An RFK Jr triple threat
Without question, the deadliest result of Donald Trump’s first term as “president” was his mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic. No one can produce a single specific number, but there isn’t any rational doubt that hundreds of thousands of human beings who are now dead would be alive today were it not for Donald Trump. The United States comprises only 4.2% of the world’s population, yet 1.1 million Americans died of Covid, representing a staggering 15% of all Covid deaths worldwide.
This shameful statistic is Donald Trump’s fault, and no one else’s. Throughout the pandemic Trump supported alternative crackpot Covid “cures” and harebrained conspiracy theories leading to nationwide mistrust of official epidemiology. He constantly lied about the seriousness of Covid and mocked people for taking precautions and wearing masks.
Because he relied on science instead of Trump’s idiotic voodoo medicine, Dr Anthony Fauci became one of the most reviled men in America. It is perceived that Dr Fauci hurt Trump’s hypersensitive, paranoid feelings, so he has remained an American pariah to radical Trump idolaters ever since.
Acceptance in America of anti-vaccination conspiracy theories has now become a pandemic of its own, and it is about to receive, if you will, a booster shot. The appointment of anti-vaxxer fruitcake Robert F Kennedy Jr as Secretary of Health and Human Services, if ratified by the Senate, would further undermine American confidence in vaccines. Without evidence Kennedy has said that he believes vaccines are largely ineffective, especially the new vaccines for Covid. He goes further to say that Covid was deliberately genetically engineered and released to target black people and make immune Ashkenazi Jews!
A new A/H5N1 influenza epidemic is knocking at the door, and incidents of measles and whooping cough are on the rise. Should an outbreak of any or all of these diseases happen, the combined ineptitude of Trump and RFK Jr will undoubtedly have deadly consequences. There are hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — of people alive today who will be dead sometime in the next four years, simply because a tiny majority of Americans went to the polls and voted for Donald Trump and not Kamala Harris.
In the nearly six and a half years I have been writing for Palmer Report I have declaimed against conspiracy theories in my articles, not without some mockery from some readers. Perhaps now those detractors have a better understanding of why I have been so passionate a critic. Conspiracy theories promote ignorance and ignorance causes great harm, up to and including death, up to and including the elevation to the presidency of a moron like Donald Trump. One of the most insidious of all conspiracy theories is this so-called “anti-vax movement.” It doesn’t merely put at risk the lives of the conspiracy theorists themselves, but endangers everyone around them.
In the catalog of Donald Trump’s many crimes, the crime of murder by promotion of ignorance is frequently omitted. Yet I believe Trump’s two greatest crimes while in office were global warming denialism and his overt and tacit promotion of Covid conspiracy theories. With the advent of his second term, those crimes are about to go into orbit. Whatever the case, brothers and sisters, take care of yourselves, and if you can, take care of someone else too.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.