Month: May 2020

So far, 700,000 Americans have been diagnosed with COVID 19. Since the first death 7 weeks ago on February 29, there have been 38,779 deaths. That’s roughly 800 per day.

Many who have died were otherwise healthy, relatively young people. Other people have had more mild bouts. The thing is, it’s hard to know whether, if you happen to get it, you’re going to have Premium Ultra Hi-Test COVID or COVID Lite. So, it’s probably best to try not to get it in the first place.

The CDC has done a pretty good job of telling us how to do that. We know that the virus is airborne and highly contagious. We know that people can be infected AND symptom-free. We know the virus can linger on most surfaces for a long time, meaning that being in foreign environments exposes us to endless opportunities for infection.

We also know that, in addition to washing our hands, wearing PPE, and sanitizing anything coming into our living spaces, pretty much the best way to not get sick is…

Wait for it…it’s gonna blow your mind…

STAYING THE FUCK AT HOME.

Because if you do that as much as is humanly possible, you reduce the opportunities for that nasty little virus to come into your space and make you ill.

I know, I know. It’s complicated. It’s almost like you need a Ph.D. to understand the causality. Don’t hate me because I’m brilliant.

So, in order to stay well, all you have to do…all you have to do…is STAY THE FUCK AT HOME.

Perhaps because they have some understanding of the connection between people staying at home and people not getting infected, governors in 42 states have issued omnibus shutdown orders, and 3 have issued partial quarantine mandates. Because they listened to the CDC and thought it best if people would STAY THE FUCK AT HOME.

Now, some people can’t. They have to go to work, because their employers say so, and they desperately need money, because few people can last for more than a few weeks without a steady paycheck. I get that. It would be super cool if those employees were provided with proper PPE and were being paid at a hazard-rate, which is not the case for most, but I get that for some, including my husband, staying home is not an option.

For the health care workers and grocery store employees and mail carriers and truckers and people who are making sure there is food in the stores, water in our pipes, Netflix on our TVs and prescriptions being filled, please accept my deepest gratitude.

And, yeah, some of us have to go out from time to time to pick up food or run some essential errand or just to take a walk in the park for a change of scenery, and that’s fine, too, as long as we wear our masks, maintain our 6’ distance, and keep our visits to retail locations as brief as possible.

It’s called “honoring the social contract,” which I realize is a foreign concept to anyone who moved to this country after January 20, 2016.

But it’s no longer a thing, and I know this because there are actually people out there protesting those “stay at home” orders. They’re out there in Florida, Ohio and Michigan (where traffic actually blocked access to a hospital) demanding that state-mandated quarantine edicts be lifted. NOW.

One has to wonder what these people are thinking: Despite the initial skepticism of more conservative Americans as to how serious, and widespread, COVID 19 would turn out to be, few other than doctors who used to be on Oprah and Fox New commentators seem to doubt just how much of a threat it poses. We already know that in many parts of the country, healthcare for COVID 19 patients has been less than ideal, not because the providers are unqualified (far from it!) but because there’s just not enough – not enough doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, ventilators, beds, masks…you name it. Doesn’t it make sense that we would want to do everything we can to make sure that we keep the numbers as small as possible so that we don’t continue to overtax and already severely burdened system?

“Economic necessity” is a better answer, and I certainly don’t want to pooh-pooh such concerns, although shouldn’t we wonder that most of this country CAN’T miss more than ONE paycheck without facing financial disaster? Is that not concerning, especially in light of the steady stream of GOP tax cuts we have seen year after year, legislation that never helps the poor or middle class build savings and rarely leads to meaningful wage increases?

Do none of these protestors wonder why it is that they are in such dire financial shape? Sure, maybe they overspend and don’t follow a strict budget, but could it be that they live paycheck to paycheck because that’s the state of our economy under a GOP Administration – and always has been?

Or maybe it’s not economic, maybe it’s boredom. Maybe people are tired of sitting at home watching TV. They want to be able to go to Applebee’s and the movies and Old Navy, and to be able to hang out with all of their friends so while they bury their faces in their phones the entire time (you know it’s true), at least they won’t feel lonely. Or maybe they just love their jobs so much that they just can’t wait to get back to them.

But I think the real gist of all of the protests – and the Failing NYT backs me up on this – is that there is a segment of society that just doesn’t like being told what to do because they think they should have the unfettered freedom to be out and about, whenever and wherever they want, mingling and infecting and getting infected, because it’s their decision, and damnit, who is the state to tell them what they can and cannot do with their own bodies???

