It’s about to get all stupid up in here

| 9:09 am EDT May 25, 2020
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There’s a moment in a science fiction TV show called Avenue 5, in which the captain says “We just watched seven people stupid themselves to death.” And yes, the title of this article is from The Office. What can I say? Those of us who are dutifully staying home during the pandemic are watching a lot of TV. As these past few days have played out in the real world, these lines keep coming back to me – because we’re sadly seeing a whole lot of people stupiding themselves to death right now.

It’s one thing to go to a grocery store right now, masked up, taking as many precautions as you can. It’s a far less safe thing to eat in a restaurant right now, where you can’t stay masked up while eating (if you must do this, please be as careful as possible). Then there is this whole other ballgame where a certain segment of people are tempting fate by doing the most risky and stupid things they can possibly do in a pandemic – and they’re being egged on by the President of the United States.

We keep seeing the images of partiers crowding into confined spaces, smashed up against each other, in large numbers – and almost none of them are wearing masks. No matter where in the country this kind of incident happens, it’s nearly a statistical given that at least one of the people in that crowd has brought coronavirus with them, which means that a large chunk of the others will leave with the virus. They’ll take it back to their families, their communities, their workplaces. This is how the second coronavirus wave begins, while the first wave is still going on.

The amount of stupidity on display here is mind boggling. In every one of these images we’re seeing of tightly packed mass crowds right now, a percentage of the people in each image will be in the hospital or dead within a couple weeks. That’s frankly their problem. But first they’re going to spread the virus around to a bunch of unsuspecting people in their community. That’s unconscionable. And yet Donald Trump keeps egging them on to carry out this murder-suicide routine. When this is over, Trump must be criminally charged for these deaths.