Ignorance And The Pandemic

Almost since the dawn of civilization educators have been conducting a war on ignorance, and since the beginning of the twentieth century Republicans have accused those educators of being socialists or radical liberals. That Trump and the far right are anti-intellectual is perfectly understandable. The Republicans and their wealthy donors depend on the gullibility of the uneducated and uninformed. Who else is going to ignore reality and buy into the absurd conspiracy theories of the radical right? What I find so perplexing is the fact that most of the news media and the pundits actually let Donald Trump and the other feckless, fascist fools define who and what is radical left or too liberal. Seemingly the Republican's ideological attacks work. So it should not surprise anyone that the most ignorant and intellectually challenged American president anyone living today can recall is taking the intellectual attacks on ignorance personally. How dare anyone fact check Donald Trump!

Trump and the Republican Party want you to believe that facts are merely partisan tools used to refute cherished beliefs, and that is bad - so bad, so very bad! Just ask Galileo. Trump also wants you to believe that people who insist on facts are too busy trying to find out out what the facts are to do anything else. Moscow Mitch, comrade William (Beria) Barr, and what is left of the Republican party would agree. Indeed those Republicans insist that Trump is just what this country needs. He is too aggressively ignorant and neglectful to be encumbered by any knowledge of history or concerns about the ramification of his actions or his inaction, and he has no conscience! Short term goals and immediate gratification, that's the ticket, that's what Trump promises.

So take your damn Hydroxychloroquine, drink bleach, rip off those ridiculous masks, and go about your business the way you did before the pandemic. Take Trump's word for it: Dr. Anthony Fauci and those other doctor downers don't know everything. If Covid-19 does not kill you, you will be better off for standing up to it!

Needless to say that Trump is at war with the truth and the truth is asserting itself with a vengeance. The attendance at Trump's last rally was underwhelming, but the virus bearing droplets causing so many of his followers and so many members of his entourage to catch the Covid-19 virus were anything but underwhelming.  Much to the chagrin of the Republicans even the dumb asses are beginning to catch on. Many of them now realize that Death by virus is not be such a good thing, and it can happen to them. This is forcing Trump's spokespeople to say, “okay, you scaredy cats, wear the masks if you must, but go to the Trump rallies.

As the pandemic rages through the nation taking the lives of our loved ones and our neighbors approval of Trump's performance plummets. Unfortunately for Trump, the more unpopular a president becomes the more he is scrutinized and the greater the evidence against him becomes.  The Republicans who were too cowardly to oppose Trump are now watching in horror as he bumbles them into a disaster. Trump's “sleepy Joe” and “scary china lover ads” are falling with a dull, pathetic thud. Other Republicans, the ones involved in the Lincoln Project are not just calling out Trump for his corruption, incompetence, and disloyalty to this country, they are also calling out the senators and members congress who chose to function as soggy diapers covering Trump's ass and hauling his water rather than keeping the oath they took to defend the constitution. It is too late for any of those senators or members of congress to distance themselves from Trump now. They had their chance to do the right thing by voting to impeach Trump or by convicting him in the senate, and they did not to do it.

If you are looking for a silver lining in regard to the pandemic it is that it is doing what investigations, public hearings, and Trump's transparent acts to obstruct of justice could not do; it is making the people who are too lazy or indifferent to pay attention to politics look at just how incompetent and dangerous Trump is. That the price the pandemic is exacting for performing this service is far greater than we ever wanted to pay goes without saying, but so is the price of having the corrupt and malfunctioning Trump as our chief executive.