It is stunning to contemplate. The president of the United States proudly announces that he is ingesting poison on a daily basis. His pet “cure” for the Covid-19 virus is this “hydroxychloroquine” pill that he’s touted for months as his personal solution to the global pandemic that has already cost more than 90,000 American lives.

We are witnessing something most extraordinary. In the midst of this horrible pandemic, even as science learns that it is contagious through the air, always considered the worst-case scenario, and the cause of multiple syndromes even in young children, our “leader” refuses to don a preventative mask anywhere, and on top of that, sets the example of preferring a snake oil that scientists have cautioned not only doesn’t stop the virus, but has effects that can cause great health difficulties for millions.

We are witnessing a true devil’s mass. The president is acting as a priest of death, anointing the elements that are not bread and wine sanctified, but a crude poison that he’s ingesting on behalf of us all, and we are to bow before him.

True, thousands will follow his example literally, just as they did when he prescribed the ingestion of Clorox (or was it Lysol?) just a couple weeks ago. Many among them will get sick, and surely not cured.

But the real point is that, on the other hand, the morgues will continue to overflow in America with the dead from this virus.

As the president, a small drool of his hydroxy cocktail dripping from the corner of his mouth, raises his arms to present a satanic blessing for his peoples, bathed in his self-induced glory, his nation of fools scurry to the beaches, the bars, the concert venues to spit, cough, sneeze and belch on each other, grow the power of their hidden god, the god of pain, suffering, death and sorrow.

It is a scene right out of the worst days of the Bubonic plagues that swept Europe at the end of the Dark Ages. Superstition reigned among the frightened masses who had no way to know the source of the scourge. Many felt that somehow they had themselves to blame, and went around in troupes of self-flagellating penitents seeking mercy for the transgressions they were sure had to be responsible for the horrific plagues of that era.

The first few sparks of a different spirit, that of a Renaissance of the methods and power of reason and science, were just beginning to emerge to compete with the abject self-loathing of superstitious masses. The invention of the printing press using moveable type, ripping the tools of psychological tyranny out of the hands of the few and replacing them with exploding discourses of reason, unlocked the power of the human mind among the general populace, turning mewling, frightened people into informed citizens of new republics.

Amid fits and starts, the development of the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras prevailed, giants of DaVinci, Eramus, Descartes, Spinoza, Copernicus and Galileo found answers to things like how and why plagues happen, even as they had to contest against overwhelming forces of reaction who sought to brutally enforce ignorance and fearful superstitions to cling to the vestiges of their power.

America, my dear readers, occurred as a high point in this new Renaissance and Enlightenment spirit, and if anyone wants to be a “patriot” in this day and age they need to embrace that spirit which has led to a veritable explosion of the benefits of science and invention the last 250 years.
By sharp contrast, Donald Trump, the high priest of death and misery who got to where he is by the machinations of foreign powers seeking to tear down America, is ingesting his poison in honor of everything that has been deployed to stop America’s greatness and calls us to bow before his incantations of evil.

As in every era past, we the people in this age are called on to choose. Do you choose death or life? Do you choose the false promise, fueled by your stupid anger and rage, of a good life defined by repudiating others not like you? Or do you choose life?

Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com.