I wonder which of the fervent Republicans at the rally infected him?


You know, Herman Cain attended a Trump rally maskless, and proudly posted a photo of himself hanging out with a small crowd of people, also maskless, and then was diagnosed with COVID-19 afterwards.

Now Herman Cain is dead of COVID-19.

Please, please, please take the pandemic seriously. Even you Republicans. It’s real. It kills people. Even people you might like.

Comments

  1. Doc Bill says

    Herman Cain propagandists are falling all over each other claiming they don’t know where Cain got infected.

    True enough, perhaps, but that Rally was a dangerous place for a person with as many underlying medical conditions, and age, as Herman Cain.

  2. robro says

    Shows the power of prayer. All those prayers really were working…now he’s dead.

    Do we know if he actually met with Trump in Tulsa?

  3. aspleen says

    Cain was foolish and his death should be a warning to others who continue to claim COVID-19 is no big deal. It’s time to require that masks be worn in public places and to close places where we know the risk of infection is great. Otherwise, we’ll be living with this virus for years or if we’re not so lucky die from it.

  4. R. L. Foster says

    I know this may sound insensitive to some, but we may need to see a few more prominent Republicans die of Covid for the GOP to take this disease with the seriousness it deserves. We need a national strategy. Now. No more passing the buck to the states and cities. Go on a war footing. Ramp up production of everything we need the same we would as if an enemy was landing on our beaches. If not, we’re going to limp along for months, perhaps even another year or two, before we get this situation under control. We can’t wait another 5 months until Biden takes office in January. By then things will be totally out of control. And during that interval the body bags will fill up by the hundreds of thousands and countless families will be living on the streets.

  5. stuffin says

    “Herman Cain propagandists are falling all over each other claiming they don’t know where Cain got infected.”

    He choose how to live in the Covid times, Covid choose how he would die.

    Have to wonder how many people he infected before being quarantined?

  6. says

    @robro: no prayers still don’t work. Or, maybe it’s just mine that don’t. Because if mine did, Trump’s hair would catch fire and he’d run around burning like a candle while everyone had a meeting deciding whether he needed help and Don Jr tossed him hydroxychloroquine, “hydro it has water in it right?”

    My fantasies are dark these days. Thanks, republicans!

  7. robro says

    Here’s a report from a Houston ABC station:

    Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told ABC News that Cain did not “meet with” Trump in Tulsa.

    Damn! Of course, there have been several positives in the White House…so just a matter of time.

  8. birgerjohansson says

    Ut is tempting to indulge in schadenfreude over the death of a Trump enabler who spent his last years endorsing vile politics, but I will be brief.
    The universe is indifferent to life. And it is not forgiving to stupidity. Technically he died of the virus, in reality he died from listening to Trump and the echo-chamber talking heads in the conservative media.
    It is a lot like Lysenkoism in the Soviet union, which caused starvation in a country with excellent farmlands. When reality meets propaganda, reality always wins.

  9. Akira MacKenzie says

    Mmmmm… The schadenfreude is so much tastier than any of Caine’s crappy pizzas.

  10. chrislawson says

    @12– There must be economies of scale when you make your pizza and your boxes from the same material.

  11. davidc1 says

    @1 And being of African decent might have been a factor ,over here in GB ,a lot of the dead are BME .

  12. embraceyourinnercrone says

    He was a 14 year survivor of Stage 4 colon cancer that had metastasized to his liver(diagnosed in 2006). He was 74 years old. Apparently he had already had his miraculous second chance with the odds. Going to Tulsa at all was beyond stupid. He gambled and he lost. In the end the house always wins.

  13. Snarki, child of Loki says

    Really bad about any innocents that get the virus from a virusbait Trumper,

    But the MAGAts themselves? I got a whole BOX of tiny little nanofabricated violins just for them. Lots and lots. Not going to run out.

  14. says

    Cain made his choice supporting a willfully ignorant incompetent culture and this is what happens. I only wish the people who are similarly supporting willful ignorant incompetence are the ones who get covid but reality won’t do more than give better odds.

