Social Darwinism

In a country gone nuts, providing facts is as effective as bailing a boat with a salad fork. Nevertheless, patriotism and decades of doctoring compel me to try.

What spurred this particular holler into the wind was learning of anti-vaxers who need blood transfusions, demanding they come from unvaccinated donors. Because, you know, human embryonic cells. Or microchips. Or altered DNA. Turn them into "mutants," Alex Jones warns.

Because they care about humanity, people who donate blood are likely to be vaccinated. When I’ve ordered transfusions, the victims were usually mid-exsanguination. “Ten units,” I’d order. “O-negative, stat!!” No preference-polls taken. Also, blood is scarce nationwide. Would they rather die? They’ve said so, vaccine-wise. So, good luck. 

It’s true that development of the Covid-19 vaccines employed a fetal stem cell line, used in research around the world ever since it was cultured in the Netherlands. In 1973. It’s unclear whether that line came from one of countless abortions induced by God – aka “miscarriages” -- or by doctors. More importantly, whereas the vaccines’ safety was initially tested utilizing cells from that venerable line, their production neither uses nor contains them.

Or microchips. And, as anyone with eighth-grade science education knows (this may exclude people who were taught science in certain red states, or here whose parents convinced them to disbelieve), there’s absolutely no way vaccines alter recipients’ genetic material. Zero. Zip. Nil. Nada. None. Convinced? Dumb question number one.

Refusers do, of course, expect all the benefits of their rejected medical science when they get sick. Imagine that.

After five decades toiling in operating rooms, wearing masks for hours, I attest to their safety. It’s our global adversaries and Trumpists (difference?) who, wanting to divide us, spread the lies. Who would equate demanding common sense and common purpose with oppression? Pal Putin, for one. And Trumpublican leaders, and Trump, and rightwing media inciters, all of whom require a steady supply of enraged followers.

Which they have, in a decades-old, in-house-designed, carefully-maintained line of medical-strength, unquestioningly malleable adult humans. Sharing characteristics with that half-century-old embryonic cell line: Lab-tested; reliable; behaviorally predictable. Only the latter, though, was intended to benefit humanity.

Nikki Haley, once and future Trumpublican star, just injected more pretense into the body politic. About President Biden pressuring the Taliban to not interfere with departing US citizens and Afghans who’d helped them, she opined: “Negotiating with the Taliban is like dealing with the devil.” Inexplicably, she didn’t burst into flames.

What a brazen example of expecting stupidity. Trump “negotiated” (stretching the definition) with them bigly, gave them everything, bragging all the way. Pressured Pakistan to free the imprisoned criminal who may become Afghanistan’s new leader; forced the Afghan government to release five-thousand more, now among the takers-over. Got empty promises in return. As with his other favorite tyrants, he still praises them. Does ex-ambassador Haley believe Trumpists are that ignorant? (Me: no comment.)

As he fantasizes “presidency” 2.0, the last thing Trump wants is President Biden succeeding in anything, including the pandemic. So effective was his previous dissembling that, when he half-heartedly suggested vaccination to Alabama rally-goers last week, they booed. They’ll continue dying. Even after ingesting deworming cow paste, which, helplessly Trumpofoxified, they trust over vaccines.

To the same end, Trump continues shoveling his big election lie. Which, even after witnessing the feathery explosion of Pillow Mike’s promised, irrefutable, reinstatement-inflicting evidence, the cult fervently believes. In a country gone nuts.

Across the land and here in Snohomish County, parents storm schools in anti-mask anger, physically attacking teachers, pulling off their masks, hurling racial insults, threatening more violence. Made to believe deliberate falsehoods, from which they’ll never extract themselves. Uncaring who gets infected, including themselves and their children.

It’s conceivable they don’t intend to become killers. Without question, though, some will. The kindest explanation is endless Foxotrumpian lies, leaving them defenseless. Otherwise, it’s that they’re dangerously dim. Or, worse, that they’re inherently malicious.

Texas Governor Gregg Abbott, anti-mask hero and pandemic down-player, became infected after meeting unmasked (but vaccinated) with a covey of wealthy, unmasked, Texatrumpic donors. Evidently afraid of dying, he started taking Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment, indications for which rarely include people who, like him, are asymptomatic. “I will downplay the seriousness for thee,” says he, “But not for me.”

Trump and Abbott: anti-abortion (Trump, only recently, because…), anti-fetal stem cell research, taking Regeneron’s antibodies. Which – surprise! -- was developed using the very same embryonic stem cells as the vaccines.

Feel silly yet, anti-vaxer/anti-maskers? Used? Deceived? Manipulated? Dumb questions two through five. 

