Writing off Death

Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death (1523–5)

(5 minute read) 

Conservative Republican Evangelical Messaging:

            People die.

            People are dying all the time anyway.

            People die from heart disease, cancer, regular disease, accidents, mayhem of all sorts, old age, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, food poisoning and just because. Covid-19 is just something else that people are dying from. Not that big of a deal really. Sure it’s bad but so is heart disease.

Thoughts and prayers.

Perspective.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has been horrible. No disputing that. However, I grow weary of the daily scorecards of 2020 deaths attributed to Covid that make perspective difficult. Consider these CDC stats on causes of death during 2018…”

 Wearisome.

            I lifted the above quote from a meme that has been circulating around in conservative postings. I have seen it posted and shared in a number of places. I haven’t bothered checking the information presented as to having the correct number of deaths attributed to various categories.

            Hearing about Covid deaths is “wearisome” to them. People share those feelings in order to minimize what’s taking place. That way they can ignore the fact that the President knew SARS-CoV-2 was deadly and lied to the nation. They can ignore that he has and still does encourage practices that kill people. He got it and lived. Now he’s a one man super-spreading show.

            At the top of the list is 655,381 people dying from heart disease. Then the author talks about all the other ways people die and supplies the number for each. So really, is adding an additional half million to the normal death tally really all that much of a big deal? The majority of these new deaths are going to be old people and they don’t have all that many years left anyway. Sure there’ll be some people die from all the other age groups and ethnicities but that’s bound to happen. They’re…

Just collateral damage.

Revealed

            What’s missing from the “perspective” narrative? (Besides humanity.)

• A shattered economy.
• The millions that will have their physical lives forever compromised from Covid-19.
• The millions of people that have been put out of work. This is in addition to the 30 million plus that were living in poverty before the pandemic struck.
• All the families that have lost BOTH parents to Covid-19.
• Millions more now without health insurance during a pandemic.
• Homes lost.
• Men, women and children hungry, some for the first time in their lives.
• All those that have lost EVERYTHING!

Wearisome.

292,747

            Clearly they needed this “perspective” during WWII.

            Why?

            The number of deaths due to Covid-19 has now exceeded the number of American combat casualties from WWII. (292,747) That took almost 4 years. When casualties were reported from the front lines people weren’t saying that they were tired of hearing about dead people and that it was wearisome. There weren’t irrational individuals walking neighborhoods or calling people up telling them to maintain their perspective that there were worse things than our men and women dying in combat.

            AND that’s only .39% of the total population then. Yet people made a big deal out of it.

            The “conservative” Retrumplicans and evangelicals of today are cut from a different cloth.

            Retrumplicans made it possible to exceed that total in less than a year! AND we’re coming in at a 1.5% or higher mortality rate!

Winning!

405,399

            That’s the number of total American deaths from WWII. Armed forces personnel were dying from natural causes, accidents, etc. then as well. (Yes, people died from other things then too. Amazing isn’t it?) Retrumplicans will make it possible to beat this number as well!

More winning!

 Caring and sharing.

            It’s easy to see why keeping things in perspective is difficult for some people. (NOT really.)  I read that what the pandemic has also done is revealed the true nature of people. The callous disregard for human life by so many has been a real eye-opening experience all over the country.

            How many deaths and lives destroyed will it take to provide adequate perspective to Conservative Evangelical Republican Trump supporters? How many have to die before they go against their lying Ducé and start wearing masks, participating in contact tracing and get vaccinated? What has to happen to get any of them to stop killing people? Their refusal to believe what’s happening, mask up and maintain physical distancing has resulted in a couple of hundred thousand needless deaths. That is NOT the fault of the Chinese that they like to race bait. Conservative Republicans, Evangelicals and Trump supporters are the ones responsible.

They own that.

Trumpin’ in Georgia.

 

On message.

            The head of the RNC, along with other Republican spokesliars, was in Georgia campaigning for the two filthy rich Senate Republicans seeking reelection with unique messaging.

            The election was and is hopelessly rigged against Trump by Republicans that supported Trump!

            Everything in the electoral process in Georgia, like the rest of the country, is corrupt, including the Republicans running it!

            The Republican Senators supporting Trump’s river of lies aren’t supporting him enough by demanding the vote of the people be overturned!

            Voting machines are rigged!

            Software is rigged!

            Mail in ballots are rigged!

Trust the electoral process and vote Republican in the upcoming Senate election!

            Got it?!

Whaaaaaaaaaat?

Normal people.

            Their messaging might seem to be on the illogical side and somewhat counterproductive. On the one hand they’re saying the system has failed completely while on the other they’re saying trust the system. To their credit the Republicans actually running the electoral system in Georgia are saying that not only are they Trump supporters and voted for Trump but that the system worked. Trump says that they’re liars.

            Now on the face of it some folks might consider that this kind of messaging is kind of a hard sell to make. Some folks might think that if they’re being told the system is rigged it seems kind of pointless to turn out and vote since their votes won’t matter anyway.

