Damn, but Trump-time makes careful, deliberate thinking obsolete.  Now the Republican Death Cult Party wants to kill millions of people.  Seriously! They aren’t just trying to make a few people sick; they’re touting their new answer to COVID-19: population-level infections.  Talk about herd mentality!  And instead of getting embarrassed, they’re holding to it. 

I say that herd immunity will kill millions of Americans. They say that suffering builds character, so long as they’re not suffering. “Tomato, tomahto.”  But they’re lying.  To get that to work means killing millions of Americans and sickening most of us.  And that idea makes those Republicans fuckers happy!

I’m sure the Mass Murder Party will say I’m a just stupid cunt bartender who doesn’t know anything.  They already lie about everything else; why not?  As I write this, I’m watching Republicans lying about shit we have on tape!  Who’re you going to believe, me or those 18, on-the-record, undeniable Trump recordings?

Trump insists it’ll be over really soon.

TRUMP: And you’ll develop — you’ll develop herd — like a herd mentality. It’s going to be — it’s going to be herd-developed, and that’s going to happen. That will all happen.

ABC Town Hall, Sept 15, 2020

Herd Mentality will happen because herd-developed and it’s going to happen. Our Dear Leader Donald Putz can’t even be bothered to memorize all the words.

OK, so start with the (real) words.  Herd immunity used to mean, “What percentage of the population do we have to immunize before that disease stops spreading?” Except doing that would mean work, and Trump’s got that allergy to perspiration.  And preparation.  So Trump changed that to a new idea: “How many Democrats, brown people, black people, and poor people do we have to infect before we feel safer?”  According to most medical sources, around 70 to 90 percent of us, depending on how easily it spreads.  If you’re talking something super-infectious like measles or smallpox, you’re at the 90 percent end.  If it’s something less infectious, like, say, Ebola, you’re down at the low end.  We still don’t know about SARS-CoV2.

Look, even Jethro Bodine could cypher them numbers.  Republicans should be able to work it out if they use all their fingers.  They might need to take off their shoes.  And maybe their pants.  (These are Republicans, after all.)

America has around 330 million people.  So, 70 percent times 330 million people is… ah… Hundred and ten million… hundred and eleventy million… carry the twelve… huh. 

“Well, doggies!” Jed Clampett just walked in from the cement pond. “You got yourself 230 million people to sicken before you’re done, and maybe more!”

The Republicans speed up their fidgeting. That’s a lot of fingers and toes.  And dicks.  Lots of ‘em.

Anyway, we’re looking at getting 230-plus million people coughing and cursing.  Eighty percent of them won’t need hospitalization. Sorta good?  If you ignore the people who get severe symptoms with aftereffects hurting them long after. Still, they won’t need that ICU bed.  That leaves all the rest who will need hospital support: 46 million people.  And if you’re wondering, no, that’s orders of magnitude bigger than the entire American medical system.

And finally, roughly three percent of the people Republicans pushed into infection will die of COVID-19.  Maybe there are some better treatments, but we’re overwhelming the entire medical system.  I call it a wash.  That’s five to ten million dead people.  Trump’s “it’ll just go away” argument is actually true if you’re willing to way until most of us get sick and two percent of the American population have suffocated.  The “herd immunity” argument means killing millions of Americans.

Well, damn! That doesn’t sound like a great deal, does it?

For perspective, I looked at Wikipedia. The GOP herd immunity thing would mean letting COVID kill more Americans than died during every single American war, combined.  All of ‘em.  The Civil War had the highest casualties when a half-million dead in battle.  Not close to the herd mentality thing.  Even as a percentage of the population, the Republican COVID-19 death rate would be worse than the death rates in the Civil War, both World Wars, the Korean War, and Vietnam, all combined.  Hell, you could probably add in the one percent of us who died during the Revolutionary War and still get beat by the death rate from the Republican herd mentation.  They’re talking about killing millions.

So Republicans are happily suggesting we kill a whole lot of Americans.  Funny, right?  Here’s another funny thing: Republicans accidentally focused their best infection orders on the poor, colored, and immigrant communities.  I’m not seeing an executive order mandating that CEO work is essential, and therefore all CEOs must work on-site and in close quarters with the other rich bastards.  So yeah, Republicans want a heapin’ helpin’ of dead people so they’ll feel safe and cozy in their gated, guarded, WASPy communities.  After they killed so many immigrants and colored people, they’ll complain about finding good help.

Hey, still waiting for that other shoe to drop?  We won’t know until after they’ve killed millions of people whether herd immunity even works.  That’s right!  That’s ‘cause we don’t know how long COVID immunity lasts.  We just don’t know.  It’s possible Coronavirus immunity could last years, but it’s more likely just months.  We know that antibodies fade in a few months.  Plus, most Coronaviruses mutate over time.

I guess we’ll just have to let Republicans kill millions and millions of us, and then just keep letting them kill millions more of us as it spreads.

Or, you know, they could just do their job?  The one we pay them to do?

Yeah, I know.  That’s just crazy talk.