Clearly, they’ve been implanted with ignorance-inducing microchips.

Death At Death's Door

           [Take your pic pick. Couldn't decide.]

A doctor friend working in a Texas hospital foretells rationing ventilators, as Covid-19 patients overrun their ICUs. Who, he asks, should be denied? Vaccination refusers? Other than being partially-innocent victims of well-organized lying, their primacy on the rejection list is compelling. The brainwashed don’t know they’re brainwashed, but, as ubiquitous evidence makes persisting ignorance indefensible, sympathy wanes.

They sent a Covid patient to North Dakota for care. Needing a ventilator for non-Covid illness, another Texan had to be airlifted 150 miles; prior to which he required approval by a team husbanding the scarce resources. It’s Sarah Palin’s death panels, incarnate; necessitated by people made unable to process information. Unlike the stuff of her disordered mind, this is real. Texas’ Trumpicly irresponsible governor now begs smarter states to send help.

Why it’s happening is obvious. Trump’s pandemic ignorance and lies and inattention showed Republican leaders a winning strategy: To keep people distracted from their pre-failed economic agenda, and sending money, make it about “freedom,” or “communism.” Or, a perfect exemplar of effective disinformation, believing “Critical Race Theory” is taught in K-12 schools. Hint: It isn’t.

“Unmasked, Unmuzzled, Unvaccinated, Unafraid,” say their T-shirts. Translation: “Uninformed, Uneducated, Unreachable, Uncaring.” “I do my own research” – a claim that refutes itself. 

So successful is it that, dismissing massive contrary documentation, Trumpublicans still believe vaccines and masks are ineffective and/or dangerous; liberal “wokeness” signifiers. Had Trump, Trumpophile governors, and their media heroes urged their victims to pitch in, as Americans amidst crises always have, this Delta-variant siege wouldn’t have happened. Viruses spread -- and mutate -- among the unvaccinated. Deeming it acceptable collateral damage, Trump’s party has become a killer party. Why? Consider who benefits.

As their media stars pound rare breakthrough cases among the vaccinated, widespread deaths and deathbed regrets of anti-vaxers are ignored. Consumers only of Trump-approved news sources may have missed these data from the CDC, current as of July 31:

Of the 164m fully vaccinated in the U.S., 99.9% have NOT tested positive for Covid-19. Breakthrough cases represent .077%. Hospitalized: .004%. Died: .001%.

In contrast, 99% of those hospitalized and/or dying of Covid-19 are unvaccinated. A Florida church just lost six parishioners in ten days; four under thirty-five. Previously healthy. Unvaccinated.

Given those numbers, who of right mind refuses vaccination and masks? Trumpists. Among whom, because of disturbingly easy and successful mass deception, it appears no right minds remain. Killing thousands, manipulated and abandoned, for the most cynical of reasons: payola for bankrollers.

For decades, having nothing else to offer, Republicans created a human variant disinterested in truth; not changing course even as their voters are endangered. Only in a killer party could that be considered leadership.

On fawning media, Trump blames President Biden for the resurgence. Unlike Trump, he made vaccination widely available, fast, and urged it. Biden’s fault, says Trump, while his blinded flock refuse vaccination and masks, enabling Delta’s rise.

What hope is there for a county in which millions of such zombified people exist? (Bad analogy. They’re not eating brains, they’re offering their own to their leaders for lunch.) Evidence, mounting hourly, is ignored. And, no: evolving recommendations don’t validate their disbelief. It’s science: seeking and remaining open to new information. Why has that become “conservative” anathema?

Proving the point is a quote for our times, forced from lungs filling with Covid-19, spoken by a 31-year-old man in Branson, MO: “I was strongly against getting the vaccine,” Barker said through labored breathing. “Just because we’re a strong conservative family.” That’s Trumpofoxification in the mortifying flesh. What Trumpian acolytes have done is criminal. Murder most literal.

That poor guy is a victim of Trumpism. This one isn’t: a smug, bullying, attention-seeking, taxi-driving avatar for all of Trumpworld, who refuses masked or vaccinated passengers. Patriotic. Heroic.

For needed karmic relief, Texas Republicans provide: Covid-19 has derailed (temporarily, no doubt) their determination to suppress Democratic votes; the only way they can keep winning.

There are much worse and deadlier issues, though: Whereas the pandemic might end up killing only a million or two Americans, the latest IPCC report shows climate change on a trajectory to kill far more.

Unlike his pandemic dereliction, Trump’s climate denial isn’t wholly responsible. But he and his party did less than nothing about it: deregulating, dissembling, deceiving. Departing accords. All for fossil-fuel money. And to “stick it to the libs.” If that’s both murderous and suicidal, their reactionary inaction on climate change is pan-humanity genocidal.

