Former New York Times journalist Donald G. McNeil Jr. wrote an article on Medium that stated what everyone with an ounce of intelligence already knows, but wouldn’t dare put in print: Not only is Donald Trump losing hundreds of voters each day to COVID-19, their deaths are already surpassing the margins the GOP can possibly hope to attain in the swing states. Maybe it seems ghoulish to post the political ramifications to a human life, to which I reply that Democrats aren’t the ones killing these people—their own right-wing disinformation machine is. Hell, we are trying to save them despite the political ramifications.
Trumpists simply don’t believe in wearing masks, or social distancing, and are so anti-vaxx that they won’t even listen to Trump himself as he tries to tout the vaccines. GOP leaders are also undermining public health directives aimed at protecting their own people. Trump did have a change of heart about promoting the vaccines only because someone impressed upon him that the deaths are his voters. He really needs as many as possible in 2024, but it’s too late—and it’s getting worse.
Multiple studies from the AP, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and even Texas’ health services have shown that the deaths are almost entirely among the unvaccinated, and most of these individuals identify as Republican. The profile of a typical COVID-19 victim is now an older unvaccinated person who is obese and lives in a rural area, far from a hospital. In other words, lots of common ground with a Trumper. Obviously, this has already had a major political impact.
McNeil did the math:
The hospitals here in Florida are at the breaking point. The state broke the record with 430,297 cases last week. Also, Florida deaths rose from 184 the previous week to 470 just last week, the most since early November. Gov. Ron DeSantis is so far gone that he is arguing that Trump was too sane and honest about COVID-19 and should have ignored it even more than he did.
At this point I reiterate that Trump has not even tried to expand his base, and he is going into 2024 much weaker than he was in 2020. He is no longer the incumbent, his mental state has been called into question, and his supporters have never trusted elections less. Then there’s the small matter of the insurrection attempt to overthrow the government that has turned off quite a few people, which has now become his legacy. On top of all of this, the GOP has officially become a death cult. The data is in: The stronger a state’s support for Trump was in 2020, the higher the COVID-19 infection rate for that state.
People of color were, at one point, less likely to get the vaccine, but that has been changing. The only people going in the other direction, trend-wise, have been white Republicans. They have fallen further and farther into the anti-vaxx conspiracy, among other kinds of conspiratorial thinking. It’s shocking how far down the rabbit hole they fall. Every day, Kos posts a daily column on COVID deaths here on Daily Kos from anti-vaxxers who start out posting snarky memes, but then always end up running to the hospital when they get sick. Even after suffering in unbearable pain, many of them cling to the disinformation that is making them suffer as they breathe their final breath.
The articles always seem to end the same: with a GoFundMe page begging for money, followed almost immediately by an obituary. It’s a very cruel death, and one that is completely unnecessary. Every one is also a vote for Trump and the Republican agenda that is forever lost. The GOP knows this, which is why they made protecting voter suppression their top priority. It’s really all they have.
Of course, if the GOP were smart, they would promote the vaccine as much as we do. A simple jab would save them from an untimely and painful death. Many, however, will follow their right-wing messiahs right off the cliff. Ironic that if Trumpists really wanted to “own the libs,” they would do everything in their power to keep from getting sick so they could vote. As a moral human being, I feel obliged to remind them of this so they can stay alive, but I will have absolutely no guilt when they choose not to listen.
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Trumpists simply don’t believe in wearing masks, or social distancing, and are so anti-vaxx that they won’t even listen to Trump himself as he tries to tout the vaccines. GOP leaders are also undermining public health directives aimed at protecting their own people. Trump did have a change of heart about promoting the vaccines only because someone impressed upon him that the deaths are his voters. He really needs as many as possible in 2024, but it’s too late—and it’s getting worse.
Multiple studies from the AP, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and even Texas’ health services have shown that the deaths are almost entirely among the unvaccinated, and most of these individuals identify as Republican. The profile of a typical COVID-19 victim is now an older unvaccinated person who is obese and lives in a rural area, far from a hospital. In other words, lots of common ground with a Trumper. Obviously, this has already had a major political impact.
McNeil did the math:
The hospitals here in Florida are at the breaking point. The state broke the record with 430,297 cases last week. Also, Florida deaths rose from 184 the previous week to 470 just last week, the most since early November. Gov. Ron DeSantis is so far gone that he is arguing that Trump was too sane and honest about COVID-19 and should have ignored it even more than he did.
At this point I reiterate that Trump has not even tried to expand his base, and he is going into 2024 much weaker than he was in 2020. He is no longer the incumbent, his mental state has been called into question, and his supporters have never trusted elections less. Then there’s the small matter of the insurrection attempt to overthrow the government that has turned off quite a few people, which has now become his legacy. On top of all of this, the GOP has officially become a death cult. The data is in: The stronger a state’s support for Trump was in 2020, the higher the COVID-19 infection rate for that state.
People of color were, at one point, less likely to get the vaccine, but that has been changing. The only people going in the other direction, trend-wise, have been white Republicans. They have fallen further and farther into the anti-vaxx conspiracy, among other kinds of conspiratorial thinking. It’s shocking how far down the rabbit hole they fall. Every day, Kos posts a daily column on COVID deaths here on Daily Kos from anti-vaxxers who start out posting snarky memes, but then always end up running to the hospital when they get sick. Even after suffering in unbearable pain, many of them cling to the disinformation that is making them suffer as they breathe their final breath.
The articles always seem to end the same: with a GoFundMe page begging for money, followed almost immediately by an obituary. It’s a very cruel death, and one that is completely unnecessary. Every one is also a vote for Trump and the Republican agenda that is forever lost. The GOP knows this, which is why they made protecting voter suppression their top priority. It’s really all they have.
Of course, if the GOP were smart, they would promote the vaccine as much as we do. A simple jab would save them from an untimely and painful death. Many, however, will follow their right-wing messiahs right off the cliff. Ironic that if Trumpists really wanted to “own the libs,” they would do everything in their power to keep from getting sick so they could vote. As a moral human being, I feel obliged to remind them of this so they can stay alive, but I will have absolutely no guilt when they choose not to listen.
Like Me / Follow Me