If you can’t win the war, spin the war.
As Donald Trump continues to lose the war against a very real coronavirus
– still failing to provide mass testing, coordinated containment
or adequate stimulus money
– he and the right wing have decided to turn to the fake war happening
in their heads that they can win: the culture war.
You know, the one against paper straws, pronouns,
Starbucks cups that say, "Happy Holidays," and women.
Conservative and extremist groups behind the protests to stop
shelter-in-place laws are pushing the argument that the U.S.
should allow COVID-19 to run its so-called course and kill
tens of thousands more people. Because, liberty.
And that’s not just incredibly stupid, it’s advocating for something
far more sinister and, yes, very racist.
[opening theme song]
Just when you thought Trumpism couldn’t get any more toxic,
an infectious pandemic has proved you totally wrong.
No more tyranny! No more tyranny!
USA! USA! USA!
Bill Gates is a psychopath.
Bill Gates wants to kill us all.
Bill Gates wants us
to have a mandatory vaccine.
Bill Gates wants us all microchipped.
OK, OK we get it, You’re a Mac guy.
The protests against coronavirus restrictions
are the Serengeti of right-wing conspiracy Kool-Aid.
Everyone’s come to drink.
You’ve got the anti-vaxxers with calls to fire Dr. Fauci, the 5G freaks,
the QAnon wackjobs, the gun fanatics,
the Alex Jones followers juiced on supplements,
the Proud Boys flashing white power signs,
and, just in case it wasn’t clear enough, this unf*ckable urchin.
Look, in some ways, I get their frustrations
with wanting to go back to work.
I mean, look at them.
Hordes of people nobody wants to be stuck at home with.
These are the housemates who sh*t with the door open
and think a chore wheel is unconstitutional.
And uniting them all, is a man famous for public defecation, Donald Trump.
Trump, despite punting the responsibility
of the coronavirus response to governors,
has been simultaneously encouraging protests
against stay-at-home ordinances,
through Twitter and his press conferences.
People feel that way.
You're allowed to protest.
Some have gone too far.
Some governors have gone too far.
Some of the things that happened are
maybe not so appropriate.
The scary part about these protests isn’t just the white nationalists,
it’s that they’re being inflated and promoted by Fox News
and powerful conservative lawmakers and organizations.
The Michigan protest was a joint effort
between the Michigan Conservative Coalition,
founded by state Republican Matt Maddock,
and the Michigan Freedom Fund,
which has gotten at least half a million dollars
from the blonde angels of death also known as the DeVos family.
In Idaho, protests were promoted by the Idaho Freedom Foundation
that receives donations from dark-money groups
funded by right-wing billionaires, like the Koch Brothers.
And unlike protests from say, I dunno,
grocery store workers or tenants rights groups or immigrant rights groups
– you know the ones actually trying to help people –
these demonstrations are not grassroots.
Instead they’re the love child of the Koch Brothers-created
Tea Party movement and Unite the Right, who, of course,
were brother and sister to begin with – which explains this guy.
This is weaponized Trumpism.
Each MAGA-hatted ghoul is now their own biological weapon,
and they believe that their right to spread coronavirus
through their infected spittle while chanting, “USA!”
is protected by the Second Amendment.
From my cold, unwashed hands!
But there is a line that many of the demonstrators
have been parroting that’s more ominous than the rest.
People are gonna die.
They die no matter what.
Unfortunately, people die.
That’s called living. We’re all gonna,
we’re not gonna make it out alive.
It’s the flu.
The people who have poor health
are always the most vulnerable.
God bless them,
but we have to get back to work,
because the rest of us matter too.
Thank you, Karen, for All-Lives-Mattering the coronavirus.
Here’s the thing though:
Asymptomatic people can spread coronavirus too!
The mental gymnastics these people are doing is remarkable.
Alls I’m saying is, maybe the real victims are the perpetrators.
The idea that we should simply allow coronavirus to kill
whoever it happens to kill is an idea
that has been explicitly articulated in private by the president,
according to many reports.
And he’s even had the sociopathic gall
to say it publicly.
Some of the doctors say
it will wash through.
It will flow through.
I say, it “washes through.”
Other people don’t like that term.
But where it washes through.
That was always an alternative.
That’s what I said, let it rip.
Let it ride. Do nothing.
Let it rip? Let it ride?! That's not how to talk about a massive loss of life.
But, coincidentally, that has been my policy
on farting while sheltering in place.
Legumes and nightshades do it to me every time.
I just like to say nightshades.
