Science Fiction President

 I am just a few days away from my second injection of COVID-19 vaccine. Moderna for me, thanks. I confess I feel a little awkward as the only member of my immediate household to have received a shot, let alone two. I will soon be in the same club as my mother and my in-laws. 

I am exceedingly grateful that the shot I am about to receive is not bleach. 

I say this in the wake of a most unwelcome slithering return to Twitter by the former gameshow host and twice-impeached "president." Without an account, he chose to put out a press release, but kept it just under the two hundred eighty character limit, should anyone care to copy and paste his "thoughts." I understand that by doing essentially that is giving voice to someone who ought to stay voiceless, but the arrogance and ignorance remains something worth commenting. 

So here it is: “I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all.” Amazing what he is still able to pack into two hundred eighty characters. 

The shot I have and will take was, in fact, brought along by "Operation Warp Speed." But while we're there for a moment, let's talk about "Warp Speed." It's a term from Star Trek, the TV show, and other science fiction outlets. Captain Kirk was prone to urging his Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott to give him "warp drive," which meant faster than light. From there they drifted off into even more fantastical levels of travel. Warp Seven? Why not? As long as we're making things up. It should be noted that all the companies that have produced vaccines were in fact working on variants of this drug for years, decades, in anticipation of this kind of event. Just like Kirk telling Scotty to go fast was not inventing faster than light speed, the former gameshow host did not invent the vaccine. 

Like how the gameshow host and his robotic wife were given their injections in private, without fanfare, while the rest of the country sat and waited. Like how all these doses of vaccine that were not available for American citizens for months were suddenly getting passed out thanks to the guy who contracted the virus himself, along with his robotic wife, because he refused to follow simple masking and distance protocols. The guy who blamed windmills for cancer and stared at an eclipse is suddenly the smart guy? Allowing one camera to document the event of his inoculation, he might have spared thousands of lives. 

And now a special moment of derision for the "China Virus" bit. This past Tuesday, a seventy-five year old Asian man was beaten until he was brain dead in Oakland, not far from my house. The disgusting and unprecedented rise in violence against Asian-Americans is largely a byproduct of the former gameshow host's racist rhetoric. 

A year after denying this plague's existence, this fool is trumpeting his success over the graves of more than half a million Americans. I hope everyone remembers that. 

Get your shot. And thank science. Not science fiction.