Some Fools Never Learn

Trump didn’t don a mask,
when the doctors ordered him to.

A narcissist is afraid to show weakness—
he’s a con—he doesn’t care about public safety,
why should he care about you?

His patriots were obliged to defend him,
so they didn’t don a mask too.

So now we have the MAGA variants—
what is the world going to do?

When republicans follow a fool—
there’s political fallout—
and lying to yourself, doesn’t make it true!

“In yet another unexpected and unwelcome twist in the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Friday a report strongly suggesting that fully immunized people with so-called breakthrough infections of the Delta variant can spread the virus to others just as readily as unvaccinated people.
‘Full vaccination is very protective, including against Delta,’ said Angela Rasmussen, a research scientist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. ‘Masks are a wise precaution, but the bulk of transmission is among the unvaccinated and that’s still who is most at risk,’ she added.”
Excerpt from Vaccinated People May Spread the Virus, Though Rarely, C.D.C. Reports

“The seminal text in the field—Erving Goffman’s 1952 essay ‘On Cooling the Mark Out’—observes that all targets of con artists eventually come to understand that they have been defrauded, yet they almost never complain or report the crime to authorities. Why? Because, Goffman argues, admitting that one has been conned is so deeply shameful that marks experience it as a kind of social death. The victim, he writes, ‘has defined himself as a shrewd man and must face the fact that he is only another easy mark. He has defined himself as possessing a certain set of qualities and then proven to himself that he is miserably lacking in them. This is a process of self-destruction of the self.’
Goffman notes that other life events, such as being fired or dumped, can evoke similar feelings of humiliation. But people targeted by con jobs can save their pride by denying the con as long as possible—or claiming they were in on it the whole time. This saves face and cheats social death, but allows the con to continue unchecked, entrapping others. In doing so, marks prioritize their self-image over the common good.”
Excerpt from The Anti-vaccine Con Job Is Becoming Untenable

“The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide—about one-third of the planet’s population—and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including some 675,000 Americans. The 1918 flu was first observed in Europe, the United States and parts of Asia before swiftly spreading around the world. At the time, there were no effective drugs or vaccines to treat this killer flu strain. Citizens were ordered to wear masks, schools, theaters and businesses were shuttered and bodies piled up in makeshift morgues before the virus ended its deadly global march.”
Excerpt from the 1918 flu pandemic