Which is pretty, pretty ironic when you consider that MOST protesters are GOP/pro-Trump, “pro-life” advocates who absolutely think the state has the right to tell SOME people – pregnant women, that is – what they can and cannot do with their own bodies, but I digress.

But yeah, how dare the government try to tell people what to do? That’s tyranny!!

Well, no, it’s not. The state can regulate a person’s behavior when it puts other people’s lives at risk, which is why free speech has certain limitations, such as the one that says you can’t scream “FIRE!” in a crowded movie house if there is not, in fact, an actual fire.

And the state can make you wear a motorcycle helmet, because it has an interest in not incurring the medical bills for an uninsured cyclist who French-kisses a telephone pole and ends up a quadriplegic.

So if the state would prefer that you stay at home watching reruns of “Ice Road Truckers” or “Marrying Millions” (both excellent choices) in your sweats, its interest in protecting the well-being of others, maximizing access to healthcare to those who cannot self-quarantine, and ending this goddamned, straight-from-hell, kick-me-in-my-dick epidemic as soon as is fucking possible kind of outweighs your interest in being able to gorge yourself on Blooming Onions and steak at Outback after getting your brows waxed, going to the Jojo Siwa concert, and buying new hand towels at Home Goods.

For fuck’s sake.

I’m lucky. I can do my job at home. I continue to earn a paycheck. Two of my 4 daughters are here. My cats and dogs are here. We have plenty of food and toilet paper, and we are healthy. I’m an introvert, and I crave time at home. I miss daughters 1 and 3, and my granddaughter, but I’ll survive. So maybe I just don’t get it.

But I have thought about it, and I have tried to figure it out, and I just don’t seem to get it, so maybe my FB friends can explain it to me.

Thank you.

I’m not an Amish Friendship Bread kinda girl.

Which means, if you give me some sort of yeasty mix that was handed down from someone’s great-great-grandmother 30 years ago, from a secret recipe, and you want me to ferment it, or add stuff to it, or maybe, I don’t know, watch porn with it, and then pass some of it along to five more people with handwritten instructions for how they have to do the same thing…

…oh, and then make some sort of unleavened bread which maybe Michael will eat one piece of just to be polite, then will go all moldy until someone throws it away…

…but then also KEEP some of the dough so I can hang onto it and continue to add to it and take it to out to lunch every so often and trim its toenails and clean out its closets until I DIE….

(BTW: I HAVE CHILDREN. AND A HUSBAND. AND DOGS. AND A VERY SMALL BLADDER).

Yeah.

I’m not an Amish Friendship Bread kinda girl. Which means if you give me that goddamned brownish crap in a Ziplock?

I’m throwing it out, and I’m not gonna feel bad about it.

Let me say that I have nothing against the Amish, Friendship, or Bread. Don’t know a whole lot about the first except (1) what I saw in “Witness,” (2) they have a bad reputation in Pennsylvania for operating puppy mills; and (3) I once had to do research about what happens when one of their horse-buggies gets involved in a motor vehicle accident, but I forget what that is.

I love friendship, and I love my friends.

And bread. Gosh, how I love bread.

But I hate any “tradition” that requires me to prove the depth of my feeling and commitment through meaningless gestures (see my numerous posts as to my thoughts about Mother’s Day), and for the life of me, I see nothing “friendly” about giving someone a bag of goo that smells like feet (and, I can assure you, no Amish person ever made and called “bread”) and asking me to push it off on five other people, much like a chain letter, only more like mucous.

I know, I know. It’s meant to be fun, and to connect people to an everlasting network of those who all ate a baked good that derived from the same original batch of ingredients, thereby uniting us, young and old, black and white, Christian or Muslim or Jew, those who think Carol Baskin killed her first husband and those who think he escaped to Costa Rica to live with a much younger woman.

I’m just saying, there are ways to be friendly and connect with people that are a lot less demanding.

And that’s what pisses me off. I don’t like people telling me how to be their friend, or insisting that I prove it, because although I probably really love them a lot, maybe the day I’m supposed to add the flour to the bread or or repost whatever you put on FB today (you know, that thing that only a TRUE friend will read and repost) is the day my dog crapped all over my kitchen floor, or work was crazy, or one of my kids needed me, or my husband said, “let’s go for a walk.”

