Grothman coughs on other republicans

I'll admit, beating on Glenn Grothman is quite enjoyable. There's so much to despise about the man. He loves to strut about while bitching that single parents are the cause of child abuse and safety-net programs are a bribe to not get married but money is more important for men. Mother Jones called him the man who wants to get rid of the weekend. He also thinks sex education will turn kids gay, Kwanzaa is a fake holiday that should be eliminated, and so on. Grothman is the stuck-up slob everyone rightly picked on in High School because he was such a jerk; and somehow people in Wisconsin keep giving him jobs to take his revenge out on women and working people. He is among the deadliest products out of Wisconsin, right up there with Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, Scott Walker (who thankfully got punched back so hard during his small step onto the national stage that he now just whines about Democrats on social media no one pays attention to), cheese, beer, and sausages. 

Not sure how far and wide this video has gone yet. Capper wrote up a more detailed description for Crooks and Liars, calling it the Wisconsin Republican State COVID convention. It is just SOP (standard operating procedure) for republican events to 1.) have reckless disregard of social distancing, masks, etc. and 2.) emphatically state that they take no responsibility for the crowd's health and safety. 

This is @RepGrothman *today* at the Wisconsin Republican convention (which was held in-person) pic.twitter.com/MnsVlJryLE

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 12, 2020

But this is just a little over the top isn't it? I mean, did Grothman just get the coughing fits because he was starting a speech? Did he have them when he went into the convention?  Whatever his motivation, this was a premeditated act to get others sick. Who knows? Has he been tested for COVID-19? How far did his disgusting snot droplets reach during that coughing fit? What wasn't captured on video, was he coughing on people all night? The point is that big gatherings of people are potential super-spreader events. The republicans might be alright with throwing caution to the wind, but what about the other people they come into contact with? 

Public health is always a hard issue to deal with for such an individually-minded nation like ours. Grothman has access to probably the best health care in the country, if he gets sick because he refused to wear a mask or follow common sense it is his own fault. But he will be taking up a hospital bed that could have gone to someone who did behave responsibly. And that is how we have to face this war that doughfacedonny have declared in weaponizing the pandemic. I keep waffling between schadenfreude that republicans seem to finally be getting their comeuppance by willfully spreading COVID-19 among themselves and basic human decency of not wanting to see others suffer. I feel sad seeing stories like this one:

🤷🏻‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/Jz8dEsFjdp

— 🆁🅾︎🆂🅴-𝐖𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐚 𝗺𝐚𝐬𝐤! (@MexiDreamr) July 12, 2020

 Seeing the progression of tough guy to his last message, which I looked up on Facebook before seeing this tweet and the obituary, was a meme of something like "when you see me in heaven, don't be surprised you judgmental hacks" I felt awfully sad. It was a guy not too much different than me, though trying to be a tough guy against microscopic pathogens is not really my style. From feeling lousy on the 1st of July, to dying on the 4th that's really something. Damnit, I guess I have a conscience and empathy after all. 

Despite Rick Rose's intransigence on wearing a mask, he did have the courtesy not to take up a hospital bed and linger for months. In public health emergencies like this one triage is going to be important. If Grothman ends up on a ventilator (sure, it is not publicly known yet whether he even has COVID-19 for sure), I can think of a few million people who are more worthy of saving than him.

This disease is not something republicans can use their usual strategies of lie and deny on, there's no shouting down a virus. And finding someone (like fox news) to tell you comforting lies to make you feel better about flaunting science will not save you from COVID-19. Nope this is the really, real world man and plenty of republicans need to pay for their sins against our country. 

Republican Virtue Signaling

Found this letter to the editor in my hometown's newspaper. These declarations of... what exactly? Is this fellow trying to be brave in the face of adversity? In denial? Setting up a straw man and knocking it down is fairly easy even for people with no idea what a logical fallacy is. Or is it simple rebellious spirit to resist authority as the writer sees it? 

As in previous posts, these rural authoritarian followers believe themselves isolated and removed from what "those people" in the cities are doing. Though it doesn't keep them from voting for republicans to punish "those city folks" for whatever they don't like in the moment. This letter was written by someone who has never feared anything before, nor had anyone to smack him down for arrogance. I cannot say whether rural authoritarian followers in Wisconsin are any worse than in other parts of the country but if you go there, this is exactly the kind of attitude you will encounter. His luck may hold out for a while, and maybe that isolation will protect him for COVID-19 altogether. But the virus really doesn't care about your posturing, defiance, arrogance, or virtue signaling. It is hard to have sympathy for someone like this, and I have none left. Every republican who gets sick because they "continue to live as normal" and is chastised by the ordeal will be a benefit to mankind. 

Continuing to live life as normal

To the editor: When the dreaded coronavirus hit, my first thought was that it was all a bunch of hooey. But now ... now, I've had a change of heart. I've now decided I'm going to follow the science.

Follow the science.

Highly educated people — TV star doctors, wearing masks (and scarves) and having many alphabet letters after their names from prestigious universities

informed us that 2.2 million people were “probably going to die” from covid — 2.2 million deaths. Not 2.2 million tested, not 2.2 million sick, not 2.2 million recovered, but 2.2 million were probably going to die! These medical geniuses are using the latest and greatest computer models to arrive at this magic 2.2 million number. We will never know how many have died due to the manipulation of the data but even padding those statistics didn’t get us anywhere near 2.2 million. Perhaps the Trump administration will get the blame for not hitting the 2.2 million?

