Marjorie Taylor Greene (GQP, GA-14) recently tweeted, “Vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazi’s forced Jewish people to wear a gold star. 

Vaccine passports & mask mandates create discrimination against unvaxxed people who trust their immune systems to a virus that is 99% survivable.”

Retweeted by Greene was a post from David Brody, who wrote, “People have the freedom to NOT get vaccinated if they don’t feel comfortable with it. Those that ARE vaccinated shouldn’t shame the unvaccinated. We have enough division. The last thing America needs is separating citizens into two medical tiers with a reward/punish system!”

Antisemitism and disingenuous calls for unity aside, these tweets are idiotic for another reason. I will shame any individual not lining up to get the vaccine. Not only shame but judge and ostracize. 

I have my problems with doctors and our state of medicine. I think we are still in the dark ages, despite the “advances” we’ve made. We don’t know shit about the human body. And the thought (by some) that we are nearing a cure for cancer is beyond foolish. 

However, the vaccines developed by medicine and science to address the COVID-19 pandemic are as miraculous as I’m ever willing to admit. And we are not worthy of it.

According to Johns Hopkins, today (May 26, 2021), 3,488,625 people have died due to the virus. In the United States, that number is 591,179. And yet, despite overwhelming evidence that masks and social distancing help keep the virus from spreading, we got bored! Bored! Masks holding chins up, Republican politicians and right-wing media downplaying the risk, or simply the maskless citing their “freedom” over common sense and community concern allowed the virus to keep taking bites out of us like a shark on a whale carcass. 

I cannot shop in a grocery store (adorned with more lines and markers than an international airport tarmac) without feeling like a spawning salmon going upstream. I catch myself looking behind me on every aisle to ensure I’m going the correct way as an armada of uncaring shoppers approaches me.

1,735,215,327 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide (288,596,955 in the US), but Dr. Barstool next to me in the grocery store won’t get the vaccine because he does not know the long-term effects of the vaccine… Well, doctor, 591,179 people Americans know the long-term impact of dying from the virus. Sorry, they aren’t available to comment. The CDC currently reports a 0.0017% chance of death from an adverse reaction to the vaccine (resulting from voluntary reporting and before any analysis of death certificates or autopsy reports). The United States Navy, because the vaccine was approved using “Emergency Use Authorization” (you know, because of the pandemic), is now offering incentives for military personnel to get the vaccine. This is beyond outrageous. Have the vaccine fully approved and mandate vaccinations. Life is full of risk. This one is a no-brainer. It was simple before. Wear the damn mask. This is simpler. Get the damn shot.

And yet, the Democrats expect to negotiate in good faith with Trump’s party, to compromise on solutions, in short, to govern. And here is where the Democrats bring a pillow to a gunfight. Republicans no longer exist. Although I suspect they’d be fine with Democrats bringing a My Pillow to the gunfight, because, as we know, Mike Lindell has all of the answers. They have been corrupted to the point of extinction by Trump and his acolytes. Ipsos presented the results of their recent survey, which showed that today (again, May 26, 2021), 53% of Republicans believe Trump is the actual president. How, in the name of parliamentary debate, do you argue with a party that does not accept facts? 

John Adams wrote, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” He was obviously wrong. Today, the power within the Republican party lies with those that are grounded in neither fact, evidence, nor reason. Shakespeare’s three witches in Macbeth said, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” That’s the Republican party today. 

Trump’s Orwellian claim that “What you are seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” seems lifted directly from 1984 (“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”)

And yet, 53% of Republicans believe Trump is president.

This week has seen an avalanche of improbable headlines:

• Texas approved “constitutional carry,” where individuals do not need a license or training to carry a handgun. As if that’s not depressing enough, consider that Texas wasn’t first to that party. They are the 21st state to approve constitutional carry.

• Voter suppression bills (read; racist voting obstacles) are being passed in red states faster than a Texan can quick draw in Target. Coupled with ongoing gerrymandering, this all but guarantees Republican wins in the midterms. Democrats want a fair fight, a fair election? I refer you back to Shakespeare’s three witches.

• Republicans stand ready to kill a bipartisan commission to explore the origins and failings evidenced by our own eyes and ears of the January 6 insurrection, claiming it is political theater. Enough people have compared this proposed commission with the 18 congressional hearings on Benghazi for me to have to expand on here. Besides, they were just tourists, right Rep. Clyde?

There were many more batshit crazy headlines, but why give them all oxygen? And yet, in the end, I must still adhere to Carl Sagan’s analogy of the dragon in the garage. Sagan wrote, “Now, what’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there’s no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists?” In other words, the Maricopa audit of the 2020 election is simply putting the onus on the sane to disprove the lunacy put forth by the insane. 

And so, I’ll close with one final quote, this from “Darwin’s bulldog” T.H. Huxley, who wrote, “The great tragedy of Science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.” Republicans believe in beautiful bullshit. I’ll take the ugly truth.