Louisiana Voice

I received an interesting text yesterday from someone I don’t know but which infuriated me. It was some sort of asinine protest against the wearing of masks to curb the spread of the coronavirus. This is what it said (in all cap, of course, much like Donald Trump’s tweets):

“THE CDC CLAIMS THAT SMOKING IS DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR 480,000 YEARLY DEATHS, INCLUDING 25,000 FROM JUST SECONDHAND SMOKE. YET THE GOVERNMENT HAS NEVER FORECED ANYONE TO STOP SMOKING TO SAVE A LIFE. SO THEN WHY ARE YOU BEING FORCED TO WEAR A MASK?? STILL THINK THIS IS ABOUT ‘SAVING LIVES’?”

First of all, smoking is banned in public places such as restaurants, theaters, state office buildings and, in some states, inside vehicles when there are passengers under 12 years of age.

Second, I know of no jurisdiction where anyone is “forced” to wear a mask. Yet. I wear my mask to church but I notice that people all around me are maskless.

Third, yes, it is about saving lives, you clueless knucklehead! If you think otherwise, the next time you have surgery, ask the doctors and nurses to leave their masks at the door because after all, it’s not about saving lives so, why would you need that protection?

And next time you embark on a errand or trip in your vehicle, be sure to tell the kids in the back seat not to fasten their seat belts. Don’t worry about studies that have shown conclusively that if you’re in a collision and are ejected from your vehicle because you weren’t wearing a seat belt, you have a 25 times greater chance of dying than if you were belted in. In fact, tell the little tykes it’s cool to sit in the front seat – beltless. And infant carriers? Who needs ‘em? That’s just the guvmint tellin’ you how to live your life – or die trying.

For that matter, why do football and baseball players need helmets? You think that study that found that 110 of 111 deceased NFL players had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) a degenerative brain disorder associated with repetitive head trauma was just coincidence?

Think how uneducated and ill-informed you must sound to say masks are not about saving lives.

I have to ask if you are resisting the wearing of masks only because a thick-headed, orange-haired pitiful excuse for a leader eschews them? That’s the example you wish to follow – someone who governs by tweet and would rather play golf than address the problems of this country – instead of someone who has invested a career to fighting disease?

Seriously?

Trump and his minions have been insisting that the coronavirus is (a) only the sniffles and (b) will magically disappear.

Well, we are fast approaching a quarter-million deaths from the “sniffles” and for the past week, we’ve set new records daily for the number of infections. Yesterday, it surpassed 150,000 in a single 24-hour period. That’s not “magically disappearing,” folks.

I said here earlier that the best barbecue I’ve ever tasted was from Fire House Barbecue here in Livingston Parish. Plus, they give generous portions. But when they defied the mask mandate a few months back, I vowed never to set foot in there again. And I won’t. If they don’t have the common decency to protect their customers, I refuse to be one.

It’s not about “freedom.” That’s one of the most pathetic arguments I’ve ever heard on any subject. Thank God, we didn’t have that attitude in this country during World War II when commodities were being rationed to support the war effort. Instead, we came together – at least our parents and grandparents did – for the good of the country.

Do you think those Covid patients on respirators would concur with your absurd argument that masks aren’t about saving lives?

Yes, as a matter of fact, masks are about saving lives, so get over your ego-driven defiance and do the right thing. Trust science, not some advocate of bleach drinking. The virus has not “disappeared,” and Dr. Anthony Fauci is a far more knowledgeable authority on this than President “Tweet Thang.”

Mask up!

The coronavirus will magically all of a sudden go away and disappear after Nov. 3.”

—Eric Trump, last May. [If you consider 100,000 new cases a day for the past week as ‘disappearing,’ well then, yes.]

Make America Rake Again.”

—Bumper stickers being marketed by the Four Seasons Landscaping Service, where Rudy held that hilarious press conference on Saturday. [Someone, we know not who, booked the place instead of the Four Seasons luxury hotel for the presser.]

Lawn and Order.”

—Four Seasons Landscaping Service T-shirts now being sold along with the aforementioned bumper stickers. [Seriously, could anyone have scripted a presser mistakenly held at a landscaping company’s parking lot next door to a porn store, across the street from a crematorium, on a road leading to a prison?]

The real hero today is whoever answered the phone at Four Seasons Landscaping and offered no clarification whatsoever until it was too late. I salute you, my fellow patriot.”

—Tweet by author Geraldine DeRuiter.

I have always been committed to working with our President, regardless of party, in order to best serve the people of Louisiana.”

—Gov. John Bel Edwards, demonstrating the way real leadership is carried out […and the reason we elected him.]

I believe the media is (sic) the enemy of the American people.”

—Karl Michels of Walker, Louisiana, among a group of protesters at the State Capitol Saturday. [showing unmistakable symptoms of sour grapes – and revealing, sadly, that we are still a divided nation that refuses to come together for the good of the country.]

So ridiculous. Donald must work on his Anger Management problem, then go to a good old-fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Donald, Chill!”

—Tweet Thursday by Greta Thunberg, showing that trash-talking really can come back to bite you. [See Saturday’s LouisianaVoice post.]

At the risk of appearing a bit smug or of giving the appearance of gloating, a few observations appear to be in order following the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential election.

Back when I was coaching (and I use that term quite loosely) sandlot baseball, I steadfastly refused to engage in trash-talking with opposing teams. I always felt it wise to let my team’s performance, good or bad, speak for itself. If we won, great. If we lost, hats off to the other team. I simply had no desire to have to eat my own words.

That’s also why I refrained from making brash predictions about the election. Yes, I criticized Donald Trump because I just didn’t like the man. I didn’t like him as a person and I didn’t like him as a leader. I disagreed with his politics of division, hate and ridicule and I would have been bitterly disappointed if Trump had won. But I never once came out and boasted that Biden was going to win because the truth is, I didn’t know.

