Facebook is a menace. COVID-19 is a menace. Conservatism is a cesspool. Together, those three ingredients have created a toxic stew of malevolent death and devastation. We can talk about all those things in the abstract, look at the numbers and statistics, and catch the occasional whiff of seditionist right-wing rhetoric. But I hadn’t really fully understood just how horrifying that combination of right-wing extremism, Facebook, and a killer virus was until I became a regular at the Herman Cain Awards subreddit. This series will document some of those stories, so we are aware of what the other side is doing to our country.

Today’s cautionary tale is Drew. 

These stories are soaked in irony, aren’t they? Using phrases like “Fakebook” when they are distributing fake memes and facts. 

Are woke people the most asleep? Well, when it comes to the pandemic and death … not really. 

So who is “blindly following a long”—is it liberals, who are protecting themselves against a deadly disease, or conservatives, who would rather take horse paste (which they have to buy at a livestock feed store!), or get a free jab? 

And “latest offended trend,” says the guy who is consuming Fox News-driven nonsense like Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head and whatever other “cancel culture” nonsense is currently in season? 

If the vaccine killed 10%-20% of people who were vaccinated, then … yeah. That would be a problem. But it doesn’t. Not even close. Sheesh. 

But you know actually kills? The disease that vaccine helps prevent and mitigate.

So the plan is to kill blue-state Americans, who are eagerly getting jabbed in service of a “deep state” genocide? If that was the plan, well, it kinda failed spectacularly. 

Then again, if you’re getting your information from these two yokels …

We have a pandemic of the unvaccinated. 

And by remaining unvaccinated, they get to find out what happens to that eternal soul well prior to the original schedule. 

I thought Jesus was the only vaccine necessary. 

“Everyone wants to be prepared when this thing hits.” 

Okay. Step one, freakin’ vaccinate. Then, at worst, you get mild flu-like symptoms. 

Oh, Drew finally “allowed” his wife to go to work. That was very modern of him. 

Most of these stories end up with fundraisers, because as much as we’re told that the stricken’s “number one priority in life has always been his family and providing for them,” fact is none of them carry life insurance. None of them have savings. 

These “pull-themselves-up-by-the-boostraps” conservatives suddenly want to rely on others to make ends meet. 

“I will never understand why the good ones are taken too soon.” Maybe it has something to do with a raging pandemic killing millions around the world, and hundreds of thousands in this country. Furthermore, maybe it has something to do with there being a lifesaving vaccine, at no cost, available to prevent or, at worst, mitigate the effects of said pandemic. 

Maybe, just maybe, the “woke population” weren’t the ones asleep at the wheel. Particularly since they were the ones begging these people to vaccinate. 

Drew would be alive had he listened to liberals, not to mention scientists and doctors. Maybe he should’ve rethought that “bowl of grapes” thought experiment. 

And yet no one reacting to his death say “vaccinate so you can avoid this fate.” Not one. In this case, there is no redemption arc, no silver lining.