I believe that AIDS has had a big part in the move towards conservativism in the past 40 years or so. A cure for HIV just might be a nudge in the other direction the way antibiotics and birth control were in the 1960s.
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025
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It was surely used as an opportunity for conservatives to push their agenda, but I am super sceptical it is a cause in any way.
First, HIV hasn’t been an automatic death sentence for over 25 years.
Second, Reagan was elected before AIDS/GRID was even a known thing.
The rise in conservatism is an engineered backlash that began at the dawn of time. Look up Smedley Butler and the Business plot from the 30’s. Look into Roger Stone and his determination to make sure no president would ever be held accountable as Nixon was for Watergate.
Conservatism is just a smoke screen for a small, way-too-wealthy cabal to get some popular support for their desire to own every damn thing everywhere. It always has been. This goes back long before the Magna Carta even.
I'd listen to your podcast.
I hope you’re right, but I’ve been getting more and more pessimistic due to Regressive’s continuing ability to twist words around and make too many people believe the opposite of reality.
I’d put money on someone discovering the mRNA technology connection and somehow make half the US believe AIDs was caused by COViD vaccines
A cure is petty much the only thing that will prevent the end of PEPFAR not turning into a backdraft style resurgent AIDS epidemic in southern Africa.
Could you expand on this? It isn't obvious to me that this is true, and I haven't seen the argument before either.
I'm not sure it accounts for everything, but people tend to embrace conservatism (and yes, eventually Authoritarianism) due to fear. I was very young during the HIV/AIDS scare, but the fear was rampant and very real.
Magic Johnson making his diagnosis public and Princess Diana touching someone with AIDS was international headline news.
People are dumb and fear makes us less empathetic and even dumber.
It's just an intuition, I don't have any data to back this up. But having lived through it, it seemed like that to me. Also there's historical precedent, with the syphilis epidemic of the 17th and 18th centuries leading to the prudishness and sexual repression of the 19th.
A thought-provoking take. Thanks.
Even if it isn't an outright cure for HIV, the progression to AIDS was linked to a compromised immune system, so this could possibly prevent the leap from ever happening.
This is the type of news we need to see these days. Hell yeah !
This is fascinating. Go mRNA!
Determinist that I am it looks like Covid-19 happened to leapfrog medical science.