Our gangster President Donald Trump has balanced his political career precariously on the unstable fulcrum of “fake news”. When he first started spouting and tweeting that his infamous lines like “Grab ’em by the pussy” and “I hope the Russians and Wikileaks steal Crooked Hillary’s emails” were fake news — “Never said it!” — I just figured the man was a wacky performer, like The Liar on Saturday Night Live. “Yeah … Yeah … I’m a multi-billionaire and everything I touch turns to gold … Yeah … I could have been a professional baseball player, one of the best … Yeah … I learned more about the Vietnam War by going to military prep school than I ever could have by fighting there … Yeah … Yeah … I’m so smart they don’t even have a test to measure my IQ …” I thought it was all a big joke. I didn’t think anyone other than the truly deplorable would believe such patently obvious bullshit.
But now it’s four years later and over 40% of Americans — overwhelmingly Republican — still believe pretty much whatever fake news denial they are fed by the Trumpster.
Tornadoes wipe out little blip towns in Oklahoma and some goober says, “I’ve lived here my whole life and I’ve never seen weather like this!” And then they eat Trump’s poisoned bait about how climate change is a plot by the Chinese to bankrupt America with needless environmental regulations. Meanwhile, Trump applies for permits from Palm Beach and the Corps of Engineers to install a new rock breakwater in front of his Mar-a-Lago resort to battle sea level rise. But who cares? It’s about what the man says, not what he does.
And the goddamn Chinese aint playing fair with trade. So, Trump puts tariffs on half their exports, decimating Midwest agriculture; and even after the hayseeds are told the Chinese didn’t change their trade policy one little bit, the soybean farmers of Iowa applaud their own pointless suffering and sacrifice because we had to teach the Chinee a lesson.
And the coal miners of West Virginia can’t get enough of the Trumpster’s “we’re gonna bring back coal” snake oil pitch, even as they watch the local coal companies declare bankruptcy left and right.
And I could go on and on with examples of Trump’s followers choosing to believe his lies at their own peril, oblivious to the damage being done to their ways of life. But COVID-19 has completely changed the dynamic. Because if you want to support some con man who is stealing your shit, that’s your business. But when you decide to ignore health warnings, like wearing masks, following social distancing, and washing yourself, then you become a threat to everyone else in America. Your ignorance endangers us all.
But it’s even worse than that because the Trumpians have become infected with the fake news virus, remember? And they believe that masks don’t work, that they can get together in great numbers and spit in each other’s faces with great gusto as they hug and kiss, and they have a constitutional right to their personal freedom even if it kills you and me. Hell, most of them don’t believe that COVID-19 is even real. They think it’s a giant conspiracy cooked up by Bill Gates and the Deep State. We are currently sitting at 21 million cases and 750,000 deaths worldwide. Back home here in the good old US of A, we are now averaging about 1,500 deaths a day! And “experts” on Fox News continue to spew their evil lies about how the whole world hates Donald Trump so much they are willing to stage a fake health and economic calamity just to make him look bad. You can’t make this shit up! Well, actually, I guess you can.
So, here’s my question: After bombarding his foolish followers with gibberish for years, how can Trump ever convince his hordes of losers to suddenly accept the fact that science is real and the virus is a treat that will never go away?
And does anyone think these people will take the vaccine if one is ever developed?
See, that’s the problem with the siren call of fake news. Once you believe the truth is fake, then there is no truth. All you hear thereafter is confusing nonsense. And there’s no coming back. You just keep drifting closer and closer to the rocks. Until …
