Vaccine Politics

On May 14, former President Donald J. Trump

released a wordy statement that read: “Isn’t it incredible that because of the vaccines, which I and my Administration came up with years ahead of schedule (despite the fact that everybody, including Fauci, said would never happen), that we no longer need masks, and yet our names are not even mentioned in what everybody is calling the modern day miracle of the vaccines?”

Later in the statement, he made a straight-up plea: “Just a mention please! The Biden Administration had zero to do with it.”

The New York Times has mentioned it, with a reporter in mid- December conceding "helping speed the development of a coronavirus vaccine may be one of Mr. Trump’s proudest accomplishments...."

Given that whatever accomplishment Trump-Kushner may have claimed in the Middle East has now blown up in Joe Biden's face, "one of Mr. Trump's proudest accomplishments" sets the bar extremely low. Still, the 45th President probably deserves at least a little credit for encouraging drug companies to develop the vaccine for SARS-CoV-2.

However, if Trump is to be credited at all with that, a full examination of the former President's pitiful- nay destructive- approach to the pandemic should be made. Ironically, we get a little closer to that if we take the advice of Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin.

Appearing with Saagar Enjeti on The Hill's "Rising" on Friday, Gallagher referred to the interrogation of Dr. Anthony Fauci by Senator Rand Paul in a committee hearing and remarked

Fauci admitted yesterday that they don't have a full understanding of everything that was going on at the Wuhan Institute of Viroogy... We want to know what the heck happened if for no other reason than we want to prevent this from happening again. If we can't get to the origin, we'll never be able to prevent the next pandemic.

Gallagher's aim appears to be an investigation into whether SARS-CoV-2 originated in the Wuhan wet market or in the lab in the city. He continued

.... we had nominated some Americans to be on the WHO investigation and what happened is effectively the Chinese Communist Party vetoed that and they allowed one American- a dual American-British citizen, Peter Daszak, to be on the WHO team.

Daszak, as hasd been suggested here before, clearly has a conflict of interest because he

has built his entire professional career around promoting gain-of-function research and the ECO Alliance (which he headed) was doing work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

It's neither paranoid nor racist to suggest that, just maybe, Beijing lurks behind the curtain. Gallagher added

The Biden Administration came in and they didn't contradict the information that the Trump Administration released in January, which said that workers at the Wuhan Institue got sick prior to the broader outbreadk, which would be more evidence in suppotr of the lab leak. So the incoming Adminsistration has said actually there's something here but what they haven't done is they haven't been willing to declassify all the intelligence and that's what I think neesds to happen. We need to know what happened with these workers at the lab. They need to be transparent, forthcoming, and if they're holding that back just because they don't want to get in trouble with the CCP or screw up some broader negotiation that's happening on climate change, well, that would be short-sighted in my opinion.

Determining the origin of the coronavirus is important not only to hold accountable whomever may be responsible. American tax dollars and the focus of reseacrch are at stake. Gallagher continued

About 200 million dollars in American grants went towards gain-of-function research. Well, now, there's something called the Global Virome Project that wants to 6X that with a 1.2 billion dolllar investment in gain-of-function research. So we now face this really important question as to whether we're going to increase the amount of money we're spending on research when we have evidence suggesting that maybe it was this exact type of research that played a role in causing the pandemic.

The comments from the conservative Republican congressman then took a slightly surprising twist as he remarked

It would be insane to dramatically increase the amount of funding that's going toward this type of research, which even the Obama Administration shut down because of the risks involved.

Thank you, Congressman! The Obama Administration did in fact shut down this approach. However, on December 19, 2017

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) today lifted a 3-year moratorium on funding gain-of-function (GOF) research on potential pandemic viruses such as avian flu, SARS, and MERS, opening the door for certain types of research to resume.

The action coincides with today's release of a US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) framework for guiding funding decisions about proposed research involving pathogens that have enhanced potential for creating pandemics.

The gain-of-function research which may have led to the coronavirus being unleashed was approved in the Trump Administration. So let's find out if it escaped from the lab or from a wet market, which was the company line propagated to quell concerns about Beijing. And then we also can determine how much credit President Trump deserves for development of the vaccine(s) and how much blame for promoting its spread. Fair is fair.

