MNSBC’s Joy Reid, who once claimed to be the victim of time-traveling hackers (believe it or not, she was caught in this lie), claims Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is “rooting for” COVID-19.
“Gov. DeSantis and Florida’s COVID catastrophe,” Reid said this week at the top of her evening program. “As the delta variant rages in the state, he refuses to budge on protecting kids, children, or even allowing private business owners to protect themselves and their customers.”
She is, of course, referring to the fact that the Republican governor issued a directive this year barring cruise lines from requiring “vaccine passports.” DeSantis has also barred government entities from imposing mask and vaccine mandates.
“He’s just rooting for [COVID-19],” said Reid.
I’m sure there are no other reasons people might oppose mask mandates at this point — for example, because cloth masks are largely ineffective, or because top Democratic politicians such as former President Barack Obama and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser don’t believe in them either, or because they are an imposition on basic freedoms that have lasted long enough already.
Nope. DeSantis is a Republican, so that means the only interpretation Reid can conceive of right now is that the governor wants people to die.
“He doesn’t care,” she said. “Clearly, he doesn’t care.”
Then, there’s the Florida governor’s “partner-in-carnage,” she said, “Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.”
Like DeSantis, Abbott opposes school mask mandates. The Texas governor similarly issued a directive banning government entities from imposing mask and vaccination requirements.
Together, Reid declared this week, the two Republican governors have chosen “their craven political ambitions over the health of the citizens.”
Reid also said this week, “There are kids, first of all, too young to get vaccinated. And then there are also kids who have preexisting conditions who could die from [COVID-19]. And there are screaming, sometimes violent parents saying they want no mask mandates, and they want to be able to send unmasked, potentially contagious kids to school.”
She added, “Do you feel that American public schools at this point are safe with those people out there? … These kids have rights too, or at least they should. It would be nice if both parties cared about them equally.”
So far, 19 months into the pandemic, 297 children have died from COVID-19 out of 73 million in the United States. Every death is a tragedy. It’s also true COVID-19’s risk to school-age children under 14 is significantly smaller than their risk of being murdered or getting cancer, according to the CDC. There is also no evidence that children spread the coronavirus.
When it comes to Republicans and conservatives, Reid always — always — stakes out the most insane, uncharitable reading imaginable. To her, Republicans really do want to see everyone dead — everyone, that is, except for white Christian males, or whatever.