I would have loved to have seen Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and especially Louisiana’s own Clay Higgins take a fall. Higgins is easily the biggest embarrassment this state has ever been asked to endure – with John Kennedy a close second. Yet, he breezed to reelection despite being a brain-dead moron. But in the end, he was the choice of the voters in his district and I can only assume they’re happy with the outcome, as happy as they can be with someone who, like Trump, loves to shoot off his mouth while actually accomplishing nothing.

I saw the daily polls that suggested Trump’s approval rating was steady among his base. I also saw the polls that predicted a blue wave that never really materialized.

I also read on a regular basis the comments to this blog which ridiculed Biden and from one reader in particular, who constantly compared the large turnouts at Trump rallies to the much smaller crowds coming out to see and hear Biden. I read that same person’s constant and unquestioned parroting of all the false conspiracy claims being put forth by Trump. Can you say “fake news”?

But in the final analysis, attendance at rallies doesn’t necessarily reflect the reality of voter turnout, does it? To paraphrase the title of an old Nancy Sinatra song, How Does That (4.2 million vote majority in the popular vote) Grab You, Darling? How Does That Mess Your Mind? And to further paraphrase our own James Carville, “It’s the votes, stupid.”

Then there was the reader (on the post above this one) who seems to think that I apparently have no right to criticize Trump because she “likes” him and will never “support” me. Well, I never asked her to support me, but I do defend her right to like Trump and to voice her opinion so long as she doesn’t try to silence my voice. That’s called freedom of speech.

And how does that reader feel who predicted a 48-state landslide by Trump feel today? I haven’t heard from him in a while, so I guess we’ll never know.

Or the one who called me an idiot for no other reason than because I have consistently called for fairness for all, equality in the treatment of citizens under the laws of our nation, compassion for those who are less fortunate and common decency that we deserve from our country’s highest office. Those are not the qualities of idiocy, my friend. I like to think of them as the qualities of being an American.

Those are the kinds of boasts that have a way of coming back to ring pretty hollow after the dust settles – kind of like those cock-sure defense attorneys who invariably and boldly profess their clients’ innocence, only to quietly negotiate plea-bargains down the road.

Likewise, Trump’s bombast about lawsuits, challenges and calls to supporters to “stand back and stand by,” not only render him unfit to hold any elective office, but also serve as a wake-up call to a country that has gone from world leader to international laughingstock.

Bigotry wrapped in a flag is not patriotism. Or as one of my classmates from Ruston High School tags onto each of emails, this quote from Theodore Roosevelt: “Patriotism means to stand with the country. It does not mean to stand with the President.”

Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Devin Nunes, Steve Scalise, Clay Higgins, John Kennedy and a few others should give some serious thought about that Teddy Roosevelt quote.

Until you do, you’re just a pack of political hacks, opportunists with no substance, no moral base, no ethos and worst of all, no soul.

Having just watched a pathetic Donald Trump bumble, stumble and mumble his way through his incoherent claims of fraud, my feelings ran the gamut of sadness, pity, and anger.

His display of self-pity was so bad that ABC News actually cut away from his speech (if you could go so far as to call it a speech). CNN, on the other hand, stayed ‘til the bitter end and then ripped him a new one with harsh criticism and fact checks – as he deserved.

On the one hand, he wants to continue the vote-counting in Arizona and Nevada where he trails and on the other, he demands that vote-counting be stopped in states where he leads but is seeing that lead slip away with the tabulation of mail-in and absentee votes. That is a classic display of inconsistency.

As always, when things don’t go his way, it’s someone else’s fault. In this case, it’s poll workers who are trying to steal the election from him – even in states headed by Republican governors.

He gave all the appearances of a petulant child who doesn’t get his way and decides to throw a tantrum. It was a pitiful example of a supposed world leader.

But with all the emotions of outrage, frustration and embarrassment I experienced while watching his performance, it was nothing compared to what we should feel at our own congressional delegation.

Where are Sens. Bill Cassidy and John (Mouth of the South) Kennedy? Kennedy, in particular, so loves a TV camera that it’s a real mystery why he is suddenly MIA.

And what about Reps. Steve Scalise? Lame Duck Abraham? Mike Johnson? Garret Graves? Why don’t they grow spines and come forward and tell Trump to shut up and, for the good of the country, accept the inevitable? (If you think I overlooked Clay Higgins, I didn’t; it’s just that I never expected someone as brain-dead as Trump to be a voice of reason.)

The silence of Louisiana’s congressional delegation is a disgrace. When they should be stepping forward and displaying some semblance of leadership, they are characteristically invertebrate.

For a study in contrast, let’s go to the 2019 Louisiana gubernatorial election. Incumbent John Bel Edwards trailed Eddie Rispone most of the night. Then, when the New Orleans returns started coming in, the trend was reversed and, in the end, Edwards pulled away from Rispone.

Rispone’s reaction to seeing his lead slip away?

Class.

Trump had visited Louisiana on Rispone’s behalf but the stain didn’t rub off on the Republican standard-bearer. When the dust had settled, Rispone offered congratulations to Edwards and gave a gracious concession speech. Game over, no hard feelings.

Trump is incapable of that and because he enjoys a much higher profile, his whining attracts international attention from adversaries and allies alike.

But from this standpoint, Trump’s very public wailing takes a back seat to the shameful silence of Cassidy, Kennedy, Johnson, Scalise, Graves and Abraham.

It’s time for these so-called leaders to grow some cojones and step up to the plate so this country can move on from this wretched chapter in our history. Anything less is simply unacceptable.