Hey Nicholas, first off thanks for your support over the years! While I think everyone should feel free to roam wildly “out of their lane”, I can appreciate wanting to keep the craft of software design separate from political discussion, which often devolves into pointless name calling.

That being said, I’d like to clarify something. You mention what you believe Trump did right, but my article is not about the political response to the quarantine and doesn’t discuss the decisions Trump made. What it is about is a small set of conspiracy theories (for example, coronavirus is Bill Gates’ plot to sell vaccines) that are now being picked up by mainstream media like Fox, not because the hosts necessarily believe them, but because they think they are useful weapons to deflect blame and attack across the political aisle. Imagine if the media climate had been like this during 9/11! We would have heard Bill O’Reilly on prime time suggesting Al Gore was involved, and look at how George Soros shorted airline stocks last year. This should not be a right or left issue — if Trump has aspects of his coronavirus to be proud of, then the news media is doing him no favors by throwing wacky theories all over the place and hinting that “they need to be looked into.”

Lastly, as to your point that “not all conservatives” do this — obviously, you’re right. Not even most of them. But I’m not talking about fringe websites and Twitter here, either.