So, no Amish Friendship Bread for me. I do, however, accept donuts, cinnamon rolls, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, cake, ice cream sandwiches, sea salt caramels, and of course, Dark Chocolate Milanos.

So now our president is retweeting posts with the hashtag #FireFauci.

Because the good doctor admitted that a swifter and more vigorous response by our country to COVID 19 might have saved lives.

It may or may not be true, but before we look objectively at the evidence to determine whether or not it is, by all means, let’s fire Dr. Fauci.

If it IS true, call it FAKE NEWS in the hope that when the moron in chief shows his supporters some rhinoceros poop, they’ll believe it’s actually a baby chick.

For those who are okay with a chief executive taking no responsibility for the actions of his organization, regardless of the issue, ever ever ever, times infinity…they sure picked a dandy.

They expect pretty much everyone else in the entire universe to be held accountable for their screw-ups…we ALL do…but not this guy, the one who is gonna make them rich and magically turn their wives into Slovenian supermodels. Hasn’t happened yet, but hey, there’s still time.

And if he keeps screaming, “FAKE NEWS!!!” and firing the people who speak up and say, “you’re not telling the truth,” or, “there’s more to the story,” or, “ let’s see what science has to say,” well, then rhinoceros poop turns into little baby chicks and no one has to use their brain and think for themselves.

Sometimes you need some rhinoceros poop, people.

Someone recently told me that they don’t like to talk or think about politics because it makes them uncomfortable.

How nice it must be to live a life so privileged that politics plays no role in one’s day to day existence.

You know what that means.

And when we are privileged, we often don’t realize that others aren’t. We may even be such assholes that we deny that such privilege even exists.

Not having to think about politics, or who gets elected, or how one’s life will be impacted thereby, means being so insulated from poverty, oppression, inequality, and violence as to be virtually living in a pretty little dollhouse, or an ivory tower, protected from the reality of what so many souls on the planet daily cannot escape, and so, have to endure.

One of the greatest blessings of my life has been the gift of a child with disabilities, and a child who is bisexual, because these young women do face prejudice, inequality, and oppression, and as their mother, that means I’ve had a front row seat to what it looks like when you’re not a typically-abled, straight, white, Christian male.

Which in turn means that unless I am an asshole, I don’t get to sit back and wallow in my enormous privilege, and I am forced to acknowledge the unfairness that other oppressed populations suffer.

And I can be a total asshole, believe me, but not because I’m too precious to sully myself by expressing opinions and taking positions that – Mary, Mother of God, pray for me – SOMETIMES MAKE PEOPLE UNCOMFORTABLE.

But I sort of think maybe some people could stand to be a little uncomfortable, and I’m not gonna stop, so consider yourselves warned.

Ted Cruz recently referred to the Democratic Governor of Kentucky (and Dems who support him), who has threatened to record the license plates of those violating the state’s “stay at home” order to attend Easter Sunday services, as a Nazi who opposes Religious freedom.

As if that’s what the “stay at home” edict, and efforts to enforce it, is intended to do – to keep people from worshiping. Is there a church out there that hasn’t figured out how to live-stream its services?

No, there isn’t. It’s not about freedom of religion, or freedom of assembly, it’s about avoiding large gatherings of people, some of whom may be sick and don’t know it.

Which Cruz, who voluntarily self-quarantined after a possible exposure, knows full well.

But there are those who say, “it’s my right to worship at my church. God will protect me. If I get sick, what’s it to you?”

Well, it may be your right to worship, but what about the rights of the people you’re taking to that church who have no choice in the matter, like your kids?

And it may be your choice to worship, but what about your responsibility to your fellow man not to infect them, which you might, if you’re sick and don’t know it?

And that thing about God protecting you? Well, I guess you don’t ever need to go to the doctor, or wear a seatbelt, or buy a fire extinguisher, or wear a life jacket, ever again.

And what’s it to anyone else if you get sick? Well, it’s the well-being of a health care worker. A bed in an ICU. A ventilator that someone else might need.

So, if you must go to church on Easter Sunday – and the only reason I can think that watching from home isn’t good enough for your pastor is that if you’re home, his collection plate may not be as full as it would be if his flock is in the building and he can berate them into digging deep so he can pay for his private jet and mansion and limo – then promise me this:

When you get sick, you’ll demonstrate the same faith in God’s ability to heal you without need for attention from the medical professionals who told you to stay home in the first place.

