7/8/21: The Delta variant of the coronavirus is spreading across the United States. The worst outbreaks generally are in states where vaccinations lag, and where people enjoyed voting for Trump.
If we consult a list of the top jurisdictions for vaccinations, and cut the list off where rates fall below 50%, we have nineteen states that voted for Biden, Washington, D.C., which also went for Biden, and Maine, which splits electoral votes (so Trump got one) but also went for the challenger.
Not the Orange Chump.
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IF YOU WONDER why vaccines might be lagging among Trump fans – even though Trump got one months ago – think: Idiots.
Think: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Co.). Greene was at it again this week, comparing vaccinations to death squads, after making previous comparisons between mask mandates and Nazis. And then apologizing. And saying that a trip to the Holocaust Museum had opened her eyes.
And then forgetting.
As a former history teacher my rule is not to make Nazi comparisons unless there are gas chambers involved.
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What real Nazis did. |
Greene, however, sees Nazis lurking behind every parked car, mailbox, and shrub. Politico explains:
Greene (R-Ga.) on Tuesday called efforts by the Biden White House
to vaccinate more Americans against Covid-19 a “political tool” and likened the
administration’s on-the-ground push to a Nazi paramilitary wing, the
Sturmabteilung [or “SA”], often referred to as “brownshirts.”
People
have a choice, they don’t need your medical brown shirts showing up at their
door ordering vaccinations,” Greene wrote in response to a video of President
Joe Biden describing a plan to offer vaccines door-to-door. “You can’t force
people to be part of the human experiment.”
First, let’s pass over Rep. Greene’s glaring inability to differentiate between “order” and “offer.”
In my role as former history teacher, let me explain who the “brownshirts” were. Here I will simply quote from “Hitler’s Black Harvest,” a reading I prepared for my seventh grade students.
I believe Rep. Greene might have learned something by sitting in my class:
“Force
is the first law,” Hitler once said. … Long before he came to power, he
organized the “Sturmabteilung” or “SA,” his own private army. These
brown-shirted “storm troopers,” as they were called, were assigned one task.
They must beat, silence, and even kill Hitler’s political opponents.
One infamous night, they went to work, stirring up the mobs and showing them how to murder Jews:
Widespread violence exploded in November 1938 after a
Jewish student attacked and killed a German official in Paris. In the dark
hours of November 9-10, known since as Kristallnacht, or “Night of Glass,”
German mobs attacked Jewish homes, shops, and synagogues. Thousands of
businesses were looted. Two
hundred homes were destroyed. Every synagogue in Germany was vandalized. Dozens
of Jews were murdered, including one young boy who was thrown from a
third-story window. In days to come the Gestapo arrested 26,000 Jewish men,
women and children and carted them away to prison.
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NOT TO BE OUTDONE by Rep Greene’s boneheaded comments, Rep. Boebert cracked her knuckles this morning, and began wailing away on her iPhone. And out popped a tweet. And it was idiotic. Like her clueless colleague, Boebert decided to pull out the Nazi card to make a comparison.
Out came a gem:
Biden has deployed his Needle Nazis to Mesa County.
The people of my district are more than smart enough to make
their own decisions about the experimental vaccine and don’t need coercion by
federal agents.
Did I wake up in Communist China?
(You
woke up ill-informed and clueless, that much we know.)
Let’s go back to the assignment my students were tasked to read. Boebert might have gained from sitting in my class, too.
First, we’ll ignore the comparison to “Communist China” she tries to make. For the 3,300 individuals who hit the “love” button on her tweet, allow me to direct them to the story of Tiananmen Square.
For fun, we could even consider the time Donald J. Trump said it was cool that Xi Jinping had worked a little communist magic to ensure he could serve as “president for life.” Don thought that was great.