So here is my personal, strategic covid plan: When those 2.2 million people die, I'm going to go directly into my bathroom and wash my hands! Until then, I’m going to live my life and avoid doing business with any company that forces me to wear a mask!

And what if I’m one of the 2.2 million? I’ll be with my resurrected lord and savior who decides when, how and where I die. My faith is in Him, not computer regurgitations fed by flawed human beings.

I sincerely hope to see you there!

Nobody wants to say "I told you so" about the never trumpers

What comes after is always the big question when ever a coalition of opposing groups unite against a common enemy. I want to believe that this tweet isn't as supportive of the #nevertrump republican front group called the Lincoln Project as it appears:

man, I don’t care if these guys are paying themselves in caviar and Supreme swag these ads are amazing. First one I’ve watched with sound. Not an ad so much as psychological warfare. pic.twitter.com/11QdLWOdo9

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 7, 2020

Right before doughfacedonny won the hearts and minds of soulless meatbags in the republican primaries with open racism and even more open aspirations of dictatorship to "get" the 'libs and brown people, the illustrious members of the Lincoln Project were honing their craft of shitting on Democrats and liberal ideas while whipping up the mob of religious fanatics and racist imbeciles to vote for a corporate-approved republican. They were all set to take over the party leadership after doughfacedonny and his thugs went down in flames to Hillary Clinton with a big, fat "I told you so" finger wagging. Then Lincoln Project members would revel in crushing the mob so they could get back to the real business of appearing respectable while doing... basically everything donny is doing, slashing taxes, giving corporations huge handouts, crushing labor, and waging more ridiculous wars of choice. 

This is exactly what I fear they will go right back to once the common enemy is defeated. 

Is the ad amazing? Sure. Are other ads and posts that members of the Lincoln Project good as well? Probably. When you have a collective century or two of experience building and running attack ads, over a century's worth of marketing and psychological warfare knowledge to draw on, and are well-funded (even from some liberals and liberal sources) then yeah, they ought to be good. Replies to Josh Marshall's tweet are largely fawning praise for how awesome these allies are and how much damage they are doing to doughfacedonny. But one stood out in its cautionary skepticism:

They are the Soviet Union advancing on Berlin.

— Gluon Spring (@gluonspring) July 7, 2020

Gluon was replying to this comment "Yes, but today they are helping to push Trump out, and that's huge.

It's not as if by speaking out against them today we'd prevent them from making ads about Dems in the future."

Now, in February of 2019 when we were still afraid Howard Schultz (and his never trumper campaign manager Steve Schmidt) would go the distance and siphon votes from the Democratic candidate for president, I wrote up a debate between Bob Cesca as host and Driftglass and Bluegal as guests where the former was enthusiastically selling his liberal credentials to cozy up to never trumpers and the latter were politely and civilly raising questions about whether that was a good idea. I have since stopped subscribing to Bob Cesca's show and started contributing to DG & BG's Patreon because it was time to stop being polite to the monster factory many years ago. 

The reframing of never trumpers and the Lincoln Project in particular as the Red Army bearing down on the capitol of the Third Reich in terms of messaging and attack ad power seems apt. But I do stand by my assertion that the number of voters that they can bring amounts to a rounding error. Many credulous liberals providing cover for never trumpers as "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and "'we' will dump them after the election" should really take a small refresher course on the end of WWII. Our ally of convenience, Stalin, kept his army parked where it had stood at the end of hostilities and didn't leave for 45 years. Driftglass keeps making the point that these never trumpers that made the Lincoln Project act like they are entitled to tell the Democratic Party how to run it's campaign, and are taking up seats on TV that should be going to Democrats and liberals who have been fighting the fascist takeover of the United States for longer than the last four years.

If never trumpers were willing to shed (rhetorically) the amount of blood that the Red Army spent in defeating the nazis, there might be some merit in supporting them. (As an aside, the Soviets never stopped screaming for more aid, more help, more materiel, and a second front in their great patriotic war that they even now claimed they won on their own, but that's another story) But thugs like Rick Wilson want to stand on Democratic heads and shit on them if they disobey orders from... thugs like Rick Wilson, as though they get to just jump in and run the place without penitence or making amends.

I posted on Facebook in response to what seemed like a liberal chorus praising Steve Schmidt for essentially calling doughfacedonny a giant poopy head for not doing anything to punish Russia when the bounties for dead American soldiers came to light. 

Sure, all true words. We’ve never had a “faithless” president before, I mean bringing up Nixon, Reagan, Dubya Bush is completely off limits. Which leads into, why is criticism of republicans only valid if a republican is doing it? Why is the guy who worked for team evil until #doughfacedonny started saying the quiet part out loud and jumped at the chance to run a third party spoiler (Howard Schultz)’s campaign sitting in a chair on television when hundreds of liberals who have been right all this time are not? Don’t cheer the never trumpers, they are stealing our spot and will fall right back to calling Democrats traitors and cutting taxes for rich people the millisecond they get back in charge of the gop.

These never trumpers look like Reagan claiming that he won the Cold War without acknowledging the previous 7 presidents and 2 generations of containment policy that it took to stretch the Soviet Union to the breaking point. Only after doughfacedonny is finally peeled out of power there will not even be the pretense of trying democracy out in the new never trump GOP, it's straight to the Putin authoritarianism in that party only the next would be dictator won't be an illiterate cretin. And how dare you peasants question the saviors of the republic, not Joe Biden or the millions of Americans who vote him into office, no the whole lot of those allies of convenience in the Lincoln Project.