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.