Anyway, for Boebert, a little bit of information about Nazis and doctors:
Soon no one was safe, whether Jew or not. The mentally
ill were granted “mercy deaths” under a secret plan known as T-4. Handicapped
German children were also marked for destruction. One SS doctor preferred to
slowly starve such children to death. Most were taken from families and sent to
government “hospitals.” There they were secretly gassed and their bodies
buried. Homosexuals were also among the victims. Arrested and sent to prison,
they wore pink triangles on their uniforms, just as Jews wore yellow stars.
Terrible medical experiments were tried to “cure” them. Many died as a result.
Most were simply eliminated. One victim was SS Commander Heinrich Himmler’s gay
nephew.
He was gassed by order of his own
uncle.
And:
Terrible medical experiments were carried out by SS
personnel. (“Black murderers in white doctors’ coats,” as one survivor labeled
them.) There were tests to see how much cold a man could stand, so the German
air force might design better jackets for pilots. Naked Russian prisoners were
left outside in bitter cold. Others were submerged in icy water to see how long
they survived. When body temperatures fell to 82.5 F, one doctor reported,
death was certain, “despite all rescue attempts.” Other experiments measured the effects of
flying at high altitude. Careful notes show what happened to one Jew. Tested,
without oxygen, at the equal of 29,400 feet, he “began to perspire and roll his
head” after four minutes. After five minutes spasms began. Ten minutes:
unconsciousness.
Thirteen. Death.
In fact, madness had no limits. SS doctors attempted bone transplants on prisoners, hoping new techniques might save wounded German soldiers’ lives. Jews were infected with malaria to test experimental drugs. Dr. Josef Mengele, known as “The Angel of Death,” was interested in blood transfusions. He often used twins in experiments. Once he sewed two together, connected their veins, and studied their combined circulation. Others used x-rays and drugs to cause sterilization of prisoners. Such methods, one researcher claimed, might provide Germany with “a new and extremely effective weapon” in the battle against “inferior peoples.”
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What real Nazis were like. |
Above, we have Nazis rounding up innocent victims.
Below, we have nurses vaccinating people to protect them from COVID-19, and medical people getting the shot themselves.
Only complete numbskulls would compare nurses and Nazis.
We would be remiss if we failed to mention Rep. Madison Cawthorn and Fox News commentator Tomi Lahren in regard to this idea that Nazis are coming to give us vaccines or force us to mask up on planes. First, Cawthorn decides to add a twist, claiming that the people Mr. Biden sends out to visit our homes will…take away our Bibles and guns!
The idea that medical people might go door-to-door, offering vaccinations for protection freaks out the simple-minded lawmaker. “The thing about the mechanisms they would have to build to be able to actually execute that massive of a thing – and then think about what those mechanisms could be used for,” he hints darkly to a reporter for the Right Side Broadcasting Network.”
Yeah. Think. They could come and give you a shot.
“They
could then go door-to-door to take your guns,” Rep. Cawthorn suggests. “They
could then go door-to-door to take your Bibles.”
Since Cawthorn is gazing into the future and imagining what could happen, let me try my hand.
They could come to your house and take away your dental floss.
They could come to give you a shot, and take all your frozen lima beans.
They could barge into your garage and take you hedge clippers.
In
reality, all they’re going to do is offer you a shot.
As for Lahren, she’s outraged over the idea that people on planes are required to wear masks. “There are so many good flight attendants out there, but there are some flight attendants out there that take their job as the mask police to extremes, becoming almost Nazis of the air. And it’s ridiculous,” she fumes.
So, one final time, let’s go to the reading that I prepared for seventh graders who still had open minds, not just open mouths.
Real Nazis made lampshades out of tattooed human skin. Real Nazis cut off the testicles of gay men to see if it would “cure” them of being gay. Real Nazis tried to get a suspect to give information by cutting off his mother’s head and carrying it into his cell. Real Nazis shot down thousands of prisoners during mass executions, and complained when their shoulders hurt from shooting all day.
That’s what real Nazis were like.
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