Making Clorox Great Again: Sounds Interesting, Right?

Happy Disinfectant Injection Day to the survivors who four years ago ignored the "stratospherically insane" advice, even for him, of a demented buffoon babbling hokum in the face of a pandemic he couldn't spin his way out of - which, thanks to his ineptness, needlessly killed over 200,000 Americans. "I see the disinfectant, it knocks it out in a minute," he raved to a stricken Dr. Birx. "And is there a way we can do something like that?" Yeah, sure, let's elect him again.

Tuesday's fourth Bleachiversary, aka Stick a Light Up Your Ass Day or Bleach Injection Day, marks what's been deemed "the most surreal moment ever witnessed (in) a presidential press conference." For weeks, Trump had been giving "stream-of-consciousness" updates on a pandemic he insisted would soon vanish, but wasn't. Earlier that day, the COVID task force had met, as usual without him, to discuss new findings on the effects of sunlight and humidity on the virus; Trump was briefed, didn't get it, went out and winged it 'cause he loved free TV airtime and what's a few hundred thousand deaths anyway? "So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light. And I think you said you're going to test it?" he prattled to Birx cringing behind him. "And then I see the disinfectant, it knocks it out in a minute...And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? So you’re going to use medical doctors, right? But it sounds interesting to me. So we’ll see..."

And we did. Because, alas, dumb people listened. Calls to Poison Control Centers after ingesting bleach, Lysol and other (deadly) household cleaners soared - this was even before he started touting hydroxychloroquine - and the day's deranged press bleaching went on to live in infamy. Ultimately, thanks to Trump's cumulative health policy cluster-fucks, America saw the highest number of COVID deaths in the world - over a million - of which, experts say, roughly 234,000 could have been prevented. In the moment, video shows a grim, mute Dr. Birx curled in horror - one witness swore you could see her soul leave her body - though it would have been far more useful for her to shriek WTF?! as the madman burbled. "I wanted it to be 'The Twilight Zone' and all go away," she said in a later interview. "I could just see everything unraveling." From then on, said a former Obama official, "We knew without any doubt the government was in way over its head, and its ability to respond effectively (was) not going to be anywhere close to meeting the moment."

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And so it went. And here we are. And now he is not just "gaspingly stupid" but, experts say, "in the advanced stages of dementia," from word salad - “space capsicule" and "Yoonayded Nations" - to 4th grade vocabulary - big, strong, great - to memory issues - Pelosi/ Haley - to a growing inability to control his behavior: "All of this will only get worse. The Trump you see today is the best Trump you're ever going to see." Last week, he described the Battle of Gettysburg - "What an unbelievable battle that was. Gettysburg. Wow" - as either a mash-up of the Civil War and Pirates of the Caribbean or a horse giving birth. This week outside court, accordion hands flying, he gabbled about his hush money crimes to reporters: "It’s a case as to book-keeping, which is a very minor thing in terms of the law in terms of all the violent crime that's going on outside…"This is a case where you pay a lawyer, he's a lawyer and they call it a legal expense. That's the exact term they use. We never even deducted it as a tax deduction..."

In court, meanwhile, he slumps, glowers, nods off as his hapless lawyers - admonished by the judge with, "I have to tell you right now, you're losing all credibility with the court" - struggle to explain how he's innocent of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal in an act of election interference. Between sessions, he whines: "I'm here in a courtroom, sitting here...Sitting up as straight as I can all day long. It’s a very unfair situation.” So does Fox' Jesse Watters, who evidently doesn't realize that before sitting up straight in court Trump spent his time riding a golf cart like a beached whale: "They're draining his brain and his body...You're taking a man who's usually (in) action and you're gonna sit him in a chair in freezing temperatures. He needs sunlight and he needs activity. It's really cruel and unusual punishment to make a man do that." But the Super Man of his digital trading cards is "extraordinarily resilient," a co-host reminds him. So yeah, sure, four more years, even from a prison cell.

"There are several stages of grief after someone dies," a wise patriot notes, and often even before they do. "Like realizing your own dad has lung cancer, realizing he is not well and is not going to be well down the road...The fact is that Trump has a cancer, a cancer of his soul that affects us all...It is time to let ‘dad’ go...People need to let Donald Trump go. Let him fade into the shadows where he came from." For a reminder of why that is necessary, see Sarah Cooper four years ago depict his moment of COVID ignominy, one of far, far too many, in How To Medical. Biden is already on it. “Remember when he told us, literally, inject bleach?" he asked last week. “Bless me, Father.” So many crimes, so few consequences, so much at stake. Are we better off than we were four years ago? For fuck's sake, yes. "Don't inject bleach," Biden urges. "And don’t vote for the guy who told you to inject bleach."