And Ted? Try to imagine that the Governor of Kentucky may actually have the welfare of his people – including those on the front lines, in hospitals, who are caring for the sick – in mind. Comparing him to a regime that slaughtered 12 million in the name of racial purity is in such poor taste, even coming from the likes of you.

So Rush Limbaugh, that bloviating cauldron of rancid, fermenting swamp gas, recently wondered aloud whether Democratic party leaders are worried that presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg – who also happens to be gay – is masculine enough to stand alongside Donald Trump on a debate stage: “They’re sitting there and they’re looking at Mayor Pete — a 37-year-old gay guy, mayor of South Bend, loves to kiss his husband on the debate stage — and they’re saying, ‘Okay. How’s this gonna look, a 37-year-old gay guy kissing his husband on stage next to Mr. Man, Donald Trump? What’s gonna happen there?’ America’s still not ready to elect a gay guy kissing his husband on the debate stage president.”

Oh, Rush. You sweet, simple, stew of liquid six-week-old mushrooms, you giant-sized bag of Dr. Pimple Popper’s medical waste…where in the world would we be without your incisive, up-to-the-minute musings? Thank the lord someone has finally asked this most important of questions: How WILL America feel about Mayor Pete – as opposed to Donald Trump – when they finally see what kind of husband he is?

It’s a good question, and I can only speak for myself, but let me say this: Seeing a man treat his spouse with respect and affection is a real turn-off. Far sexier is a guy who routinely cheats on his spouse – preferably with porn stars, and no condom. Man, that gets me SO hot. It’s also a major buzzkill when a guy stays married to the same person year after year after year – no, MY Mr. Right has been married at least three times (Hello, Donald!) or, ideally, four (which is what makes Rush such a hottie!) So, listen up, Mayor Pete: When you kiss your spouse on the debate stage (and that goes for you, too, Bernie, Joe, Amy, Elizabeth, Deval, Tom, and Michael), you’re not getting my vote. I like my presidential candidates cool and borderline abusive.

But, you know, maybe Rush is really just talking about pure, raw, masculinity. I mean, maybe he’s saying, you can’t be GAY and also MANLY. Although his invective here is directed at the LGBTQ community, let’s pause for a second to consider the misogyny inherent in his statement that one must be perceived as MANLY in order to be a viable presidential candidate. Okay, pause over. Everyone knows Rush has as much use for strong, powerful, independent women as I have for lazy, uneducated, college drop-out, ultra-conservative radio hosts.

And what does it mean to be “manly” anyway? At its most basic, I guess it’s hitting something over the head with a club, dragging it back to a cave and eating it, and yeah, that’s something I can see Donald Trump doing, so long as his bone spurs aren’t bothering him too much and that something is a Big Mac. “Manly” can also be suggestive of a guy who has many sexual conquests – you know – the kind of man who can go all night. As a guy who needs some help in that department (he was once arrested for bringing contraband Viagra into the country without a prescription), maybe Rush is a little sensitive about his own masculinity, so it feels good to imagine someone less “manly” than he, an old fart whose little soldier can’t stand at attention on its own. Hence the comments about Mayor Pete.

But in more modern parlance, “manly” is equally likely to invoke a sense of athleticism and fitness (cue Trump-on-the-golf-course photos), versatility/cultural sophistication (as good with a hammer as he is with a skillet, reads NYT bestsellers and has been to an art museum at least once in his life), and style – which, as anyone who has ever watched either the original “Queer Eye” or its reboot can tell you, are three pillars of gay culture. As between Mayor Pete and Donald Trump, it’s pretty obvious who wins that battle.

Except that no one was even aware of this supposed battle in the first place until Rush Limbaugh brought it up, and even then, no one cares whether or not Mayor Pete is a Manly Man – not even Donald Trump, who makes fun of EVERYONE, even Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old girl who just wants to make sure that people will be able to live on the Earth a hundred years from now. No, the ONLY person who gives a crap that Pete Buttigieg kisses his spouse in public from time to time is Rush Limbaugh – you know, Rush Limbaugh?

No, not if you’re under the age of 40, you don’t.

And if you’re over the age of 40, you’d pretty much forgotten all about him until his old Palm Beach Pal, Donald, tried to make him relevant again last week by giving him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I don’t know why he did it; I’m guessing Rush is one of Donald’s biggest fans and regularly promotes his agenda on his radio program, and Donald wanted to do something nice for him because he understands what it’s like to be old and fat and unfuckable.

