I have a wide range of friends.
A few of them I mourn, having lost them in the deep, green, greasy MAGA Jungle.
Others have been, or even remain, MAGA curious, and on the edges of my social orbit at this point.
My wife’s college roommate is today an oncology nurse in Ventura County CA. Wonderful woman. Great kids. She is living in a camper in her own driveway, because she is now on the front lines in a COVID19 ward. Someday I will buy here dinner, thank in person, give her huge hug. If we make it.
Last week she sent the smirk inducing graphic above. It is posted at her Hospital. She said it makes it clear to even the least compliant person...why you need to wear a mask. I shared it with a range of my friends with a note that it may make sense even to the “MAGA Idiot in all of our lives”. Last night I got a LONG … something like a mea-culpa letter from one of my former friends I had given up for as lost — to whom I had not even sent this graphic. I offer the following quote with permission.
I was sort of angry when (other friend who forwarded my graphic) sent this. ... You still can never understand the hope Trump is really bringing to us…
(Yup, still lost in the MAGA Jungle … but then the money quote)
But this pee-poster makes a lot of sense to me, I will start wearing one and make my kids wear them too.
So. There. Depressing? Funny? Small gains?
And I did see the highly illusional hope Trump gave some people in 2016. I was running for public office at the same time. I saw it’s whispy potemkin forms slithering past me daily. And I give credit where credit is due...it was an amazing con-job. Globally perhaps the greatest ever. Ah for the salad days of 2016.
But here we are. I have shared this here. Once again proving key axioms of comedy: It is mostly based on bodily function, falling down and finding a way for those things to carry some other message.
And as a second note, I read a long article about this report behind a paywall last night. In contrast to the White House apparently cancelling all useful economic and health guidelines, the UK has issued some amazingly good medical guidelines...and globally stunning economic guidance.
They are predicting the greatest economic slowdown since 1706. Going back they are predicting it will be worse than 2008, WWII, The Great Depression, WWI, The Panic of 1856, The Banking Wars and Panic of 1834, The Napolianic Wars, The Loss of the Colonial Wars in North America, and the economic impacts of two prior plagues in the early 1700s.
They only noted it was worse than any downturn since 1706, because that is as far back as accurate and complete records go. If they had comprehensive and comparable records that went further back, they might have extended the warning.
TPM Covered part of the UK report outside a paywall earlier today.
Buckle up.
