What is Wrong With These Covidiots?

'Bishop' W.E. Jackson, Head pastor at Exodus Faith Ministries, Chesapeake, Virginia and former right-wing Republican candidate for Governor of Virginia.

E.W. Jackson: Joe Biden Cursed Our Nation by Saying COVID Is Still Dangerous | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

The stupidity of American evangelical Christian preachers continues to plumb new depths as the coronavirus crisis engulfing President-reject Trump's America continues to deepen.

Deaths have now exceeded 300,000 and are forecast to reach 500,000 before enough people have been vaccinated for 'herd immunity' or as Donald Trump called it, 'herd mentality', reaches the critical point at which the R number falls significantly due to the virus being unable to find enough victims to sustain its population.

Some models put this at 60%, others, which take account of the greater infectivity of new strains like that spreading rapidly in the UK, at 80%. This level will need to be maintained probably for a generation or more before the risk of a new pandemic arising from the residual pool of viruses in wild animals passes, if that point is ever reached.

And of course, foremost in their opposition to measures to control the virus are covidiot evangelical Christians such as E.W. Jackson, former candidate for Governor of Virginia and right-wing radio host. Before catching the virus himself, Jackson used to tell people believing in God was enough to protect them so they should not worry about catching it.

According to his Wikipedia entry, Jacks is head pastor at Exodus Faith Ministries, located in Chesapeake, Virginia and founder of S.T.A.N.D. (Staying True to America's National Destiny), a Christian political organization that declares America's 'destiny' to be whatever suits their political agenda. His 'church' continues to enjoy tax-exempt status despite its overtly political purpose. Presumably, lying to the IRS for illicit financial gain is one of "America's National Destinies" that Jackson stays true to, as well as lying to people about the dangers from a deadly pandemic virus, as they die in their hundreds of thousands.

Now Jackson is hoping to pre-emptively scupper any claim President-elect Biden might have for getting on top of the problem - something Trump signally failed to do. He is now trying to blame Biden for the current worsening situation by claiming Biden has cursed America simply by telling people how serious the situation is. He should have lied to them like Trump and his evangelical Christian allies on the right-wing extremist political fringes do.

Presumably, Jackson would have preferred Biden to continue Trump's disastrous strategy of down-playing the virus and minimising the risk from it. Trump did this, of course, because he initially panicked when told how serious the threat was, because he hadn't a clue what to do about it and, in his obsessive need to undo everything Obama achieved, he had disbanded the contingencies Obama had put in place for dealing with just such a pandemic, including stockpiles PPEs for health-care workers - something he later blamed on others declaring himself 'not responsible' for things done by his officials on his watch. With Trump, the buck always stops elsewhere!

Daily New Covid-19 cases - USA

Source: Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center

His narcissistic personality disorder made him incapable of accepting that he got that wrong and that expert virologists and epidemiologists knew better than he did, so he announced that the virus virtually harmless and declared the threat to be almost non-existent and something that would be 'gone by April'. This then became his administration's policy - with dire consequences for anyone who dared to dissent or even tell the truth. Then he was stuck on the treadmill of continually trying to prove he was right, because he knew best, by ignoring and supressing the mounting evidence that he was spectacularly and disastrously wrong and threatening, penalising and neutering agencies that said otherwise!

Consequently, his credulous followers became convinced that face-masks, lockdowns and social distancing were part of an anti-Trump, anti-Christian 'Deep state' conspiracy and a hostile political statement. Control of a dangerous pandemic, when one could have expected a co-operative national effort, became a divisive political issue with the raving right favouring doing nothing and berating and threatening those who tried to do something to protect the lives of hapless Americans saddled with an incompetent, out of his depth, blustering buffoon for a president.

The, as the polls continued to predict a landslide win for Biden in November, an increasingly desperate Trump began to hold large-scale, densely-packed rallies which became super-spreader events, and evangelical churches who had bought into the Trump lies about social distancing, face-masks and the relative harmlessness of the virus, held super-spreader events of their own regardless of the evidence showing how churches were becoming major Covid-19 hotspots and the increasing number of pastors, preachers and church-goers dying of the disease. The statistics were 'fake news' of course.

Now Jackson is preaching this about President-elect Biden:

When he stood up and said — as, according to some, I’ve never called him this but many are calling him president-elect, this is the first time I’ve even used those words, believe me, because I don’t believe he is, but many do, and many are already submitting into his authority and believing that this is the next president of the United States, I’m not yet. I’m not convinced. He was pronouncing a curse on this nation. “The darkest days of COVID are ahead of us, not behind us.” Well, then what’s the vaccine all about? What’s this stuff we keep learning more and more about the disease, what’s that all about? What are all the lockdowns all about? So, what, are we gonna be locked down for the next two or three years or something? I mean… you know, people don’t understand, a leader can either curse or bless that which he leads. And we’ve had a president for the last four years — people can like him, they can say whatever they want to say, for the last four years… — President Donald J. Trump has blessed America. “I love America,” he says. “I love our country. It’s a beautiful country. We’re gonna make America great again. We’re gonna put America first. America’s going to succeed. America’s going to grow. America’s going to thrive. America’s going to prosper.” He has blessed this country for the last four years. The words of his mouth have been blessing. And Joe Biden is not even in office yet, and he’s already pronouncing curses on our country.

Blame Biden; blame the Democrats; blame anyone but the evangelical Christian preachers and their idol, President-reject Donald J Trump, for the disaster they've caused by their arrogant narcissism, their psychopathic disinterest in the welfare of their followers, and their naked grab for political power and influence at the expense of the dead and long-term disabled they leave in their wake. These pro-life phonies are only pro-life so long as saving it doesn't inconvenience them even slightly stand in the way of their political ambitions, or damage their income streams.

As Hemant Mehta says:

Trump pulled a fast one over the dumbest people in the country, taking their money while protecting and pardoning his criminal allies, and lying to gullible Christians about how great everything is due to his existence… and Jackson can’t handle someone telling the truth about how the virus (and the effects of the pandemic) won’t disappear overnight just because vaccines now exist. It’s not a “blessing” that more than 300,000 people have died in large part due to this administration’s ignorance of this pandemic and refusal to take difficult but necessary actions. As for Jackson, you can’t trust people of faith when they’re unable to tell fact from fiction, and when they purposely condemn someone for admitting hard truths.

Thanks to Trump and his evangelical Christian allies, Biden now has the double problem of the pandemic and a divided and truculent population, a significant number of whom have been fooled into thinking the pandemic is some sort of conspiracy and that the vaccine is all part of it. Lets hope he shows the same determination to undo the damage Trump, et al., have done to America as Trump showed in his obsessive determination to undo everything Barak Obama achieved in his two terms as he tried to expunge the memory of the first black president in American History. Hopefully, Biden can expunge the nasty memory of Trump's catastrophic single term and undo the harm he did.

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