So there Rush was at the State of the Union, right next to Melania, who was probably thinking, “couldn’t I be on a cruise ship getting coronavirus?” and people were like, “What is that sitting next to the First Lady? It looks like a rabid beaver with rosacea. What it if bites the First Lady? Will she have to get shots in her stomach?”

And Melania was like, “I hope he doesn’t bite me when I put this around his neck,” and Rush was thinking, “I bet she wants to sleep with me now,” and Melania was like, “I wonder what would happen if I hurled myself from this balcony onto the floor of Congress and if so, if I would land in Brett Kavanaugh’s lap, and if so, if that would be worse than this.”

But anyway, there was this thing next to Melania Trump, and no one knew what it was until Trump said his name, and then everyone was like, “He’s still alive?”

Because Rush Limbaugh is irrelevant, and no one cares what he says, and while it’s outrageous that he was given an award previously bestowed upon the likes of Elie Wiesel, Jonas Salk, and Martin Luther King, Jr., Rush is a dinosaur (a tsintaosaurus – look it up – it’ll make you laugh) whose time has come and gone. He says stupid shit that is vile and offensive. He is a horrible human being, and one day in the not too distant future, he will die a nasty, hateful old man who has learned nothing from his battle with drug addiction, with maybe three people and wife number 7 at his funeral.

Also, he’s probably secretly gay and wishes he had a good looking guy like Mayor Pete to kiss him on a debate stage. Here’s hoping you find one, Rush. That’s probably a marriage that would stick.

If you’d told people the story of Trump and the Ukraine in anonymous terms…

“President X held up relief to Country M in exchange for an agreement by Country M to investigate a political rival” and you rolled out the evidence that was adduced, including the refusal of President X to comply with subpoenas or permit staff to testify….

and I know it’s hard to imagine being able to find an audience with the discipline to accept such a hypothetical and maintain a neutral perspective….

I just cannot believe that the majority of the country wouldn’t come down on the side of guilt.

When the whole Bush v Gore nonsense was going down – and I’m ashamed to admit it, but I voted for Bush and wanted him to win – all I could think of was, “ stop counting votes!” because I knew if they kept counting, there was a good chance Gore would win.

There was no crisis. We had a president in office, and didn’t need the new one to step in until January 20. But those who understand how these things work knew that the only way to get Bush elected was to stop the counting. Through a series of legal maneuvers that smelled to high heaven, a bunch of lawyers convinced the 9 people in this country who should have known better that it didn’t matter whether or not every vote got counted.

And that’s how we ended up with W.

I knew the legal arguments asserted by Bush’s team were tenuous and weak (and I’m not that smart). I smelled the bullshit, but I chose to ignore it in favor of what I determined to be the “greater good” (and, hey, who knows what kind of President Al Gore would have been? God knows he sure said “lockbox” a whole lot).

My point is, when you suspect your arguments may be non-meritorious and that you are espousing them merely because you support the person who is advancing them, try this: Ask yourself, would I accept this argument if it were being made by someone I think is a large bag of dermatological waste?

A lot of people say President Trump’s behavior vis a vis the Ukraine scandal – and recall that he and most of his supporters have essentially admitted just about every fact that served as the basis for the articles of impeachment – was no big deal, was not criminal in nature, did not warrant impeachment or a Senate trial, and was well within his authority as Commander in Chief.

I wonder what they would say if President Obama had done the same thing? If a President Sanders or Warren or Klobuchar were to engage in the same behavior a few years from now?

This is politics, and people, at their most base, and I hate that this is what we have become as a nation. Trump and some who support him will take their victory laps and become even more emboldened to engage in behavior that we as a country used to collectively and tacitly agree was ugly and embarrassing.

It really doesn’t seem as though our country can sink much lower, I guess, unless we go back to a time when the only people with guaranteed rights are heterosexual White Christian Males of Northern European descent, and that scenario doesn’t seem all that unlikely these days.

We’re going under, quickly, and if you don’t believe it, listen to the tortuous explanations of 52 men and women who sit in the Senate and voted today to acquit a man of conduct they know in their hearts and have admitted in public to be morally wrong.

That’s where we are in 2020.

So here’s something that happens to me a lot on Facebook.

Someone posts an article.

If it’s interesting, I read it. If it’s generally benign, or just has a lot of pictures of puppies, I heart it, and move on.

