Rightwing Americans are protesting over the fallacy that the pandemic is not serious or not deadly or not going to be as bad as the media portrays.
I am livid about this gross negligence and this stupidity but I can see why we have reached this place. The political rightwing has pointed fingers and cried “Fake News” so often they can no longer discern between legitimate journalism and propaganda.
The Fake News saga is the modern-day Boy Who Cried Wolf. And it’s not some twee fairy tale with a wholesome “Leave It To Beaver” lesson. It’s a campfire horror story and it’s one that is being spun violently out of control.
The kneejerk reaction of declaring anything that does not correspond with one’s own ideologies as Fake News has begotten this:
If you’re old enough to protest, surely you’re old enough to spell check, guys. Come on. But this is the type of ignorance we have come to expect from the political rightwing. These are the bombastic strategies they have peddled since the very first Trump rally — a blatant disregard for the truth, opposition to any conclusion they have not reached themselves and, quite frankly, an embarrassing amount of misspelt protest signs.
What exactly does this lower echelon of blue-collar, red-blooded ‘Muricans want? In a nutshell, to return to work, to able to visit a hair salon and to not have any government handouts. Anyone outside of the rightwing political camp has long since seen that the entire rightwing manifesto is riddled with oxymoron and a style of interpreting and even enforcing laws in a way that can only be described as “picking and choosing”. But here’s the truly baffling thing, these folks feel as if their civil liberties are threatened by quarantine. They feel that the government has no right to tell them they must remain in their homes. They feel that it is not the government’s place to provide monetary support for small businesses that could go under due to lack of patronage. They feel that the government lacks the right to protect key workers by urging folks to stay home to help flatten the curve. Yet these are the same people who believe it is truly within the government’s power to decide:
- if people should be allowed to have an abortion or not
- if people should be allowed to marry someone of the same gender
- if people are allowed to marry someone of the opposite race.
Oh, wait; that last one isn’t under threat at the moment is it? No, it isn’t. But it will be soon. Mark my words. It follows the same slippery logic that leads rightwing automatons to scribble signs like these:
Fine, Karen. We’ll give you Covid. And when you get it, please don’t take up space in the hospital. Please don’t expose the hardworking heroes in your local ICU to more of this horrendous virus by admitting yourself. Stay home and deal with the Covid you begged for.
Of all the 210 countries and territories in the world currently dealing with a Covid-19 outbreak, the country with the most cases the highest death toll is the only one where its citizens are protesting the order to stay home. Allow this colloquial phrase because there is no other elegant way of stating it: but if that ain’t some bullshit.
Let us keep our minds open, by all means, as long as that means keeping our sense of perspective and seeking an understanding of the forces which mould the world. But don’t keep your minds so open that your brains fall out! There are still things in this world which are true and things which are false; acts which are right and acts which are wrong, even if there are statesmen who hide their designs under the cloak of high-sounding phrases.
— Walter Kotschnig November 8, 1939
Let it be known that April 2020 is when the US political rightwing collectively let its brain fall out and has exposed itself as being a vacuous, two-faced, gullible embarrassment.
What happened to all lives matter, huh?
Further reading: The story of Karen Kolbe Sehlke as reported by Snopes.
Anyonita is a bi, poly American in Britain. She writes with a confessionalist voice, exploring narrative essays, pop culture, parenthood, sex, relationships and intimacy, race, travel, literature and food.