 

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In The Nick Of Time

Neri Zelber in Foreign Policy writes "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been waging two wars recently—a shooting one in the Gaza Strip and a political battle at home against opponents from across the spectrum.."

But of course Netanyahu has been waging an additional war, the latter a smaller, local one his right-wing policies and pronouncements have instigated. Earlier this month six Arabic families were evicted from the East Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrrah in favor of six Jewish families. Hundreds of East Jerusalem residents gathered nightly in the neighborhood and numerous clashes with police followed. (The dispute is pending in the Israeli Supreme Court.) Hamas took the opportunity to fire missiles into Israel, whose military has responded disproportionately.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has been under indictment (video below from 11/19) for breach of trust, accepting bribes, and fraud. (Some democracies believe even a head of state is subject to the rule of law. Then there is the USA.)

 

 The timing may not be coincidential:

A coincidence that the new violence began just as Netanyahu was finally about to return the mandate and lose power? And that Hamas' suicidal overreaction could be pushed by one of Netanyahu's few international backers, Putin's Russia? https://t.co/0IB4s03zbS

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) May 14, 2021

Zelber explains

Naftali Bennett, a right-wing lawmaker and a key figure in the negotiations between the opposition factions, told party members in a closed-door meeting Thursday that the option was “off the table,” according to Israel’s Channel 12. The report, later widely confirmed, said he doubted such a government could deploy the necessary force to quell the clashes between Arab and Jewish citizens that have flared since fighting in Gaza began this week.

The anti-Netanyahu coalition would have spanned the political gamut from left to right—with Bennett serving as prime minister—and included an Islamist party representing Arab Israelis. The motley group was united mainly by the goal of toppling Netanyahu, who has led Israel for 12 straight years and is standing trial on multiple corruption charges.

The report indicated that Bennett, head of the pro-settler Yamina party, was resuming negotiations with Netanyahu’s Likud party.

So the war may be saving Netanyahu's political skin while he invokes a tactic- diversion- of one of his close political allies, President Donald J. Trump.  The status of Jerusalem is far more important than conflict with one terrorist group, while the latter dominates the airwaves. Moreover, it may be no coincidence that shortly before the Hamas-Israel hostilities broke out in violence, the issue dominating news in the USA involved- you guessed it- the government in Russia:

Putin answers Biden. The only "Russian criminal group" in the world that matters is headed by Vladimir Putin. It's a dictatorship. No Russian hackers, no assassins, would dare operate without his sanction. What will be the response? https://t.co/TytsEsCSDd

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) May 10, 2021

 

What will be the response, Kasparov asks. We may have seen the response, nearly 6,000 miles from Washington, D.C., and not from a President but from a Prime Minister.

 

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Worse Than McCarthy

In an opinion piece in The New York Times, columnist Jennifer Rubin argues that Representative Liz Cheney, thus far leader of the anti-Trump faction in the Republican Party, does not go far enough. She should, Rubin writes, "embrace efforts to guarantee the same access voters enjoyed in 2020 and also support H.R. 4, which would restore the pre-clearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act."

Moreover, Rubin maintains, the Wyoming congresswoman should campaign in both primaries and general election "against any House member who signed on to the noxious brief seeking to disenfranchise millions of voters and against any House or Senate member who voted to overthrow the results of 2020."

A little strangely, she then adds that Cheney "also should require candidates she backs to refuse to vote for McCarthy as speaker." That would serve little purpose.

It's apparent that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who voted to support objections to the election results in both Pennsylvania and Arizona, has no spine.  Minority Whip Steve Scalise voted in the same manner in January, as did Gary Palmer, now the Republican Policy Committee chairman. None appears to have any  problem with Donald Trump.

Elise Stefanik voted for the objection to Pennsylvania's vote, though against the objection to Arizona.

However, that was the old Elise Stefanik. The new Elise Stefanik made sure in the GOP's closed-door meeting on May 14 "to thank President Trump for his support. He is a critical part of our Republican conference...."

Even Rubin, who has written "Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy From Donald Trump," recognizes that Stefanik is an even "bigger Trump stooge" than McCarthy. And there may be an even worse scenario that "Speaker Stefanik." 

