It was naive of me, but I really did believe things would be a little less crazy, and a little less stupid by now. However, here in the 297th consecutive week of the Exact Same Right Wing Pandemic Tantrum, it’s clear I was foolish to ever dream this fever could break.

I guess we should start with Afghanistan. Who would’ve thought a place known as “the Graveyard of Empires” would prove so inhospitable?

Not to impugn the good faith of the military-industrial complex, but I’m starting to think that Afghan army we spent two decades building never quite became the elite peacekeeping force we were led to expect. I guess $83 billion doesn’t buy what it used to.

Other than human tragedy on an unfathomable scale, of course.

It’s sure been somethin’, watching all the Republican pundits n’ politicians, scowling so somberly as they lament Joe Biden’s “failure” and “weakness,” when they’re not-so-secretly beside themselves with glee that they get to spend the foreseeable future stirrin’ up fear and hate of our most loyal Afghan allies.

A Republican strategist is just somebody who works out the shortest distance between two points, where the second point is always Be Afraid of Brown People, so the last couple of weeks have basically been a paid vacation.

…and Xmas for the likes of Tucker Carlson. A Muslim refugee scare so soon after Viktor Orbán Week? I guess White Supremacist Santa thinks Liar Tuck has been appropriately naughty this year.

Can’t imagine you were surprised to see Stephen Miller crawl out of his sewer pipe to stoke the fires of hate for a bit. Last thing that little Nazi tapeworm wants is more folks willing to fight for American values.

You look from Miller to those brave Afghans who risked their lives, fighting the forces of ignorance and autocracy, alongside the U.S. military, and you can’t help but think, yeah, let’s get this “white replacement” thing y’all talk about so much started. That photo of the airplane full of evacuees you bastards have been waving around in fear-mongering fervor? I say empty that plane, fill it up with the exact same number of Oath Keepers and Newsmax hosts, turn it around, and send it right back. Wash, rinse, repeat, until we’re no longer debating whether or not democracy is good. Where’s my MoveOn petition for that option?

Before we get into the week’s Covid news, the usual disclaimer that much of the behavior described will make no damn sense; I think it helps to keep in mind the people involved have no damn sense.

The Biden Administration has been forced to escalate their conflict with the coronavirus’ deadliest ally: the Republican Governors Association. It’s weird that an extremely contagious, frequently lethal virus has its own personal fifth column in 21st-century America, but then, a lot of shit’s weird these days.

Greg Abbott, leading by example for a change, caught his very own case of the disease he’s been so assiduously dispensing to Texas’ schoolchildren. (I didn’t say it was positive leadership.) Meanwhile, his casually nihilistic Lt. Governor introduced a fresh, new, racist conspiracy theory into a market that’s surely saturated by now*.

And Death Cult Bandwagon Jumper Doug Ducey became the latest GOP governor to force his constituents’ children to cosign his party’s suicide pact with the Delta variant. See? Weird shit, huh? Toldja.

Folks, you’re gonna have to bear with the Republican Party. Remember, they’re coming off a year when they had no policy platform whatsoever, and there are inevitably going to be a few bumps in the road as they suss out what their disinformation-addicted, feral base wants.

For the moment, the focus seems t’be on just two issues: letting Richard Spencer rewrite the nation’s history textbooks, and feeding as many Americans as possible to the disease that’s already killed 624,000 of us, asterisk minors strongly preferred.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced a whole new category for next year’s ceremony: Best Video Footage of a Brain-Broke Wingnut Decaying Before Our Very Eyes Into a Puddle of Rage at a School Board Meeting. Gonna be competitive.

Trouble is, it’s these and ONLY these people that Republican governance currently serves. Here in the fever swamps of 2021, “conservative” policy is driven by the ever-shifting delusions of the most gullible rubes who ever blew a paycheck on a doomsday prep kit shilled by a talk radio host, and folks, that is no way to run a dang railroad. Or to, y’know, SET PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY DURING A GODDAMN PANDEMIC.

But that’s how we’re playin’ it, in red states anyway, which is completely insane of course, the kind of insane you seldom see outside those who develop labyrinthine plots to kill the Batman, but I suppose that’s how we wound up at this KOOKY moment in history, when the American right has decided to open up a hot front in the nation’s cold culture war, carefully selecting their battlefields to maximize child casualties.