If it’s uninteresting, and has no pictures of puppies, I don’t read it, and I move on to an article with pictures of puppies.

If it’s interesting and provocative, and I agree with it, I might comment about why.

If it’s interesting and provocative, and I don’t agree with it, I might also comment about why.

When I do so, I generally strive to make fact-based arguments. Often, I cite to statistics and sources generally acknowledged to be authoritative, like the National Institutes of Health or the CDC.

I do this in part because I was raised by a father who used to say to me, “that’s an excuse, not a reason,” and in part because I’m a lawyer, and it’s my job when advocating for my clients not to rely upon things I read on the internet.

Often, those who don’t agree with my comments respond not by supporting their own positions with facts and data but instead with ad hominem attacks against me and groups with whom they assume I associate myself. When I urge these people to articulate the bases of their arguments, or what parts of mine they find to be untenable, they just yell louder that I’m an awful person, or, as happened yesterday, a “rude child,” which, I guess was appropriate since I said I thought the laws of our country should apply whether or not one is a Christian.

Maybe I am rude and awful. I sure know I am a pain in the neck to people who don’t like to be asked why they think the way they do. And also to Michael.

Here’s the thing: You don’t get to say you support Position X and that Anti-Position X is BAD unless you can articulate why Position X is meritorious, with facts and rational arguments, unless you’re willing to admit you’re a Mindless Facebook Lemming, in which case I will know not to bother with your Mindless Facebook Opinion and you won’t have to deal with my rude childish statistics.

And, finally, in the interest of journalistic integrity, I feel compelled to add this very informative link about lemmings, who are neither suicidal nor – surprisingly – prone to spontaneous combustion.

Also, they’re very cute.

Coronavirus…you can grab her by the pussy, fire her, call her names on Twitter, try to pay her off, refuse to give her aid until she investigates Hunter Biden, ask the Russians for help beating her (well, actually, that might work), blame the Obama Administration, appoint anti-abortion judges, hide your taxes, make fun of her disabled friends, grope her, stick your tongue down her throat (yeah…that would be okay)…but you still aren’t gonna get rid of her, Donald.

Yes, you survived Pussygate. You survived Charlottesville. You survived Trump University and stealing from a kid’s cancer charity and calling Mexicans rapists and drug dealers.

You got Kavanaugh through. You survived 60,000 lies in 3 1/2 years, publicly articulating your belief and trust in Vladimir Putin over your own national security agencies, ignoring the devastation of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, and the indictments/guilty pleas/convictions of 5 key aides who assisted in your campaign.

You survived pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal, the Paris Accords, and shoving world leaders out of your way (or merely openly insulting them).

You survived a revolving door White House with personnel leaving before they could even unpack their family photo and favorite coffee mug, and you survived every single one of them calling you an idiot, a small-minded moron, and a toddler with the attention span of a gnat after they walked out or learned they had been fired via Twitter.

You survived all those tweets, rife with misspellings, grammatical errors, and an utter dearth of the fundamentals of world geography, all of which daily proved your stupidity. You survived children in cages on the border, musings about wishing you could be a dictator like Kim Jong Un, multiple allegations of rape, and an impeachment that everyone in the entire universe knows was based on wildly inappropriate and unacceptable behavior.

But you know, Donald, I’m not sure your gonna survive coronavirus, because you fired the very people who could have helped. You cut the CDC and NIH budgets, and the country is not prepared to deal with what most scientists are predicting could be a very serious pandemic that will reach our shores and impact many, many Americans.

Also, your stock market is tanking, and the part of your base that matters to you (the rich part) is gonna be PISSED (at least, until they die of coronavirus). The part of your base that isn’t rich (but thinks they will magically become so if they vote for you often enough) will probably believe you when you say God sent coronavirus because of the Gays and abortion and the Hoaxy Witch Hunt, but they’ll probably end up dead, too, so they won’t be around to support you, either.

The thing is, while you’ve been able to fool enough people into believing you’re a god-fearing Christian who truly cares about them and their problems (that part always makes me laugh, and then I feel sad), once people start dying because YOU were too busy Tweeting on the Toilet, while their stock portfolios and retirement funds dwindle to nothing and the people they love start dying, they may not be quite so loyal.

Because, as you’ve proven, to the chagrin of those who care about things like the rule of law and fundamental fairness and equality, you may be able to fuck with everything and everyone and get away with it (and you have), but you can’t fuck with science.