I don’t look for confrontations when I go out. I’m not a club person and when I do get a beer in a bar, I usually wanna keep to myself unless I’m hanging out with a friend. My rule for hearing people say stupid shit or make racist comments is: If they’re not talking to me, let it go. If they do address me, then I have a moral responsibility to let them know I don’t accept that shit. Usually when I do this, I try to do it as diplomatically as possible which can be difficult when you are calling someone a racist and when you are me.

There was that time someone said, “So you think you’re better than me because I say the N-word?,” except he didn’t say “N-word.” He said that other word. I replied, “Since I’m not a racist fuck. Yes. Yes, I do think I’m better than you.” For some reason, it went downhill from there.

When it comes to racist comments, if I don’t at least say I’m not down with the racist program, I feel as though I’m betraying everyone in my life who is non-white. I have friends and family members who aren’t white. I don’t want to be two-faced.

When I talked about this on Facebook earlier this week, a conservative said I should question how I look since these MAGAts assume I’m one of them. It’s true. I do look like one of them. I fit the demographic, other than having teeth and not dragging my knuckles. I am a middle-aged white male and 58 percent of us voted for Donald Trump. Of course, I did not.

And it’s not just conservatives who will assume I’m a Trumper. A few weeks ago, I had an online exchange with a fellow liberal cartoonist where we disagreed on something and his readers started calling me a racist. In his readers’ defense, the other cartoonist did lie and claim I said, “Racism doesn’t exist anywhere.” Of course, I’d never say anything close to that but I fit the demographic of someone who would. Sure, maybe his readers could have read what I actually wrote instead of being a bunch of ravenous lemmings going over a cliff for a lie, but that’s how social media works now. Maybe that’s the trade off for benefiting from white privilege my entire life. Most people who look like me won’t even admit white privilege exists. Remember when they wouldn’t admit the coronavirus pandemic didn’t exist? The same people who claim white privilege isn’t a thing also claimed the virus was a hoax.

The people who look like I do began the pandemic lying about it. They claimed it didn’t exist. Then they claimed the numbers of deaths were inflated and fabricated. They claimed it wasn’t worse than the flu. They claimed we didn’t need mask mandates or that we should quarantine. They claimed we didn’t even need to mask up at all. They claimed we shouldn’t shut down. They claimed vaccines don’t work while claiming hydroxychloroquine does. They claim there are tracking devices in the vaccines. They spent a year and a half attacking the people trying to help them. They spent a year and a half attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci and now, they’re claiming he helped create the virus and is a murderer. Seriously. A United States senator has spread this lie.

These lies are killing people. The president (sic) who admitted he played down the virus at the beginning of it should be accused of murder before Dr. Fauci. The “liberate Michigan” people should be accused of murder before Dr. Fauci. Every talking head on Fox News should be accused of murder before the scientists are accused. It’s these people and their lies who are bringing covid back…which is again killing people.

Which brings us back to public confrontations.

I went out last Tuesday to a Mexican restaurant close to my house where I could take advantage of Taco Tuesday and grab a beer while I watched the Olympics. I was sitting at the bar with my street tacos and a beer when this guy, in my demographic, got up to leave, but just as he was leaving, Dr. Fauci appeared on one of the TVs. The guy nudged me and said, “There’s Dr. Mumbler who kills people.” My first reaction was, “What?” I mean, “Dr. Mumbler?” What? The guy said it again. I recovered and replied, “I don’t know who Dr. Mumbler is but that’s Dr. Anthony Fauci who’s is an American hero despite the slanders from fucknuts like you.” Yeah, I don’t think I made a new friend. He didn’t say anything else and got out of there. I told the bartender, “I don’t like that.” She said, “I’ll allow it.” She didn’t like him either.

If that guy made those same comments, but they weren’t directed at me, I would have let it go. But what was I supposed to do, nod and play along? Maybe I could have done it without the “fucknut,” but…I’ll get over it. Perhaps what annoyed me most was him assuming I was like him. Damn this demographic!

That guy was an asshole. The gentleman I talked to yesterday was not.

