The WaPo article where I first read about the theory said most of this stuff. I didn’t understand then why people were so quick to dismiss it - it is eerily plausible, and we just don’t have much other data to go on. But it’s like having an opinion one way or the other is a political dog whistle that puts you into one of two bins, neither of which I fit into comfortably. This article makes a decent point of that: now that Trump’s racism is out of the way, maybe we can more critically examine the facts. I still think the lab leak theory is less likely than evolution, but it’s at least a bit compelling.
> This article makes a decent point of that: now that Trump’s racism is out of the way, maybe we can more critically examine the facts.
I highly doubt it, in most cases "Reductio ad Trumperum" will remain a useful sleight of hand. This is a different matter, being "tough on China" is a bipartisan issue, it's just about showing how the other side was "doing it wrong". For instance, you could say that Trump had "no evidence" supporting his lab leak theory.