Unconvinced by heatwaves, drought, acidifying oceans, dying reefs, wildfires, starvation, dried-up rivers and reservoirs, melting glaciers and methane-spewing tundra, Trumpists continue to laugh it off.

Against such radical resistance to reality, what can thoughtful citizens, actual patriots, do? Minimize energy use. Make it green as possible. And, since Trumpists are irretrievably uneducable, stop electing them. Until Texas, et. red, make that impossible, too.

I'm Hardly A Poet, And This Here Will Show It

 

Rather than writing my usual tome,

I’ll end twenty-twen with a post-Christmas poem.

There’s no point pretending it’s been a good year,

As several things became perfectly clear: 

No longer a nation that’s in it together, 

We won’t be till Trumpists can face up to whether,

They’ll re-value truth and can end their reliance,

On people who’ve told them that such things as science, 

Are kidnapping, cannibal, liberals’ lies.

So it’s perfectly fine to go out for supplies,

With a face that’s defiantly, proudly unmasked.

For Americans’ “freedom” means not being asked,

To consider your neighbors and act within reason,

Not now and not ever, not even this season,

In which we’re reminded that sacrifice still,

Is a virtue worth holding. But few of them will.

To those who are willing to follow the rules,

We’re glad you consider masks worthwhile tools.

But unlike that reindeer’s whose schnozz they say glows, 

Your mask won’t do harm if it covers your nose.

And maybe those saying they’ll not take the vax,

Will go to a care place and help fill the sacks,

That hold victims’ bodies. So sure they’d be fine,

They could sub in for someone out on the front line.

But not just a virus has cleaved the divide;

It’s the concept of letting the people decide,

Who their leaders will be by a time-honored vote,

Then accepting results, not some schemes so remote,

That believing them marks one impossibly dim,

Too easily hoodwinked by flam and by flim.

To claim your vote somehow the Democrats stole,

Just doesn’t hold water, because of a hole,

The size of a Trump-approved garish gold roof:

Despite all their claims they’ve presented no proof.

The reason, of course – and for some it’s too quaint:

Any documentation there simply just ain’t.

Attacking elections for several weeks past,

It’s obvious Trump saved his worst for the last.

He’s gone on TV, he’s petitioned the court,

To ridiculous Rudy he has had to resort.

When judges rejected his lying deceit,

His diehards made clear they would never retreat;

Which bodes very poorly for us who consider,

Our laws more compelling than Trump’s latest Twitter.

To believe in our system you must be all in,

And accept that your candidates won’t always win. 

Patriotism can’t be only partial.

Presidents who lose and consider law martial,

Discredit their party and everyone who,

Thinks it’s what any poor loser should do.

This calls to mind something we’ve known for too long:

We no more agree on what’s right and what’s wrong. 

Trump’s lies just don’t matter, nor how much he steals; 

Turns donors to suckers whose silence reveals,

Preferring a despot is now what prevails,

In Trumpists, and that’s how democracy fails.

For proof, look to Congress, where plans are in place,

To attempt overturning results of the race.

There’s astoundingly more but we hardly have time,

To list all corruption in one meager rhyme.

Did anyone think we’d be witnessing such a,

“President” clearly beholden to Russia?

Who, with his enablers, have all turned their backs,

On Putin’s malicious and dangerous hacks,

Which accessed our secrets including our nukes.

But Trump has just said it’s a meaningless fluke.

So now it is more than a little suspicious,

That Trump will abscond with his ill-gotten riches,

And head back to Putin whom he can rely on,

To sell him a dacha and promised asylum.

If it means he escapes from the justice he’s due,

We’d accept it because it would also be true,

That enablers might finally be forced to agreeing,

Trump’s crookedness always was there for the seeing.

Like the power of pardon, right there on the books, 

By which he just freed more despicable crooks, 

Than any exec who had gone on before: 

Committers of murder and pols by the score.

To the occasion Trump’s cultists will never arise.

Let’s hope that some others will open their eyes,

To the damage his four years have already done,

And be glad it was Biden who finally won.

Since, like Billy Barr, he’s incurred Donald’s wrath,

By walking in brief on a truth-telling path,

Perhaps after Trump, Mitch will turn back the clock,

To when he and his senate did more than just block.

So now it is time, with no need for Zoom meetings,

To wish Merry Christmas and warm brumal greetings.

The year ends with hope that if rightists pitch in,

We can remake America great once again. 

Notwithstanding how badly Trump’s tenure has sucked,

It looks like we might not be totally … out of options.