In a new PSA featuring every (adult) former president, the COVID-19 vaccine takes center stage. The message: Don’t be a dick. Get the vaccine. Or at least that was my takeaway.
Only one ex-president did not participate, indicating (again) that Donald Trump needs more than just a psychiatrist. He needs someone to take his brain apart like an old transistor radio and cobble it back together with Tinker Toys, airplane glue, and gum. Because that shit’s broken, yo.
How else can one explain a dude who wants to claim all the credit for a vaccine he had very little to do with, but doesn’t take the simplest possible steps to actually encourage people to get that vaccine?
From POLITICO:
All living former presidents and first ladies — with the exception of Donald and Melania Trump — appear in a public service announcement released Thursday urging Americans to get vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.
The video shows Barack and Michelle Obama, George W. and Laura Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter receiving their shots. Another video, filmed at Arlington National Cemetery, features former Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton encouraging vaccination.
Watch it:
Trump’s conspicuous absence in this PSA is beyond strange, particularly in light of his most recent efforts to take all the credit for all of the vaccines.
“I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful “shot” for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all. I hope everyone remembers!”
Okay, now that he’s off Twitter, he can stop communicating in tweets. These missives simply aren’t worthy of an ex-president. They’re more like fortune cookie messages written by the proverbial roomful of monkeys banging on typewriters for all eternity—assuming the monkeys are all tripping on bath salts.
So while all the other ex-presidents are, at worst, hoping to burnish their legacies by encouraging civic responsibility in the face of a killer virus, Trump is fishing for compliments while doing exactly nothing to actually get vaccines into people’s arms.
Because his followers are more likely than most to turn their noses up at the vaccine, Trump could arguably do more to promote vaccinations—thereby bringing a quick end to the pandemic he criminally mishandled—than anyone else in the country who’s not part of the current administration. But actually saving lives has never been as important to Trump as appearing to save lives. So he does preposterously sociopathic things … like get his COVID-19 shot in secret.
Huh?
Needless to say, Trump’s statement is barmy bullshit. The first shot to receive FDA approval—the Pfizer vaccine—was developed without U.S. government funding. So unless Trump was in the trenches sequencing the novel coronavirus’ genome (which is about as likely as Trump finishing one side of a Rubik’s Cube without peeling the stickers off), he’s just blowing smoke. As usual.
And what Trump glory grab would be complete without a dollop of gratuitous racism? “China Virus?” Really? Still?
Of course, ever since Trump became COVID-19’s top PR flack, he’s been doing everything he can to promote it—and, man, did it ever take the country by storm.
So why the fuck would he switch sides now?
”This guy is a natural. Sometimes I laugh so hard I cry." — Bette Midler on author Aldous J. Pennyfarthing via Twitter. Say “ba-bye” to the former guy. The long-anticipated EPILOGUE to Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump is now available for FREE. Download your copy here! And don’t forget to check out the rest of AJP’s oeuvre here.