the night time streets packed with drinking and maskless people. CNN also said England is doing the same thing at their beaches. France just said they will start a mask wearing rule (I was surprised they didn't have that already).

In neighboring Argentina, where they had received plaudits for acting early to try to control this as well as to expand ICU capacity (3,600 new beds - in a bankrupt country), it's since gotten out of control.

And where? Mostly in the metro Buenos Aires area - where right-wing cable news has the widest reach.

They've been doing nothing but egging people on to "defy this tyranny" and to "go out and live your lives" - even after restrictions were eased. The same kind of inane garbage you hear from the Laura Ingraham types (hair dye and all).

And the 'egg'em and spread'em' tactic is working. Guess what happened after this:

to split the US but why are the right wing govts all on the anti-mask bandwagon. Putin isn't influencing their social media so I don't get what the strong-arm leaders get out of it. What is the reasoning for their position?

You may recall that Trump's old friend Mauricio Macri - the "Trump of the Pampas" - was voted out of office last October after his policies led to a financial crisis.

After all, if you pursue Bush-like policies - you'll get a Bush-like crisis (especially in Argentina!).

But right-wing media has been chafing, ranting, and raving ever since. And when it comes to viciousness, Faux News has nothing on their Argentine counterparts - especially TN cable news, which belongs to the powerful Clarín Group.

The current president, Alberto Fernández (who's somewhere between Bernie and Biden ideologically), enjoys 60% approval overall - and 80% approval on his handling of the Covid crisis.

Opponents see the spreading of the Covid as the best way to undermine his administration. And the deaths? You make an omelet, you break a few eggs.

This same dynamic is probably happening in other countries as well.

if WW1 weren't already going on. Maybe the war distracted autocratic leaders and wannabes who were focused on the war instead of undermining their opponents in their own countries.

I recall reading that a lot of the same demagogy we see against the various precautions being suggested and/or mandated today, you saw amid the Spanish Flu pandemic.

Hard to say how much of that was the result of Manichean politics and such intrigue. We do know, for instance, that the British crown often used destabilization to undermine rival crowns (particularly Russia's Romanovs) - but that, of course, was well before the Spanish Flu.

We also know Miami exile types were in close contact with big media outlets in Latin America in an effort to turn back the 'Pink tide' - successfully too (though often leading to more headaches, than anything useful).

So my guess is that they're keeping a close eye on Covid numbers in some of these countries, to see if these can be used against certain presidents (or not, as the case may be).

As for Trump, he has no one to blame but himself - though he never will.