And, of course, just like the guy who ate hydroxychloroquine and died
or the bar owner who went on a cruise and died,
people are listening to the bad advice of this president.
Like those still crowding onto the beaches of Florida.
What some people told me when I was
talking to the college students,
a couple of them said
the exact same things that
President Trump recently said
that they felt this would “wash over”
that they felt this was like the flu.
Oh great, now is when college kids are listening to authority?
Trump is like a deadbeat dad
who shows up once a year with a six-pack like,
“Don’t listen to your mother, alright? Drinking and driving can be fun!”
OK, let’s imagine that Trump’s sadistic fascination is correct,
that the best way to get rid of the virus is to let it run its course.
We never sheltered in place and we continued to work
and went to malls and bars and beaches.
The public research university, Imperial College in London,
ran a simulation based on numbers in other countries
and concluded that if the U.S. did nothing,
“80% of Americans would get the disease … 2.2 million Americans
would die from the virus itself,
specifically between 4 and 8% of all Americans over the age of 70.”
2.2 million. For some comparison, that is more deaths
than the casualties from every war in American history combined.
But the real question isn’t how many people will die
if we go about business as usual, it’s who will die.
And we don’t need a simulation to know the answer.
In New York City, the epicenter of COVID-19,
the virus is twice as deadly for Blacks and Latinos than it is for whites.
In states like Wisconsin and Kansas, where only only 6% of the population
is Black, Black people make up 40% and 30%
of the coronavirus deaths respectively.
In Michigan, where protesters staged Operation Gridlock,
only 14% of the population is Black.
And yet, Black Michiganders are 33% of the coronavirus cases
and 40% of deaths.
State after state, city after city, the stark patterns are the same.
Why? Well that’s for many other Newsbroke videos, but,
off the top of my head, uhhh a lack of health insurance
and treatment for underlying health conditions,
environmental racism that puts polluting industries
next to Black communities, which can lead to underlying conditions
like asthma forming in the first place,
food deserts that make it hard to eat healthy,
the fact that Black people are often not believed by health care providers
when they say they are in pain, poverty, Jim Crow and 250 years of slavery.
Other than that, I can't imagine why? 5G?
And people of color, in addition to women,
are also more likely to be essential workers.
… people like Detroit bus driver
Jason Hardgrove, an essential worker,
who posted this video
seen by millions on Facebook
complaining about a sick passenger
who he felt should never have
walked out of her home.
There was about a good 8 to 9 people
on the bus and she stood there
and coughed. That lets me know
that some folks don’t care.
He was a married father of six,
and he died of COVID-19
just 11 days later.
[Sigh]
Now let’s check in with the makeup
of the anti-quarantine protests, shall we?
White,
white
white, white, white.
Oh, and here’s a guy in San Diego
holding a sign that says, “Let My People Go-lf.”
The only way that could be whiter is if he went home
and gave the protest a one-star Yelp review, which it deserved.
What these protesters are implicitly saying is they don’t mind people dying,
so long as they don’t look like them.
So it’s no wonder that white supremacists are flocking
to these demonstrations because, in effect,
the argument to just let people die is one of pandemic eugenics.
Letting the vulnerable, minorities, the elderly and the disabled die
is essentially part of an ideology that believes that the coronavirus is just
nature’s way of killing off the weak links in the gene pool.
It’s social Darwinism and survival of the fittest at its grossest.
Especially when these protesters aren’t exactly the fittest.
Look, I’m not saying that they aren’t hurting too. The small business loans,
stimulus checks and unemployment benefits are not enough.
But, instead of joining those who are demanding a bailout of people
and not corporations, these protesters are being further radicalized
by right-wing media, lawmakers and, as always, Facebook.
If we go on with our lives, or go back to normalcy
without a real public health solution,
we’re effectively saying that the people who are arguably doing the most
to keep us healthy and fed and receiving our packages
with shiny new sweatpants to wear to the living room, you know,
the ones who are helping to maintain the last semblance of normalcy we have,
they should be the ones to die.
And that is some racist bullsh*t that should always live under quarantine.
Hey, everyone! Matt Lieb here.
I’ve been producing and writing jokes for Newsbroke,
and we’re so glad that you're here to watch all of our
quarantine special, “Helter Shelter.”
Make sure to like, comment and subscribe.
Subscribe to AJ+. And uh, you know, thanks so much for watching.
We’ve been stuck together for like weeks,
feels like years now. But it’s been really nice.
Do you guys hear something?
[closing jingle]