Professor Lincoln Publishes Study on Right-Wing Rhetoric, Trivialization of Pandemic Casualties

PHYS.ORG -- In a study published in the DeGruyter journal Open Anthropological Research, Professor Martha Lincoln of San Francisco State University examined how public officials openly pushed for people to accept widespread illness and death from the virus by adopting a tone that suggested premature death was normal and the scale of death acceptable in the grander scheme of things.

She tracked remarks supporting the sacrifice of those who were more likely to die of COVID-19 because they were presumed to be elderly or suffering with “underlying health conditions.” That phrase was wielded to suggest that such people mattered less, because they did something wrong or were sick, Lincoln said.