. The reasoning is based on rock solid talking points, e.g., Democrats are violating our civil liberties by enforcing mask mandates. Given the severe constraints on what is acceptable that r/changemyview enforces, I did not know how to respond. So I didn't. Once again, the differences in perceptions of political and social reality between the right and left is almost pure black and white. There is no apparent way to engage, much less bridge, that vast gap, at least not at that site.