Back in October, 2015, when the Republican Party already was unreasonable but seemed tolerant of democracy, NBC News justice correspondent Pete Williams noted that the US Constitution specifies

 "The House of Representatives shall chuse (sic) their Speaker and other Officers."

The Clerk of the House agrees with the office of the House Historian, which says the speaker "has always been (but is not required to be) a House Member."

Most historians and legal experts who've looked at this issue conclude the founders simply assumed the speaker would be drawn from among elected members.

Moreover

given the Constitution's silence on the matter, what if the House did elect an outsider to be speaker? Someone affected by a law passed during a Congress that included a non-member speaker could file a lawsuit, but such an effort probably wouldn't go very far.

The federal courts — and especially the Supreme Court — are reluctant to wade into cases that raise such purely political questions.

If the GOP were to take control of the House of Representatives in January, 2023 (as most analysts believe likely) and Donald Trump were to demand that he be made Speaker, there would be little objection from House Republicans. By that time, Liz Cheney and the few members of the caucus who are willing to question the Chosen One probably will be gone. Although a lazy Donald Trump imight not want to put forth the effort which a Speaker of the House normally expends, it would be his for the asking. The Supreme Court ultimately would agree or take a pass.

A few years ago, pundits who fancied themselves clever would declare- without dissent- "the Constitution is not a suicide pact." It was considered irrefutable, was politically correct, and was as recently as a year ago January repeated by the House Judiciary Committee chairperson.

Surprise!

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Let Them Eat Low Wages

After pledging undying loyalty to "unity," House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik of upstate New York declared"the American people are suffering under the far-left, radical socialist policies of Speaker Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi."

But "unity." Stefanik's charge is so antithetical to the cause of unity that it's easy not to notice that Stefanik has referred to Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi as "far-left" and "radical." That may be unsurprising, however, in a party whose leadership follows self-anointed "Chosen One" Donald Trump, who has replaced Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

More significantly, however, Stefanik, speaking for the GOP caucus, maintained

The economic risis.. We see the worst jobs report in over twenty years. Unemployment is up, small businesses are struggling to hire workers and Speaker Pelosi and Jo Biden (sic) solution to that is to pay people to stay out of work rather than incentivize people to get back to work. And Republicans, we are fighting to re-open the economy....

The average monthly increase in jobs in the first three years- before the pandemic- of the Trump Administration was approximately 185,111. Last month, the "worst jobs report in over twenty years" showed a gain of 266,000 jobs. Wallowing in alternative facts, Stefanik has passed her first test as a GOP leader. Worse, GOP governors are acting in lockstep with House Republicans as

More than 1.9 million Americans in Alabama, Mississippi and 14 other Republican-led states are set to have their unemployment checks slashed significantly starting in June, as GOP governors seek to restrict jobless assistance in an effort to force more people to return to work.

The cuts are likely to fall hardest on roughly 1.4 million people who benefit from stimulus programs that Congress adopted at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, including one targeting those who either are self-employed or work on behalf of gig-economy companies such as Uber. Beginning next month, many of these workers are likely to receive no aid at all.

In a move undoubtedly rankling many Republicans

McDonald’s announced Thursday that it is raising hourly wages by an average of 10% for more than 36,500 employees at its company-owned restaurants in the U.S.

The fast-food giant says the changes, which have already begun, will include raising the entry-level wage to a range of $11 to $17 an hour, as well as increasing the starting range for shift managers to between $15 and $20 an hour, based on restaurant. location.

(There is no word on whether the food will be made edible; one issue at a time.)

McDonald's is raising wages while Republicans rush to slash unemployment compensation to send more individuals into the workforce.  Some individuals are still queasy about the coronavirus, some are without child care, and some are simply unable to work, but Republicans adamantly advocate increasing the labor supply, the better to put a brake on wage increases.

Free money. Washington wants to send money to state capitols, to be relayed to the residents of those states. And fifteen (15) Republican governors are rising in unison to say: "keep your money."

Rejecting free money is unwise and probably wouldn't be done if those Republicans and their donors were simply heartless. They have to be heartless- and want loads more of their constituents competing with other constituents, lest wages rise. 

