You’ve watched this scene on television and in the movies — the bad guy, confronted with their criminal activities, says, “I never meant for this to happen, nobody was supposed to get hurt, it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way, I just wanted to scare people.”

I think that’s what happened with the Republican Party. A few days ago I wrote that the news media was far too generous when they suggest the response of Republican governors to the covid pandemic was due to incompetence. It’s not; it’s part of a deliberate systematic political strategy intended to make every facet of the Biden administration fail. I think they were (are) willing to sacrifice some lives — including the lives of their own supporters — in an effort to undermine any policy success Uncle Joe might achieve.

I don’t think they meant for this (last year in the State of Alabama, for the first time in its recorded history, more people died than were born) to happen. I think they just wanted to scare people so they’d mistrust Uncle Joe and Democrats. But it went too far, and now it’s too late to change course without admitting they’re at fault.

And they’re getting a lucky break. Some Trump/GOP supporters are beginning to realize they’ve been lied to. Some of them are starting to understand that NOT getting vaxxed was a mistake. How is that a lucky break for the GOP? The people promoting this are drawing the wrong conclusion. They’re not blaming the GOP politicians who’ve minimized the threat of Covid; they’re blaming Democrats and progressives for (and I swear, I am NOT making this up) for tricking Trump supporters into not getting vaxxed. How? By suggesting they should get vaxxed. A friend brought this to my attention:

I really thought this had to be a joke. I mean, it’s that stupid. I thought somebody digitally faked an insane Breitbart-looking screenshot to mock conservatives. But no. It turns out Breitbart writer John Nolte really truly actually wrote that (here’s the piece, if you can stomach it).

Not all of Nolte’s readers agree with him. For example, this guy:

If the vax works, then a mandate isnt necessary…If the vax doesnt work, then a mandate isnt necessary….its called science.

That is so far from anything remotely resembling science that there’s no existing term to describe it. We’d have to invent an entirely new word to describe how wrong it is. How could anybody possibly convince the person capable of writing that indescribably stupid sentence to get vaxxed? Nolte apparently thinks the only way to convince him to is by suggesting he’s the victim of a left-wing conspiracy to prevent him from getting vaxxed.

“No one wants to cave to a piece of shit like [Howard Stern], or a scumbag like Fauci, or any of the scumbags at CNNLOL, so we don’t. And what’s the result? They’re all vaccinated, and we’re not! … The push for mandates is another ploy to get us to dig in and not do what’s best for ourselves because no one wants to feel like they’re caving to a mandate.”

This ridiculous ‘revelation’ might be enough to convince some anti-vax Trumpists to get vaxxed just to piss off liberals — and while that’s stupid, I’m okay with it. I’ve stopped feeling sorry for anti-vaxxers who die from Covid (and those who survive but will go bankrupt trying to pay for their enormous medical bills). I don’t feel sorry for them, but I’d be happy to see that happen a lot less often.

Speaking of revelations (and we kinda were), let me carom off-topic and bang into the Christian New Testament Book of Revelation. The text was written on the Greek island of Patmos sometime around the year 96. You may be wondering, “Greg, old sock, why are you nattering on about the obscure island on which a Biblical text was written?” I’m glad you asked. I’m nattering on about it because the book was written in Greek. And because the ancient Greek term for revelation — for the experience of discovering, especially in a striking way, something previously unknown or unexpected — is apokálypsis. Apocalypse.

It would be weirdly fitting if a right-wing nutjob writer could inspire a revelation among right-wing nutjob anti-vaxxers to mitigate a medical apocalypse.