            “Some folks” aren’t Trump supporters. Being crazy isn’t a requirement for believing messaging like this but it helps. For them messaging of opposite claims is an

Easy sell.

“Alice laughed. ‘There's no use trying,’ she said. ‘One can't believe impossible things.’

‘I daresay you haven't had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’” –Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll

Agendas

            Right now the Trump Administration is like a Disney ride. Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride comes to mind. Republicans are holding super spreading parties, super spreading hearings and attending super spreading election rallies in order to commemorate what will be the worst medical disaster in the our nation’s history, THAT THEY CAUSED. They are a plague in and of themselves. Concern for the wellbeing of others is out the window. Killing people is their agenda. Denying health care is their agenda. Starving people back to work during a pandemic is their agenda. Giving money to the wealthy is their agenda. Obstructing legislation that benefits working people is their agenda. It’s what they’re good at.

            Will the people of Georgia vote out the two corrupt Republican Senators seeking to line their own pockets while paying allegiance to McConnell and their Chosen One Liar? Hard to say. BUT if people want a chance at coming out of this in better shape then they should consider voting for Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff for Senate in Georgia. Put someone in office that cares about

YOU and those that you care about!

TRUMP CONCEDES!!!

 

The steal is stopped.

            President Trump approved the head of the GSA, Emily Murphy, to sign the paperwork that starts the transition to President Joe. The rumor circulating in the White House is that he had his hand behind his back and that he had crossed his fingers. Film at eleven.

            Approving the transition means that he acknowledges losing to a man that he couldn’t imagine losing to. Otherwise there’s absolutely NO reason for him to approve the transition if he thinks that he’s going to continue being President.

            Trump also told his “team” to cooperate with Biden’s team. Rudy G. is going so far as to share hair dying tips. Sharpies will be in short supply though. Trump will need those for his upcoming court filings.

            At this point it’s quite possible that Trump supporters will continue believing that he’s President even when he’s out of office. He’ll simply telling them that he’s renting out the White House so that he can run the country while cheating at golf at one of his golf courses.

They’ll believe it too.

Attempted Coup Continues.

            None of this means that the Republican or Evangelical Parties will stop in their attempt to overthrow our government. No sir, buddies and buddettes. They are far from being done. They are playing the long game right along with the short game. They had to eat their shorts in the short game. (So where did that expression originate and do we want to know?)

            In Florida a shadow candidate with no party affiliation listed and the same last name as the incumbent Democrat was apparently coordinated by a Republican operatives. The straw candidate didn’t campaign and didn’t pay for his campaign material that purported to support liberal issues. He pulled down over 6,000 votes. The Democrat lost. The ‘Latinas for Trump’ candidate won by 32 votes. Another race in Florida had a similar “ghost” candidate in the race.

            We can look forwards to more of these types of perverse dirty politics in the future and may well see them in the ongoing senate races in Georgia where Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are seeking the office of Senator to keep Republican Moscow Mitch McConnell from continuing to hamstring government by denying help to desperate Americans while offering a helping hand to his wealthy friends as they line up their limousines to take them to the bank. (I’m kind of proud of that sentence.)

            Given the chance they’ll try to throw the election again. It’s what they do.

            The never surrender even if you’ve lost Trumpers are threatening to destroy the Republican Party in Georgia. Cheap talk. They won’t do it. They will NOT boycott the election. They don’t have the courage of their convictions any more than Trump did.

They haven’t got the guts!

They will continue.

            Republicans aren’t the least bit hesitant to corrupt the legal system as well. This is why they have been busily appointing unqualified judges with lifetime appointments to the bench. They lost across the board with their election charges including at least one judge that was appointed by Trump. They submitted ZERO evidence of widespread fraud in spite of their public claims otherwise.

            Trump’s lawyer team was utterly unsuccessful at turning over the election by using the court to thwart the will of the voters by throwing out the votes of those that voted for President Joe. We’re talking millions of votes here. Their court filings were as ridiculous as they were illogical. They wanted courts to throw out millions of votes. Didn’t happen.

This time.

While they’re at it.

            Here are the names of the Republicans outed by Carl Bernstein as being contemptuous of Trump behind his back. This isn’t new information by the way. The Senators named are claiming that Bernstein didn’t talk to them. Of course not. His sources are those that they trash talked Trump to including their colleagues. Here’s the list. (BTW it isn’t complete.)

Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.), and Senate Majority Whip John Thune (S.D.). The other 18 GOP senators are Rob Portman (Ohio), Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Ben Sasse (Neb.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Mitt Romney (Utah), Mike Braun (Ind.), Todd Young (Ind.), Tim Scott (S.D.), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Richard Burr (N.C.), Pat Toomey (Pa.), Martha McSally (Ariz.), Jerry Moran (Kansas), Pat Roberts (Kansas), and Richard Shelby (Ala.).

             Georgia multimillionaire Senators Perdu and Loeffler didn’t make the list. They are too afraid of the Trumpeteers. They’ll support every malevolent policy that the Republicans pursue by marching in lockstep with the Party that comes before the country.

            Come on Georgia!

Throw them out too!