It's bad enough that numerous GOP governors won't take the free money which would help people feed their families. It turns out that the compensation doesn't even discourage individuals from returning to the workforce:

Conservatives have been rushing to blame unemployment insurance for the weak jobs report, but the data doesn’t back them up.

Excellent analysis —> https://t.co/zkUAQmFNQK

— Matt O'Brien (@ObsoleteDogma) May 14, 2021

 

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Better Than Nothing

It's not that Liz Cheney isn't courageous. She is, as much as CNN is giving her credit for, and that's not easy.

Cheney is not attacking only the GOP's reigning god, Donald "Chosen One" Trump. She also is standing up against a party establishment, the entrenched powerful, which, as Democrats who once opposed Nancy Pelosi's leadership in the House learned, is rarely successful.

Still, Cheney's challenge is mostly sound and fury, with little chance of sucess. Matthew Dowd, Independent, former Republican strategist, and founder of "Country Over Party," appeared on MSNBC's "The Reid Out" on Wednesday. He has this one nailed, and not only because he realizes that the Wyoming congresswoman and her allies 

have to ask themselves the question, am I facilitating and enabling a party that`s going to push this by staying in it? And that`s my issue with Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Mitt Romney and others, because what happens if the House is taken over by the Republican in 2022, or the Senate is taken over by the Republican in 2022? The reason why it will be taken over is because Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney stayed in the Republican Party. So they will facilitate this happening.

After host Joy-Ann Reid referred to the "first big lie as having been birtherism," Dowd remarked

Well, to me, it actually -- I trace it back further than the birtherism. I think that if we really look at this and trace it back to where this sort of started, where this virus began and where it really started taking off, it was in the mid `90s. And in the mid `90s with Newt Gingrich started to make cultural argument, and because the Republicans were then beginning to face the prospect that the diversity of America was blossoming and that people of color, women were starting to push themselves into power and at the table. They didn`t like that.

could not agree more with my friend @matthewjdowd https://t.co/aHXAzuENSQ

— Jennifer 'pro-voting' Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) May 13, 2021

Conservative Republicans are not offended because some people are "black and brown." They're not offended even because of the subculture characterizing many members of the black and Latino communities.  They're angry because of "the prospect that the diversity of America was blossoming" and ethnic groups conspicuously favoring Democrats "were starting to push themselves into power and at the table." For the most part, they don't dislike them. They simply don't want them to vote.

That's the major Republican mission now. The GOP "autopsy" following the party's loss in 2012 recognized that the nation's demographic profile was changing dramatically, and strongly implied that the Party would have to branch out from their core of old white males. Then failed businessman and successful actor Donald Trump came around to complain "They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists some I assume are good people," he won, and their descent down the rathole of voter suppression accelerated.

Now the Republican Party is engaged in a massive, nationwide effort to block Americans from voting. As of March 11, Republican state legislators across 43 states had introduced more than 250+ bills to curb voting. Yet, a mere nine days before she'd be thrown out as chairperson of the House Republican conference, Cheney denounced HR 1, the For the People Act, as "unconstitutional federal takeover," claiming the Democratic effort to protect voting rights

steals power from the people, violates Americans’ First Amendment Rights, and is designed to protect Democrat politicians. The legislation would force hard-earned taxpayer money to fund political campaigns and enable the federal government to control all aspects of our elections.

It’s clear that we need common sense election reform, but this unconstitutional federal takeover would only create more uncertainty for the system.

Liz Cheney has decided that a guy who incites a riot to storm the Capitol and seek the execution of the Vice-President and the Speaker of the House should not lead the GOP or the nation. That places her in a minority in her Party. "Her stand likely won't matter much," Esquire's Jack Holmes writes, "and it certainly does not redeem her or her family name. But her defenstration is, at the very least, a telling mile-marker on this path into the darkness." 

 

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Beyond The Lie

Q. Does saying something repeatedly make it more credible than stating it only once?

A. It does make it more credible (believable or convincing) but not more valid.

In the video below, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, questioning Dr. Anthony Fauci in a virtual hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions about funding for, and origin of, SARS-CoV-2, contended (at :25)

For years, Dr. Ralph Baric, a virologist in the U.S., has been collaborating with Dr. Shi Zeng-li of the Wuhan virology institute, sharing his discoveries about how to create super viruses. This gain of function research has been funded by the NIH. The collaboration between the U.SA. and the Wuhan virology institute continues Dr. Baric and Shi worked together to insert bt virus spike protein into the backbone of the deadly SARS virus and then- and then used this man-made super virus to infect human airway cells. Think about tht for a moment..... Dr. Fauci, do you still support funding of the- NIH funding of the lab in Wuhan?

