Some of you are olds like me....

Do you remember when "seatbelt laws" happened? As hard as this is to believe these days, you weren't required to wear your seatbelt when hurtling down the street in a motorized metal box that might weigh a few tons back in the day. 1/

Back then you could put children in the back of a mini-pickup and chase people through the suburban streets when the road-rage kicked in because some random guy didn't go soon enough when the light turned green. Kids just rolled around like billiard balls. (True story, BTW.) 2/

Baby seats weren't so much a thing then either. The backseat was a sort of toddler gladiatorial pit to determine pecking order and fitness to survive, which makes sense if you think about it. After all, that's probably where the little primates were conceived.... But digress. 3/

My fellow olds who somehow survived the family car may remember when seatbelt laws were enacted, and the hue and cry that resulted.

"But mah rahts!"

"I can't drive straight with a belt on!"

"Seatbelts are the real danger!"

"You can't tell me how to drive my own car!" 4/

"It's a conspiracy of insurance companies!"

"The government can shove it!"

"Jesus is my co-pilot!"

"Who sez these 'numbers' are true? I don't believe 'em!"

"Seatbelts cause the cancer!"

(OK, I made that last one up. Someone probably said it, but I can't cite a reference.) 5/

Now, some of you will be starting to see where I'm going with this. I thank you for your indulgence and patience in getting this far. For the rest, here's a picture I drew of a pug wearing a mask as an incentive to continue. Maybe there'll be another cute doggy pic.... Maybe. 6/

Since seatbelt laws were enacted traffic fatalities have decreased pretty steadily every year. That's not entirely down to the seatbelts, of course. There are road construction policies, car safety design issues, the number of Buster Keaton films being made, etc. 7/

Seatbelts are just one factor in a range of policies meant to keep dumb fuckers alive despite themselves. Also, helmets for motorcyclists. But that's a whole 'nother "Mah rights!" plus "Ooh, delicious internal organs for transplant...." thing, so let's just move on, shall we? 8/

The point is, certain folks just hate it when you try to keep them from killing themselves, no matter how benign and easy it might be for them to just NOT kill themselves... and everyone else in the car... and pedestrians, and/or those in the car(s) they inevitably smash into. 9/

They hate it so much they'll insist everything from the Constitution to sunny Jebus mandated from the 12th Dimension of Heaven that it's their right to endanger themselves AND everyone around them. Because "freedom". Also, they think it'll make them look cool. (It doesn't.) 10/

Which brings me to this sadsack mother fucker right here: 11/

I don't believe for one smarmy second that Trump actually believes half the shit he says. Maybe he does "believe" it in the moment. Enough to pass a lie detector test, that is; he's that delusional. But I'm pretty sure the famously germ-phobic Little Donny understands masks. 12/

But his "political strategy" (also his marketing strategy) taps into the insecurities of the functionally crazy. That is, those who are batshit crazy, but they can still turn a wrench or operative a keyboard long enough to work an 8 hour shift. So they "get by" day to day. 13/

In a big company/organization you can recognize them because they gravitate together at lunch in little knitting circles of hate & bile, vomiting up a witches' brew of vitriol directed generally, but especially at anything out of earshot that falls into their line of vision. 14/

In smaller companies they circle people eating during lunch, interjecting the occasional non-sequitur snide comment that makes everyone at the table go, "Huh? Um... Well, see you all tomorrow."

Or they just eat lunch at their desk in Human Resources.

Fucking HR.... 15/

My point is that there's a bugger all big bunch of them. More than the rest of us thought for a very long time. But "cockroach rules" apply. If you see one, that means there's really ten.... These days they're most commonly called "Trump's base." 16/

Teddy Roosevelt called "the Bully Pulpit" one of the most powerful powers of the Presidency. These days, it's probably all the nuclear bombs. But that Pulpit is still way, way up high. Words fall fast and hard from that height. 17/

BTW, here's TR in a car not wearing a seatbelt:

When Trump hobbles his way to that pulpit on his crippling bone spurs and says that masks make him look weak or that Coronavirus will just go away, his already fragile-minded followers may believe him or not... but they'll do as they're told. Because he's their guy. 18/

Whatever is wrong them them upstairs, well, he's got enough of that to spare. It makes them feel all better about whatever it is that ails them. When they were told "Anyone can be President someday..." this is what they thought that meant. So fuck you, it's THEIR time now. 19/

So if he intimates or even says outright that they should risk their health and that of everyone they come into contact with they'll absolutely do it. No mask? No problem. Drink bleach? Make my Kool-Aid orange flavor, you dimestore freak, because that's how I roll now.... 20/

It's the rest of us who have to look out.

But that's always been the case. It is, in fact, a pretty good operative definition for American life. You can't save people from themselves, especially if they're determined to sacrifice themselves on some egomaniac's altar. 21/

However, you can wear your seatbelt. And 20, 30, 40 years from now maybe taking the most elementary precautions during a deadly pandemic won't throw certain folks into paroxysms of pubescent fake outrage. Let's hope that'll be our future starting in, say, 2021....

22/22