I had not noticed it was since June 1st. Seems manipulative indeed... next time I'll be more careful when I share things that align with my pre-existing beliefs too much. I'm not gonna delete my post. Apparently his website does that work for me. (cc b_b)
There's a saying that believing is seeing. It's so much easier to see through the garbage that doesn't confirm your worldview than the garbage that does. Even Gregor Mendel made shit up. He just happened to be basically correct. But being correct about a conclusion, and being sound on the data from which that conclusion is derived sometimes aren't closely linked. The conclusion that conservative leaning areas in America could have done a better job with covid preparedness, given the disaster that was NY, NoLa, Detroit, etc, seems self-evident. But that doesn't mean that we should look for every opportunity to find another way to say, "Fuck Texas." I think part of the reason that the conservative areas got themselves into that mess was that they were too busy finding new ways to say, "Fuck NY and CA."
I think the premise of beginning in June, was because by that point, every major country in the world had a robust COVID plan in place. So any increased infection rate would be due to poor plan implementation, not due to lack of knowledge on how to stem the spread. The graph then goes on to demonstrate that the blue states were more effective at implementing (or continuing) their COVID plans (recognizing KB's comment that the coastal liberal big cities were the petri dishes where Lessons Were Learned early on, so didn't see infection spikes later), while the red states ignored best practices and demonstrated successful tactics around the world, and infections spiked. Yes, it is a political piece. But I do believe they were transparent with their goals and motives, and demonstrated their hypothesis with well-sourced data.