  15. tinkerer says

    davidc1 @15

    [blockquote]And being of African decent might have been a factor ,over here in GB, a lot of the dead are BME .[/blockquote]

    You probably don’t mean to, but you’re reinforcing the idea that black people are inherently different which is the reason they suffer poor health outcomes compared to white people. The real reason they suffer poor health outcomes is because they’re far more likely to be at the bottom of the social ladder due to discrimination.

    Social status and income are far more reliable predictors of health problems than ethnic origin, and it’s particularly true for this pandemic as it’s the poorly paid service workers who are being forced back to work prematurely and being exposed to the virus. They are also more likely to be on the front line as hospital staff and carers.

  16. moarscienceplz says

    Echoing tinkerer @#18.
    Also, I had to look up BME (black, minority ethnic) and its sister term BAME (black, asian minority ethnic). These strike me as rather lazy terms to refer to a widely disparate population, and feels like they facilitate sweeping a whole host of problems under the rug so we white people don’t have to spend a lot of effort dealing with them.

  17. nomdeplume says

    Another media fail in the linked article of a kind we constantly see these days “a photograph of himself at Trump’s rally showing him surrounded by other attendees, none of whom appeared to be wearing masks or other protective gear.” Note the word “appeared”. The photo clearly shows a dozen or so people surrounding Cain none of whom in fact are wearing masks or protective gear. So why the weasel word “appeared”? We quite often see it in regard to Trump, and indeed it has blossomed in the Trump era. He is never lying, he just “apparently” was mistaken, or “may” have intended something, or “seemed to be suggesting”. This kind of reporting, like the way journalists edit Trump’s rambling nonsense, has covered up for Trump, just as tis article does.

  18. numerobis says

    davidc1: it’s not skin colour that matters. Employment defines risk of exposure; age, health status, and environment drive the risk of death.

    Low socioeconomic status people tend to have employment with high risk of exposure, and tend to have poorer health status than average. They also tend to live in higher-pollution areas, with worse access to health care. And darker-skinned people tend to have low socioeconomic status because systemic racism.

    But Cain was of high socioeconomic status, living in a not particularly polluted area, and likely had great health care. Where he suffered is that his employment was high-risk: he was a politician, meeting lots of people — plenty of politicians and their families have gotten sick regardless of skin colour. Also, as with many politicians, he wasn’t particularly young.

  19. John Harshman says

    Louis Gohmert has tested positive, and ever after the test he seems to have behaved in an irresponsible manner. His reputation as the dumbest man in Congress seems well deserved.

  20. says

    Betting pool! How many of the Angry Cheeto’s administration will follow Cain’s example between now and 3 November?

  21. birgerjohansson says

    Re. African americans: as most medicines are mainly tested on asians and ‘caucasians’, the rich genetic diversity of africans is not really adressed in those tests.
    So in pathologies where you are dependent on medication to survive, ancestry can play a role.
    This may not have been an issue in this case as there is no specific medicine that has been tested for years against sars-cov-2.

  22. davidc1 says

    @18 You are right i didn’t mean to ,but a lot of the medical staff who have died because of the virus were black or brown people ,they were hardly at the lower end of society .
    Not going to comment on this thread again .

  23. kome says

    Do you honestly think the Republicans are going to change their stance on how to respond to COVID-19 in response to the death of one black person? Even if that person was a bug-nutty crazy Republican himself?

  24. KG says

    These [BME, BAME] strike me as rather lazy terms to refer to a widely disparate population moarscienceplz@19

    Like PoC you mean? Yes, it’s lazy to use them when a more specific term is available, but sometimes there isn’t, and there are disadvantages shared by all subgoups and members of those covered by such terms.

  25. archangelospumoni says

    Brother Cain’s death is causing some under-the-radar Drumpfh supporters to bail. I have read several stories pointing this out, and a few more of said supporters will be abandoning ship each day. We have been awaiting this for nearly 4 years . . . .

  26. tinkerer says

    davidc1 @30

    You say you don’t mean to but you’re still doing it. You’re relying on vague anecdotal evidence to push a harmful idea. Stop it.

  27. tinkerer says

    Regarding black and other ethnic groups in the UK being disproportionally affected by the pandemic, here’s an excellent analysis of the reasons for it.