The “anti-vaxxer-kills-himself-through-his-own-boundless-stupidity” story is now so commonplace it’s almost become boring. When the first lemming jumps off the cliff, it’s horrifying. After thousands have done it, it’s just sad and mildly gruesome.
Other than building Potemkin Cracker Barrels to lure Republicans in like ants filing into ant traps—and then forcing shots into their arms through their misspelled, fervidly ungrammatical MAGA tats—I don’t really know what else we’re supposed to do about these folks. They’re like a herd of rheumy-eyed cows lining up for the abattoir while bleating incomprehensible bromides about freedom. Okay, ya showed me, MAGAs. See you on the other side. I’ve still got shit to do, though. It may be awhile.
In fact, vaccine refusal has become such a huge part of MAGA tribal identity, even their unquestioned cult leader can no longer penetrate their skulls, much less their delicate pink upper arm flesh.
So you get scenes like this, from Saturday night’s Loser-palooza rally:
TRUMP: “I recommend taking the vaccines. I did it, it’s good. Take the vaccines. [Crowd boos.] But you got … no, that’s okay, that’s all right. You got your freedoms. But I happened to take the vaccine. If it doesn’t work, you’ll be the first to know.”
Really? If he gets COVID-19 again, he’s going to send out an email blast to his biggest supporters letting them know? Because if I remember correctly, he tried to hide pretty much everything about his COVID struggle in October.
Now, a good leader who actually cared about the lives of his most avid and loyal supporters would stay on message and keep hammering home the importance of inoculations (without adding the cowardly qualifier about their sacrosanct “freedom”). I assume someone in his inner circle told him he needed to tout the upside of the vaccine (i.e., not drowning alone in your body’s own fluids to prove some half-baked, amorphous point), and so he made a halfhearted attempt. I doubt he’ll ever do it again, though, because he’s not a leader so much as a fly that consistently alights on the most pungent pile of poo in the meadow. Remember when he nearly swallowed his tongue when asked to denounce David Duke and the Proud Boys? He knows his base, and he follows them at least as much as he leads them. And for the most part, he’s made a cynical calculation that he won’t kill off as many followers via vax skepticism as he’d lose by aggressively promoting their continued good health.
But if killing off your own supporters isn’t enough, you can always demoralize them by constantly reminding them there’s no point in participating in a “rigged” voting system:
REP. MO BROOKS: “There are some people who are despondent about the voter fraud and election theft in 2020. Folks, put that behind you. [Jeers, boos, shouts of “no!”] Look forward, look forward, look forward! Beat them in 2022. Beat them in 2024. All right, well, look back at it but go forward and take advantage of it. We’ve got to win in 2022. We’ve got to win in 2024. That’s what we’ve got to do.”
Yup, they’ve created a horde of Frankenstein’s monsters, and every last one of them has an Abby Normal brain.
Of course, Trump didn’t help Brooks and the other congressional Republicans out on this score, either. No, not one little bit:
TRUMP: “We did have a rigged election, [unintelligible] it was terrible, terrible. And you look at what’s going on now.”
Oh, and naturally, he also endorsed Pillow Man Mike Lindell’s recent diaper pyre of a cyber symposium:
It will take a lot of hard work and some luck to defy history and keep the House and Senate in 2022, but Republicans seem determined to help us. If Trump’s fans aren’t mostly dead by then, it seems almost certain that a big portion of them will be discouraged, and nothing Mo Brooks or any other congressional Republican says will be able to coax them out of their funk—because Donald Trump’s id and ego will never allow it.
And if we deliver on infrastructure, people will begin to see the difference in their own lives. Thanks to President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, many already are.
We can do it, and I’m cautiously optimistic that we will. And when we do, we’ll be able to thank Donald Trump for his stubbornness and utter lack of discipline. Though you’ll forgive me if I don’t send him a bouquet of flowers and a thank you note.
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