Dead Men Don't Tell Quarterly Reports
You know that pain you've been having in your stomach whenever you watch the news on television? You shouldn't be asking somebody from the deep dish state medical-industrial-futonic complex for help - they made a mistake diagnosing a hangnail 27 years ago! No, you should consult the auto mechanic down the street to diagnose your stomach cancer. He may not have any training, but he's never made a mistaken medical diagnosis in his life, so you know you can trust him!
And if you die a painful death, at least you will have the comfort of knowing that you maintained your belief in irresponsible freedom to the very end.
As hospitals in the Basket of Deplorables have to cope with more patients than they were designed to handle, Fox News Anchor Ghoul Tucker Carlson advocates a course of action that will guarantee their complete collapse under the weight of a ballooning pandemic. Why? It's the economy, stupid!
Carlson would rather die than be unemployed. Which is to say, he would rather you die than him be unemployed, so he will say whatever he believes President Donald Eustace Trump wants to hear. In the Basket of Deplorables, this is what passes for compassionate conservatism.
It Takes A Village To Raise A Child...To The Highest Office In The Land
I always believed that politicians who killed their constituents wouldn't stay in office long. Donald Trump stated that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not lose a single supporter. Wanna take a guess which one of us was right?
President Donald Franchot Trump claimed that social distancing and staying in place (in other words, measures to keep people alive) was not worth the widespread economic havoc that would ensue from the measures. Really? Let's run the numbers. Ten million people unemployed versus two million dead? Obviously, the unemployment is the more serious problem - it's just math!
Would this calculation have anything to do with the fact that President Trump has based his reelection strategy on his handling of the economy? And, that when people can't spend money because they're not working, the economy can suffer serious from hardening of the multipliers? Hard to tell - mathematics in the Basket of Deplorables parted ways with Euclid long, long ago.
On his own, President Trump is bad enough; however, he has surrounded himself with legions of deplorables who reinforce and amplify his message. People like Tony Spell, Pastor of the Life Tabernacle Church, who could foresee (whether through Biblical interpretation or the advice of his accountant, who can say?) a huge drop in his earnings if people were not allowed to congregate in his place of worship.
Spell was counting on the continuing patronage of people like the woman who believed that she was protected from contracting the coronavirus because, "I am bathed in the blood of Christ." If he holds services, Spell will be bathed in the blood of his parishioners, but since Christ doesn't seem to be around, I guess he has to make due with whatever gore is at hand.
And, People like Fox News medical contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier. Honestly, your stomach cancer is going to kill you sooner or later, so why seek medical treatment? Worse: it's medical malpractice to even try to treat your stomach cancer, knowing that it's only a matter of time before it kills you. Doctors kill more people than they cure.
There is an almost Zen-like beauty to this concept. Unless you have stomach cancer...
You Can't Eat Bullets
It takes cojones to use one public health emergency to justify contributing to another public health emergency. But you don't become an advocate for the US National Shooting Sports Foundation if you're a wallflower.
Mark Oliva has never wanted for company in the pickup joints in the Basket of Deplorables. His standard opening line is: "Hey, baby. Wanna hear about why gun and ammo stores should be declared an essential service during a government-mandated economic shutdown?" And, the ladies swoon.
Consider this: in March, 2020, there were no school shootings in the United States. Oliva will undoubtedly take credit for the fact, noting that he was partly responsible for the new normal that every class taught in American high schools is now partly a gun safety class. The fact that no classes were held in most states as a result of a COVID-19 lockdown may have been a major factor in the cessation of violence, but it's relegated to a mere footnote in Oliva's account.
Basket of Deplorables priorities and all that.
You would be forgiven for asking exactly whom Oliva thinks people using their god-given right to bear arms are protecting themselves from. Infected neighbours who have an unfortunate tendency to spit when they talk? Crazed toilet paper hoarders? Huggers? All of the above? More likely none of the above.
After all, in the Basket of Deplorables, exploiting a national health crisis to forward a pro-gun agenda needs no reason.