Dr. Fauci responded

Senator Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect- that the NIH has not ever- and does not- not fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Fauci is employing a double negative in saying that Paul is incorrect in stating that the National Institutes of Health has not ever, and does not, not fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan. Obviously, Paul was arguing that the NIH does fund, or had funded, gain-of-function research. Presumably, Fauci was simply tripping over words because he would maintain at 2:55

However, I will repeat again that NIH and NIAID categoricallly has not funded gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

And at 3:31, Fauci can be seen remarking

I fully agree that you should investigate where the virus came from but again, we have not funded gain-of-function research on this virus in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. No many- how many times you say it, it didn't happen.

Three times Fauci appeared to deny, vehemently, that neither the NIH or the NIAID funded gain-of- function research which would be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Yet, in an article posted on May 5, 2021 by the Bureau of the Atomic Scientists, science writer, editor, and author Nicholas Wade explains

Baric had developed, and taught Shi, a general method for engineering bat coronaviruses to attack other species. The specific targets were human cells grown in cultures and humanized mice. These laboratory mice, a cheap and ethical stand-in for human subjects, are genetically engineered to carry the human version of a protein called ACE2 that studs the surface of cells that line the airways.

Shi returned to her lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and resumed the work she had started on genetically engineering coronaviruses to attack human cells. How can we be so sure?

Because, by a strange twist in the story, her work was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). And grant proposals that funded her work, which are a matter of public record, specify exactly what she planned to do with the money.

The grants were assigned to the prime contractor, (Peter) Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance, who subcontracted them to Shi.

Wade then quoted from the grants for fiscal years 2018 and 2019, which begs the question of why Dr. Fauci would emphatically deny government subsidization of the gain-of-function research which may have led to escape from the Wuhan lab of the coronavirus. Wade writes

From June 2014 to May 2019, Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance had a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, to do gain-of-function research with coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Whether or not SARS2 is the product of that research, it seems a questionable policy to farm out high-risk research to unsafe foreign labs using minimal safety precautions. And if the SARS2 virus did indeed escape from the Wuhan institute, then the NIH will find itself in the terrible position of having funded a disastrous experiment that led to death of more than 3 million worldwide, including more than half a million of its own citizens.

The responsibility of the NIAID and NIH is even more acute because for the first three years of the grant to EcoHealth Alliance, there was a moratorium on funding gain-of-function research. Why didn’t the two agencies therefore halt the federal funding, as apparently required to do so by law? Because someone wrote a loophole into the moratorium.

The moratorium specifically barred funding any gain-of-function research that increased the pathogenicity of the flu, MERS, or SARS viruses. But then a footnote on page 2 of the moratorium document states that “[a]n exception from the research pause may be obtained if the head of the USG funding agency determines that the research is urgently necessary to protect the public health or national security.”

This seems to mean that either the director of the NIAID, Anthony Fauci, or the director of the NIH, Francis Collins, or maybe both, would have invoked the footnote in order to keep the money flowing to Shi’s gain-of-function research.

Six days before Dr. Fauci's testimony, the editorial board of The Washington Post noted

It is known from public documents that Dr. Shi was conducting “gain of function” research on bat coronaviruses, which involves modifying their genomes to give the viruses new properties, such as the ability to infect a new host species or transmit from one host to another more easily. Such research is controversial — a gain of function experiment can create a danger that didn’t exist before. But the research might also help predict how a virus might evolve toward spillover, enabling the development of effective countermeasures such as a broad coronavirus vaccine.

The research carried out by Dr. Shi was financed in part over the years by the United States, China and Europe.

Wade believes that if the virus did originate with the lab, responsibility for the escape and coverup is widespread, lying with Chinese virogogists. Chinese authorities, and the worldwide community of virologists.

But also with "The US role in funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology."  That may or may not include the most renowned virologist in the USA, the celebrated Anthony Fauci.

