Oh, I get it now

Masks are scary, like clowns:

Madness. https://t.co/29c4bQSALm

— Mkay (@JoyAnnReid) July 8, 2020

It goes something like this:

The deep state, (whatever that is, I guess we sciencey types are now lumped in with the evil CIA spymasters and FBI agents) are trying to scare people so they can be controlled.

So, to not wear a mask signifies your freedom from the terrormongering of the deep state. That’s why Trump doesn’t wear a mask- to show that he’s not afraid of the deep state.

Ok maybe I don’t get it because the virus is totally still out there and Texas, Florida and Arizona, hardly hotbeds of pinko commie liberalism, are running out of hospital beds. The numbers are there. You can choose to wear a mask or not wear a mask. It’s up to you.

Just be sure to watch your step so you don’t fall off the edge of the world.

Still wondering about this. There are studies that show that conservatives have bigger amygdalas or something so they tend to be more fearful than the average person and their fear of mortality is easier to manipulate for authoritarian politicians.

But what would be the point of activating that fear against an illusory “deep state” while turning it off when it comes to the real threat??

That’s the part I don’t understand. It’s almost guaranteed to make the pandemic worse. What is the end goal here? There’s got to be one.

Oh, wait, I think I get it. If we are all living in a state of terror, the deep state will be condemning us to this narrative and we will all be afraid to… go back to work to make the economy pick up and move on?

So, the deep state wants the economy to grind to a halt? For what purpose?

To make Trump lose?

Wait, wait, wait, it’s all starting to make some sick sense. If we wear masks, we want the deep state to win so that Trump loses. So anyone who wears a mask… is a made of wood and is therefore a witch!! Burn her! Burn her!

Wow, that’s a lot of motivation to untangle to make sure Trump doesn’t get elected. It takes a lot of time and campaign cash to get people to believe that. It’s even weirder when you think that the deep state pushing the mask thing will actually be slowing down the rate of transmission and eventually flattening the curve, as soon as the southern states learn the hard way. Paradoxically, that should speed up the rate at which we can get the economy up and running. So the deep state is vindictively pushing the mask terror narrative to make Trump lose while at the same time encouraging good pandemic hygeine which will improve the economy and also improve Trump’s chances of winning.

You know, if I weren’t so afraid of getting sick, I’d ditch this mask and run around with scissors just to show the deep state who’s boss. I don’t want it to be helping Trump win.

Right??

How about masks make Trump look bad because he didn’t respond to the threat of the virus in time and with enough resources so that the economy died and so did his election chances. That doesn’t rely on the deep state, of whose actions or existence we have no proof. It only relies on past documented history and our own eyes and ears.

The answer is yes, she does sound insane.

The School Reopening Wedge Issue Would be Hillarious if it Weren’t so Deadly

Trump wants to order the governors to reopen the schools for the fall term. Most schools start in August these days except for NJ where they mostly start after Labor Day. The Trump campaign’s theory is that reopening the schools is really going to tick off the governors from just the blue states and that they will be sent into paroxysms of rabid anger.

That might have been true about 6 weeks ago but I’m guessing that there are going to be a lot of newly woke suburban Republicans in Phoenix, Amarillo and Homestead, Florida who aren’t going to be so keen on this idea. Sure parents are climbing the walls after their kids and can’t wait to put the little tikes on a schoolbus. But they don’t want the germy beasts to come back after school with something deadly.

And what about the after school and before school programs? They’re frequently run by private entities. Who’s going to force them to reopen?

Then there are the hundreds of thousands of teachers who don’t want to get sick and whose lives may be on the line. I don’t know why anyone would want to be a teacher. It’s not my cup of tea but I used to serve on a school board and met a lot of them who actually like it. Yeah, go figure. It’s not the classroom that scares them. It’s the tiny germ factories aerosolizing their viruses in an enclosed space. Even masks aren’t going to prevent some of those teachers from getting deathly ill. I’m sorry, but I don’t think “working on site during a pandemic” is in most contracts.

But let’s say you are the president and you are actually sincere about the well being and educational accomplishments of students and justifiably fear that keeping children out of school is jeopardizing the preparedness of future working generations.

Stop laughing. I’m being serious.

Ok, imagine it’s any other leader other than the “president” we’re currently stuck with. Wouldn’t such a leader want those children and teachers to have the same level of protection as he does? That is, anyone who has the potential to come within 6 feet of you should be tested – everyday. Anyone who tests positive is sent right home for quarantine and all people in that household are tested as well.

Wait! There’s more. What if you retrofitted the classrooms with the UV lamps that are harmless to people but deadly to viruses? That should cut down on transmission, along with masks and social distancing.

THEN you might be ready to open the schools.

Have we heard about any of that? Or is it more of the same old “We took your federal tax dollars but we’re not going to use it to test anymore or give you federal education money. You state and local governments are on your own. Suckers!”

I’m going to guess it’s the latter.

This strategy, if you can call it that, is meant to break teacher’s unions, erode public education and make the blue states look unreasonable because don’t we have everything under control?? Go back to my last post and see what it’s like to live in West Berlin in Allegheny County where there has been a recent resurgence and zero test kits. Sure you can keep it in check. But you have to still accommodate the Limbaugh fans who think that curtailing their ability to spread the virus around any way they please is tantamount to making them quarter soldiers or something. You need to be able to close bars and restaurants and other enclosed spaces – like classrooms.

Anyway, all of this should be pretty clear at this point to those of us cold blooded thought experimentalists. He’s going to try to drive a wedge between the blue states and the red states. That might have worked until the last couple of weeks. But with the number of infections spiking in his must win states in the south and west, he’s going to only be shining a light on what’s going to happen to them next as their children get sick and spread the infection even further. Trump would know this if he looked at the stats everyday or got out more.

Yeah, he really needs to get out more. You know, visit some ICU units in Arizona. Without a mask.

The Trump administration’s recent executive orders, like expelling foreign students from the country if their colleges don’t have on- site classes and this latest mandate to open the schools while simultaneously ending federal testing resources, seems arbitrary, capricious and vindictive. It reminds me of the worst monarchs from our English cultural history. King John and Charles I come to mind. This administration acts like it can do whatever it wants and imposing impossible to meet standards and applying harsh penalties for non-compliance without any redress. Who’s going to stop him?

Well, we got a Magna Carta out of John and a revolution and constitutional monarchy out of Charles I. Eventually beneficial outcomes from horrible circumstances.

Maybe we can hold all of the Republican politicians responsible for our current eucatastrophe.

*****************

The real purpose, just in time:

🙄