I took a Lyft to my post office yesterday (there will be a blog later about was waiting for me at the post office). My driver was not wearing a face mask as he was supposed to. In fact, the second Lyft driver I got also was not wearing a face mask. But, the first driver (yes, he was white) started talking about the pandemic and the delta variant. He did not say if he was vaccinated or not and I didn’t ask. But I believe he was not. He said there was no reason to get vaccinated since it wouldn’t protect you from the new variant.

The man didn’t seem like he was an antivaxxer. He didn’t seem as though he was politicizing it. He didn’t seem hateful. But he was ignorant. I told him, as politely as possible (I didn’t want to affect my rating) that the vaccine doesn’t guarantee you won’t catch the coronavirus but it’s very effective against it. It’s very effective against you catching it. And if you do catch it after becoming vaccinated, it’s very effective in making your case mild. The fact is, over 90% of people being hospitalized for covid now are UNVACCINATED. I don’t think I convinced this man because he’s been fed bullshit for a year and a half. The Fox News propaganda is a lot to overcome.

The driver told me he can’t trust scientist because they keep changing the science. Nobody is changing the science. The only thing that changes is the virus. It has changed. That’s what a variant is. Didn’t you watch Loki?

Thanks to that propaganda, only 48% of our nation is vaccinated. Thanks to that propaganda, the delta variant is bringing covid back and increasing hospitalizations again. Thanks to the right-wing bullshit, people are having to be hospitalized. And according to some doctors, that’s when they ask to be vaccinated.

Alix Zacharsk, a nurse at Jackson Health System in Miami (same city where the weird package I received came from) said that when young people infected with covid arrive at her hospital, they ask if they can get vaccinated. Unfortunately, no. You cannot get vaccinated while you’re infected. You can get vaccinated after the infection has run its course.

Dr. Brytney Cobia of Grandview Medical Center in Alabama said a lot of their covid patients who change their minds about vaccinations don’t ever get the chance to be vaccinated.

Dr. Cobia wrote on Facebook, “One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

She also wrote, “A few days later when I call time of death, I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same.”

If you’re not infected yet, it’s not too late for you to be vaccinated. Stop being an idiot and get vaccinated. Hell, you can even get vaccinated while bitching about vaccinations. Just don’t tell anyone you got it. That’s what Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump did. They didn’t tell anyone because it didn’t fit their propaganda, but they were sure to save their own asses while not caring about yours.

Donald Trump ignored medical advice and health guidelines and he caught covid. He can thank his ignorance for that. So when the vaccine came about, he made sure to take it because having covid nearly killed him. Yeah, they didn’t tell you that either. But since Donald Trump is a selfish piece of crap, he didn’t tell anyone he received the vaccination. He and Melania took it in secret while President Biden, Vice-President Kamala Harris, and former presidents Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama all took it publicly. But maybe Donald Trump wasn’t intending to play down the vaccine and was only concerned that if he took the vaccine on camera, we’d all see his pasty flabby arms.

It’s too late to get the vaccine when they stick a tube down your throat…or you’re put into a hole in the ground.

If you are unvaccinated, politicized the pandemic, and went to war over it, you have lost. Florida governor Ron DeSantis claimed victory before his state started to lead the nation in covid cases. He’s still fighting the war and attacking Dr. Fauci…even though he’s already lost the war.

You lost. It’s time to end your war and politicization of the vaccine. Take the vaccine. Your stupid argument of having the right not to vaccinate is like your right to throw punches. That right ends where my nose begins. Take the vaccine. Don’t be selfish and just do it for yourself. Do it for your friends, family, community, and nation.

That’s the hardest thing to get through to conservatives. They are selfish and they typically only do things for themselves. Maybe if fucknuts on Fox News told them to do it for the greater good, they’d get vaccinated and help their country defeat this virus. Nah, the “greater good” sounds too much like socialism.

Fine, if you won’t do it for your country, do it for yourself. They don’t vaccinate graves.

Creative note: Doug is an Easter egg but only Claytoonz super fans will be able to figure it out.

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