Fauci knew in early spring that donning masks would be effective but claimed otherwise until later in the season. In public pronouncements, he initially underestimated the percentage of individuals necessary to be vaccinated before herd immunity would be reached.  In both cases, he thought Americans weren't ready for the truth.  He seemed so sincere, as he does now, though facts indicate he is not.

Dr. Fauci- otherwise lying to Rand Paul, a Sentate committee, and the American people- has helpfully agreed "that you should investigate where the virus came from." Congress needs to do so or it is complicit in a coverup. Even liars can offer good advice.

 

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Lorne Michaels Still Lorne Michaels

"There's a sucker born every minute," P.T. Barnum is reportedly to have said, though the line probably was uttered by a Syracuse banker and competitor of Barnum. In either case, the quote foresaw many of Donald Trump's supporters and individuals infatuated in 2008 with a tall, slender US Senator from Illinois.

However, it currently applies most to some of the viewers of Saturday Night Live- generally, but especially on last Saturday's show.

SNL succeeded in humanizing Musk and, well, faking authenticity is a real skill. He even loves his mother (video below)! 

Among the positive responses to Musk's  performance- and let us remember it was a performance- were

Whole new respect for this human. What a genuinely good guy. Thanks

@elonmusk

 for your light hearted - yet serious support. And for setting an example for others to follow. #SpaceX #dogetothemoon  #dogearmy

What a time to be alive. Exploding head Take these facts in for a couple minutes...

**********

 *Tech billionaire #ElonMusk hosts Saturday Night Live, & announces that he's the first SNL host with Asperger's syndrome.

**********

 I really didn’t have an opinion of Musk either way before the show. Anyone that is willing to go on national TV and make fun of himself and call out to the world he has Asperger’s is okay in my book.   It was refreshing.

**********

There was some pushback on the honor bestowed upon Musk because a few people didn't forget that this was the same Elon Musk who

sent employees back to work at his California Tesla factory in defiance of local shelter-in-place orders, which he described as "fascist" and "forcible imprisoning." He also predicted the US would be reporting "close to zero new cases" by the end of April. And he vouched for an approach that would allow mass infection before vaccines become available.

And two months ago, the National Labor Relations Board

upheld a 2019 ruling that Tesla had illegally fired a worker involved in union organizing and that the company’s chief executive, Elon Musk, had illegally threatened workers with the loss of stock options if they unionized.

It figures that Lorne Michaels would invite Musk onto his show for the latter's public relations project.  The last time a billionaire CEO hosted Saturday Night Live was in 2015. In 2017, Taran Killam, who had left the cast two months earlier, remarked

I don’t necessarily put so much weight into [the idea of] Trump hosting SNL helping him become president, but there’s definitely something where it normalizes him and it makes it OK for him to be part of the conversation. And I don’t think the intention of having him on was ever politically based. I sincerely believe that. But I don’t think it was considered — the implications that it had then and could have moving forward. And I think looking back … there’s nothing good I can take from that week.

The radio pubcaster also asked about the personal side of Trump. “He’s not an enjoyable person to be around — he’s from a different class; he’s from a different way of life,” Killam said. “There was never any common ground.”

The actor also noted the “hypocrisy” of the rejuvenated SNL becoming a  mouthpiece of opposition to Trump’s presidency. “It certainly feels like there’s some hypocrisy there. I guess you could say, ‘Oh, they’re righting wrongs.’ And I don’t even think it’s righting wrongs. I think the show tries to — and in particular, Lorne’s outlook is — play to both sides. Play to the masses, play to whatever the popular opinion is. But, boy, they could definitely mine some comedy out of owning up to it, huh?”

It normalizes him and it makes it OK for him to be part of the conversation. In 2016, Lorne Michaels calculated that there would be millions of suckers among the viewers of Saturday Night Live and the tens of millions of people who would glimpse Trump's act on social media or on newscasts.  With Elon Musk's appearance, he figured the same would ensue.

Among the suckers, there were plenty of viewers and non-viewers who were repulsed by the selection of last Saturday's hosts. Still, it takes a special kind of guy to elevate candidate Donald Trump and business mogul Elon Musk, and it's not likely he's going to own up to it.

 

 

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