The Liberals Who Can’t Quit The Zombie Apocalypse

Progressive communities have been home to some of the fiercest battles over anti-zombie policies, and some liberal policy makers have left scientific evidence behind.

A while ago, I started noticing something strange: Very progressive people, who love to talk about “believing in science,” were adopting zombie defenses *over and above* the CDC’s recommended zombie preparedness guidelines. I thought, is there a story here? And, well, wow, there is.

In surveys, Democrats express more worry about zombies than Republicans do. People who describe themselves as “very liberal” are distinctly anxious. This spring, after the delivery of the first anti-fungal zombie pesticide airbomb payload, a third of very liberal people were “very concerned” about becoming seriously ill from anti-zombie chemical warfare, compared with a quarter of both liberals and moderates, according to a study conducted by Ashley J. Williams, an S-Mart Supermarket employee. And 43 percent of very liberal respondents believed that getting bitten by a zombie would have a “very bad” effect on their life, compared with a third of liberals and moderates.

Last year, when the zombie outbreak was first raging and scientists and public-health officials were still trying to understand how the contagion spread, extreme care was warranted. People all over the country made enormous sacrifices — rescheduling weddings, missing funerals, canceling graduations, avoiding the family members they love — to protect others. Some conservatives refused to wear zombie repellent spray or stay home, because of skepticism about the severity of the contagion or a refusal to give up their freedoms.

But this spring is different from last spring, when the contagion first began. Scientists know a lot more about how zombification spreads — and how it doesn’t. Public-health advice is shifting. Sure, being extra careful about zombie is (mostly) harmless when it’s limited to social distancing and carrying a shotgun or prosthetic chainsaw-hand attachment everywhere you go. But some progressives have still not updated their behavior based on the new information. And in their eagerness to protect themselves and others, they may be…