tone deaf talking points

this is maybe not the anniversary you want to commemorate.

i know many of you are fans of trump for a variety of reasons (some of which i even agree with) but i think we all also need to be honest about people and past events and so please take this in the vein of “we all need to own our own goals” and remember that the strength of team toxo lies in calling it like it is and staying friends even when we disagree.

and consider the possibility that there are two forms of trump derangement syndrome: one that he can do no right and another that he can do no wrong.

and neither one is helpful.

and i’m sure this comments section will be one for the ages, so have at it, but stay respectful and on point and let’s see if we can stay off the ad hominem.

because i think we really do need to talk about this.

because this is sort of a doozie…

what an astonishingly tone deaf way for the guy who locked us down to commemorate lockdowns.

4 years ago today i had just fled my home to escape puerto rico's literal home arrest version of lockdowns because “the CDC and the president said so.”

it felt too unsafe to live here.

if you went outside, cops would swarm you. it was like some sort of dystopian sci-fi movie.

and i wanted no part of it so i flew out of here as fast as i could for fear they would close down the airports.

i was on empty planes, connecting through empty airports.

you could have gotten a pick up game of pickleball going in ohare.

i was not afraid of a virus, but i was terrified of panicked, wet pants agents of the state running amok and roughshod over liberty, rights, and the economic debacle it was going to set off.

they were still pulling solo surfers out of the water 6 months later.

4 years ago today, america was closed. the whole country was living under the first “2 weeks to flatten the curve” that turned into probably the most extended and extensive rug-pull of personal freedom in the history of these united states.

we were about to run up unprecedented debts spent through unprecedented fraud and the debacle of “warp speed” which warped science and ethics into funhouse horrors.

you can blame fauci and birx and the NIH and CDC if you like, but in the end, the buck stopped on one desk.

teflon don.

it was his watch and he cheer led for this. he was not reluctant. he was crowing.

nor did he support “leaving it to the states.”

he is not repentant. he still claims this was a success and plays “the hero” for having sold us down the river and upended our lives and livelihoods. he brags about it.

from georgia to texas to florida he tried to shout down the governors who opposed these dictatorial deviations from the right-thinking republic of free people.

where he lacked actual power, he threatened them and threatened their funding.

and contrary to later claims, this was neither subtle nor a gray area (press play)

i have not forgotten, nor will i.

i would urge you all to do the same.

in 2019, yes, people were doing better.

but 2020 is where this all came off the rails, where the massive crisis that did nothing to stop a virus and everything to stop a civilization and an economy took place.

it was all cost, no benefit and the monetary impulse and economic damage it did (especially to small businesses) has not been recovered from. this is where the inflation surge started: in the money printed for covid aid and PPP to try to offset these godawful choices.

but it did not need to happen. it was not “an act of god” it was a “choice of people” and it was a truly, epically bad one made in fear, incomprehension, and quite possibly grift (though don was not let in on it and was more likely the mark, not the sharp.)

there’s no question that biden made it far worse, impeded recovery, and engaged in all new manner of assaults on liberty, but like FDR after hoover, he was not the one who got the ball rolling, he just accelerated one already on the move.

these choices killed an incredible number of people.

and “don’t do this” was known and knowable.

and there has never, not once, been a pandemic that was actually materially dangerous to modern societies. the harm was in the response, not the disease.

sweden was right, and we were wrong. this was iatrocide.

had our leaders taken a different tack, this might have been very different.

so maybe don’t ask “are you better off than 4 years ago?”

ask instead, had we not reacted like panicked poltroons robbed of reason and reasonableness and simply ignored covid, how much better off would you be today?

then don’t get fooled again.

none of these people are trustworthy.