I’m at a loss. I have this question, you see, that no one will answer or else I receive many conflicting answers, usually along party lines. It’s simple in its clarity, yet deeply influential to the health of the country. Seems like everyone would admit the truth, then pull together for the good of humankind.

Alas, this is my question: Has the average stupidity of the American people plummeted in recent years?

I could phrase it as multiple choice:

1. Yes, obviously
2. Yes, but only among Republicans
3. Yes, but only among those under thirty years of age
4. No, the pandemic is a hoax perpetrated by the Fake News cabal whereupon 150,000 Americans sacrificed their lives for the sake of a scam (as well as 500,000 more worldwide). Yes, that’s some dedicated conspiracy.

This disease can kill you. Possibly, this disease will kill you. Sure, the weak among us are most vulnerable, but this has no age limit, no race limit, no party line. It’s insidious as it creeps from person to person, infecting rational people and turning them into incoherent nutcases.

I’m not speaking of Covid-19. This frightening disease is Stupidity-Now.

What happened to common sense? I understand irrationality from someone’s panic-induced hysterical outburst, but nowadays seemingly (that’s the key) normal people are calmly speaking to cameras or standing upon the Capital steps while professing strong beliefs that six hundred thousand to a million worldwide deaths is nothing to concern oneself with, that the CDC and experts like the brilliant Dr. Fauci are plain wrong or overwrought, that somehow the Democrats have conjured up this plague as an election year ruse, or that lots of people die from the flu every year so what’s all the fuss over a million more?

I’m at an age where I look upon our youth with forlorn hope anyway, trusting that the natural maturation process of the homo sapiens species will snap some sense into these people at some point so they can take over the reins, more or less, just as generations of forlorn hopes have done before them.

I know the average eighteen to twenty-two year old has, shall we say, a flexible concept of mortality with little fear he’d survive a zombie apocalypse, much less a flu-like pandemic. But I wonder at the total disregard he has for everyone else. Have we bred a generation of the most selfish, self-obsessed sentient minds since the Romans said, “Hey, let’s call it an empire.”

How can anyone, young or old, rationalize jeopardizing their parents’ health, or their grandparents’ or friends’ health? Lives are at stake. Get covid and you may not know it for two weeks as you spread it among everyone you love. Your mother may die simply for the sake of your thoughtless narcissism.

Many are doing the right thing. The point is everyone needs to pitch in. Some cannot protect us from the all. The evidence lies at Governor Santorum’s Retirement Home of Death where his motto is “Your golden years may be shorter than you think.” As governor, how do you sign an order opening up business knowing you are sentencing some of your constituents to death? In some misguided notion of the greater good? “You, sir, must give your life so that our young men and women may frolic at the beach. Uh, sorry for the inconvenience.”

I understand the economy is in freefall, some people are really hurting for money (I mean food on the table, keep the lights on hurting) and businesses are closing in dire financial straits. Still, we must remember that we have weathered the Great Depression and many economic downturns throughout American history. It is fraught with pain. We can get through it.

Yet Trump and his Republicans believe a healthy economy is worth the deaths of hundreds of thousands, as long as they’re old and near the end of life anyway. Once our young adults start expiring in like numbers, I’m sure that policy would change. He has a lot of voters in that demographic, after all.

So what are we to do—like, wear a mask?

Doh! Of course. It may not stop the spread, but it provides some shield against the rain storm of droplets bearing Covid-19 that are ejected from your face with every sneeze.

Covid doesn’t just wander from your body, rising from your skin like an astronaut floating from her berth as weightlessness is achieved. It wants to stay with you. It likes you. You feed it. It only leaves involuntarily when the pleasant mucous it’s wallowing in is ejected by a violent muscle spasm of your throat and chest.

Once free on the open air, Covid wants someone else. So containing much of the spray helps you prevent the disease in others. A mask’s greatest benefit is to everyone else.

Not selfish enough? Am I a deviant, thinking of others when the order of the day is act like Trump and push my own comfort and agenda no matter the consequences to the people around me?

Fortunately, most people are doing the right thing (now and, I hope, in November).

Which brings us to Representative Gomer, I mean, Louie Gohmert, R-TX. This lawmaking pinnacle of our legislature is so convinced NOT wearing a mask is the intelligent thing that he met with White House staff (notably Attorney General Barr) as he was carrying the disease. He is Covid-19 positive. Upon hearing the news, he returned to his office to spread more pestilence. He wanted to thank his loyal staff members and, possibly (who can be sure?), to bequeath them a gasping and lonely death.

As of this posting, AG Barr is being tested for coronavirus. I don’t wish this disease upon anyone, but AG Barr tries my moral compass. In fact, it’s spinning like a plane’s altimeter as it plummets to earth. Well, true north is in there somewhere.

I only wonder—think Barr visited The Donald after his close talk with Gomer? Well, here’s crossing my fingers.

Stay Friendly and Healthy.