Bad Ideas, Dumb Policies, Horrible Outcomes

As I was biking and listening to a podcast (Pod Saves America), I was struck by the similarity of the #voterfraudfraud stuff and the anti-vax stuff.  The key similarities are:

• both are based on a false belief.  There is no voter fraud, and vaccines don't cause autism.
• both advocate solutions that are worse than the "threat."  Essentially using nuclear weapons to deal with minor violations of the law.  The dis-proportionality is so very extreme.
• #Voterfraudfraud proposes to disenfranchise many people, hundreds of thousands or millions, to deal with the minor risk of some people voting twice or whatever.  
• Anti-vax movements propose to expose millions to disabling and fatal diseases because of an alleged small risk of autism.  I have previously wondered why having a kid die is better than having a kid be autistic.  
• both, of course, are reality averse, running against the acreage of reports that demonstrate that the threats are not real and that their preferred solutions are actually far worse than the "threat."

 The big difference is that #voterfraudfraud is partisan--the GOP wants to disenfranchise likely Democratic voters largely because they found that they can't/won't appeal to people of color, poor people, and young people.  Anti-vax?  It seemed like a left-wing, hippie kind of phenomenon, but there are right wing folks who buy it, too.  It is not a Democratic or Republican strategy to gain or deny votes.  Woot?

Both efforts suck, both are hurting people, and hurting American democracy.  One, however, may stack the deck so much that political change will become very difficult. Thanks, Gorsuch.