Long Before the Coronavirus
We knew we’d end up here. This is what the whole world warned about. His unfitness, his pathological lying, his abject corruptness would destroy us.
“Soylent Green is People!!!”
Charlton Heston as Detective Thorn, Soylent Green 1973
I am no fan of Trump supporters. They have buoyed a corrupt, mentally ill, dangerous demagogue and turned the keys of American society over to him, like an unfit parent giving their child keys to the family car just after a binge drinking teenage keg party.
His unflinching stupidity is apparent every single day. We hope he can’t say anything more stupid than his proposal to inject disinfectant and UV Light into the human body as a cure for the Coronavirus, but deep down we all know he will say something dumber, and we’ll be shocked again at its inanity.
We also know with universal certainty that his supporters will fall in line to parrot a series of nonsensical defenses for his stupidity. Each one contradicting the last in a harangued dialog that would be left on the cutting room floor of “Dumb & Dumber Six, The Dim Apocalypse!”, as not coherent enough for human consumption.
His supporters have failed all their lessons in ethics, morals, and their own claims to the Christian Religion. So, propagandized by State TV and right-wing media, they might as well be shouting, “We want Barabbas!”, “We want Barabbas!”
We knew we’d end up here. This is what the whole world warned about. His unfitness, his pathological lying, his abject corruptness would destroy us.
Long before the American destruction wrought by the Coronavirus, America was wrought by a plague far worse. We laughed when our parents and grandparents would parrot right-wing talking points. We behaved like this was just some elderly obsession with a favorite sitcom. We waved it off when a bigoted Uncle would quote O’Reilly at Thanksgiving, or even younger siblings would blame immigrants for their own lack of standing in America.
We may have even engaged it from time to time arguing with an ill-informed brother that screamed about Benghazi incessantly. We might have even glimpsed it’s dangerousness and incoherence as 2016 approached when somehow people were following an obvious dimwitted demagogue conman accused credibly(and admitting it) of sexual assault while claiming that his opponent’s husband’s accusers were the ones that made his opponent bad.
What we were witnessing was a spreading pestilence. An acceptance and promotion of lies and misinformation are as dangerous as the plague we currently face. When integrity is gone, only power, control, and survival matters.
The irony is that while spreading the pestilence of misinformation and lies on the American landscape, the Republican party opened the door, and shepherded in a biological pestilence on the country.
No Terrorist organization ever dreamed of being as destructive as today’s Republican Party, as American deaths grow well beyond 50 Thousand. The Worlds Terrorists are jealous of today’s GOP, as they never dreamed that they could unleash terror that would destroy so many American lives, and so many American livelihoods. Republicans became the vector when they groomed him on their 1984-like two-minutes hate shows. They enabled it when they covered for all of his crimes. They promoted it when they enabled him to corrupt the government. They enabled it when they refused to honor their oaths as he abused his office. They stood by as he lied, spun, blamed and propagandized his time away when tragedy overtook America. They cover for him now, as we watch our failed state break down into collapse, chaos and death.
Again, I am no fan of any Brown Shirts that stood with or now stand with this man, but I beg anyone close to them, anyone that can reach what is left of them, anyone that can break through the right-wing programming that controls them, to implore them to please not sacrifice themselves at his sick and disturbed cultic altar. Do not become his human sacrifices for the economy and his subsequent reelection campaign. Stay away from putting disinfectant in your body! Follow the medical experts and practice social distancing. Rid yourselves of the pestilence of propaganda, lies and smears, and stop being its contagion vector. The whole country will be safer for it!
V. M. Smith