It is real, real, REAL important to Republican politicians that kids catch Covid. Like, tax-cuts-for-their-billionaire-masters important. Now, I’m old-fashioned; I’m in favor of a more traditional government role, where elected officials use the powers of their offices to reduce sickness and suffering wherever possible, but times change, and perhaps we should respect the religious liberty of our death cultist brothers and sisters, as they pursue their mad quest to fill every ICU bed in the South.

Or maybe we could, I dunno, shuffle our priorities around a bit, focus more on saving lives than placating ill-behaved, misinformed shitweasels? Maybe, and I don’t want to sound like a radical commie libtard cuck or anything, do things that work instead of things that don’t?

Like, I don’t want to tell Ron DeSantis how to do his job, but when one is overseeing (or, as you could more accurately say, “causing”) a senseless, unnecessary, mass-casualty event, that generates headlines like, “Sick COVID patients lie on floor at antibody treatment site in Florida,” and “Mask fight in Florida schools as pediatric ICU beds fill with patients,” one could likely find better uses for one’s time than petulantly punishing local educators who insist on protecting their charges from your deranged, homicidal “orders,” but I suppose the mob isn’t going to throw bloody chunks of red meat to itself.

Oh wait, maybe I do want to tell Ron DeSantis how to do his job. The governor job, not his side gig as an entry-level Regeneron hawker.

Yeah, DeSantis, who will always find a way to sink to heretofore undiscovered depths of depravity, having used his platform and his powers to spread Covid-19 throughout his state, now ever-so-subtly nudges the population he failed and infected towards an expensive treatment, (vaccines are still free, yo) each dose of which further enriches Kenneth C. Griffin, the billionaire hedge fund jag who finances Ron-Ron’s campaigns, and pulls his strings.

Got that? Intentionally spreading a deadly disease, amongst children, in order to create consumers for a product that would have no function in an environment where the pandemic was under control. Quite possibly the most obscene thing I have ever witnessed. Raw evil.

MAGA Nation, I have to ask: how many ways do the turd-gargling plutocrats you look to for leadership have to tell you, directly to your face, that your lives mean less than nothing to them, that they would happily feed you face-first into a wood-chipper for a fucking nickel, before you get the fucking message?

Because even as Fux Nooz fills your head with snakes and pop rocks, behind the scenes, they’ve implemented their own mask mandates and vaccine passports, you know that, right? Turns out, the things they tell you are tyrannical deep state plots to control you are actually simple, common-sense measures that keep people safe and healthy. To cut through the bullshit: they’re protecting their own lives while encouraging you to throw yours away.

And, for that reason, you should stop listening to them.

Anyone? Bueller?

Sigh. Moving on.

Unsatiated by January 6th’s flaccid fascist kerfuffle, loser white boy terrorism returned to the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, in the form of Floyd Ray Roseberry, a Normal Tourist Visitor from a nearby alternate reality constructed by the shittiest people alive. This one didn’t have a real bomb, so nobody got hurt this time; sure hope we’re that lucky next time and the time after that and the time after that and…anyhow.

Mo Brooks responded to the incident in typical Mo Brooks fashion, by which I mean he expressed sympathy for, and even fellowship with the terrorist. This has been your weekly installment of Nazi Shit From Within the House Republican Conference Kevin McCarthy Couldn’t Be Bothered to Condemn, or, as it is known in Iowa, Shit That Makes Steve King Throw Half Empty Coors Light Bottles at the TV Set.

Hey, speaking of the American conservative movement’s terrorist wing, it seems the days before Proud Boy Spring Break, excuse me, I mean before “the Capitol Riot” saw a “suspicious spike in traffic” to a website containing maps of the tunnels running beneath the U.S. Capitol, from links originating on pro-Trump militia message boards, in what is surely the wackiest imaginable coincidence.

Surely.

Hey, gotta drop a great big sloppy THANK YOU on everybody for your generous support of Marguerite vs. the Occupation. It’s…humbling, that y’all believe in me enough to fork over your hard-earned money. And I’m thankful. Now we prep the book for the printer, so we can get it in your hands as soon as possible! Can’t wait!

There’s even more Nazi-stompin’ fun on the horizon, believe it or not…but for now, I’ll stop trying to sell you folks my comics…because I’d rather talk about the awesome, Covid-vanquishing miracle called REGENERON™️!

…I kid. Stay safe out there, my lovelies. We got through 2020, we’ll get through this shit.

*Of course, the right wing appetite for racist disinformation is entirely without limit. Ha ha ha fooled you. (weeps)