The world has mostly moved on from talking about the pandemic, even if COVID has decided to stick around regardless. For over a year, I maintained a feature called the “Anti-vaxx Chronicles,” and while it was muscled aside for Ukraine war coverage, conservatives continue to die of rank stupidity, with a hefty assist from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. They really have convinced themselves that they were right all along.
Take Danny Lemoi, whose story was first recounted by Vice's David Gilbert. Lemoi, a so-called “ivermectin influencer,” maintained a Telegram community of nearly 137,000 morons dedicated to the promotion of ivermectin as a cure-all for COVID and … yeah, for everything else, too. His core conspiracy is that most illnesses are caused by parasites, which ivermectin kills, but the medical world is suppressing that information in order to sell other higher-priced drugs.
On March 3, Lemoi felt cocky enough to post a direct challenge to the fates:
☝️😂 we’ll call this one “The Morning Commute” HAPPY FRIDAY ALL YOU POISONOUS HORSE PASTE EATING SURVIVORS !!!
His followers thought that was a riot. Over 1,300 people responded with some sort of laughing or grinning emoji. Lemoi was so funny! All those people warning against eating horse paste were so stupid! If it was so dangerous, why was he still alive?
Hours later, at the age of 50, he wasn’t.
It’s with a heart too heavy to bear that we at Dirt Road Discussions must let everyone know that the tenacious, compassionate and one-of-a-kind Danny we’ve come to know and love so much was summoned by God to move his faithful services to Heaven. Danny passed away unexpectedly this past Friday, March 3rd.
The channel moderators were careful to phrase things so as to not let ivermectin take the blame. The closest they came was admitting that Lemoi refused to see a doctor for a chronic condition because he “distrusted” physicians. We can see why, as they likely told him to stop eating poisonous horse paste.
Anyway, now that we know how the story ended, let’s see what got him to that end by perusing the history of his Telegram channel.
Ah yes, Fauci as the root of all evil, with a heaping dose of Russian propaganda.
I thought I had changed my beat to the Ukraine War, but in the end, Putin sits there, at the actual root of all our evils.
Those brain-washed normies are still alive, so there’s that.
Warning: This next one is really, really vile.
See? You can’t separate the Putin from the MAGA nuts.
Imagine if Trump had used his enormous narcissistic ego to take credit for the vaccine, instead of undermining it every step of his presidency and beyond. He would’ve saved hundreds of thousands of lives. But as long as he thought COVID was killing off urban liberals, his sick mind just couldn’t bring itself to advocate for vaccination, so he ended up killing far more of his own supporters instead. COVID is still killing more of his ilk.
Assholes are assholes.
Yeah! The medical industry can’t make a single dollar off dead poisonous horse paste eaters.
Time definitely told his side of the story.
Today I learned that there’s a whole world of “ivermectin influencers” who hate one another because they see the others as the real grifters.
Thinking about it, it totally makes sense.
Or … is that the face you make when you try to save an idiot, he ignores it, and he never wakes up again?
This group used to have discussion forums, but whoever has taken control since Dirt Road took a dirt nap removed all comments from the channel, flushing all past community conversation down a memory hole. Apparently, too many people were questioning the role ivermectin might’ve played in Lemoi’s death. That, and describing horrendous symptoms from taking poisonous horse paste (thanks to screenshots, some of the evidence survives):
Clearly, all the smug memes in the world can’t alter reality, no matter how hard they tried
What do Americans really think about the issues? It turns out they are a surprisingly liberal bunch, as Rachael Russell of Navigator Research tells us on this episode of The Downballot. Russell explains how Navigator conducts in-depth research to fill in gaps in policy debates with hard data instead of pundit speculation. The challenge for Democrats is that many voters say they hold progressive beliefs but still pull the lever for Republicans. That imbalance, however, presents an opportunity—Democrats just have to seize it.
