Andy Borowitz is usually good for a laugh, even when he writes about the vindictive imbecile who’s in charge of making sure the country survives the worldwide plague:

No one could have seen the coronavirus pandemic coming except for people who are capable of reading, a new study indicates.

To be fair – and even Swamp Rabbit agrees with this – most of us didn’t foresee having to put on a mask to gain entrance to a bank. Or walking on deserted city streets at high noon. Or becoming one of the 22 million people who applied for unemployment insurance in the space of four weeks.

But Borowitz is referring to a subsection of the body politic: the legion of Donald Trump fans who totally ignored the pandemic, or scoffed at it. And to Trump himself, who was aware of the impending disaster but encouraged his fans to think the virus was a hoax because he was afraid that belatedly admitting it was real might hurt his re-election chances.

“What you mean by scoffed at?” Swamp Rabbit said from his perch on the porch of my swamp shack. “Ain’t nobody I know would scoff at some disease that’s killing
peeps all over the world.”

“I’m not talking about people you know, rabbit. I’m talking about Trump fans.”

I read to him from a news story on my laptop:

Several thousand cars flooded the streets around the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on Wednesday to protest the governor’s extended stay-at-home order. Cars jammed the streets around the Capitol building, filling the air with a cacophony of honking. People draped in American and ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flags blared ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ and ‘God Bless The USA’ out of car stereos.

The protest — called ‘Operation Gridlock’ — was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and drew out militias, conservatives, small-business owners and ardent supporters of President Trump, who characterize the governor’s stay-at-home order as an unjust power grab.

The protesters are like the rest of us, in that they’re scared because they’ve been laid off from their jobs and are tired of being restricted to their homes. What’s different is they’re Trump fans and therefore believe that news about the virus is fake or greatly exaggerated, and part of a liberal plot to enslave them.

I said, “They watch Fox News and believe guys like Dr. Phil and Bill Bennett, who said the COVID-19 isn’t really a pandemic and shouldn’t be taken any more seriously than a seasonal flu.”

Trump fans are immune to science and reason, I told him, and opposed to anything that interferes with their so-called individual rights, even when exercising those rights endangers everyone else in the vicinity. Don’t tread on me, dude.

“Thanks for the lecture,” Swamp Rabbit said, “but I don’t think most peeps are gonna go loony and protest the stay-at-home rule, not if it means catching the virus.”

“You’re wrong, rabbit. We’ll see more and more loonies, especially after the first wave of the virus peaks. Michigan is only the beginning.”

Audio:
“Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult