Your Brain: Use It or Lose It

Something might be wrong with a lot of Democrats. Not being a doctor I can't say for sure what it is, but it's some sort of syndrome that affects all of them eventually. Yesterday I interacted with one of them and saw it firsthand.

A good friend (who shall remain nameless so as to protect her from scorn) stopped by for a chat. Since I had just heard that some young women were experiencing a new set of formerly unreported negative reactions to the Covid vaccine, and her daughters are in that age group, I mentioned it and asked if her girls had gotten their shots yet. Rather than thank me for passing along some potentially vital information, she asked, "Where did you hear that? FOX News?"

I responded that I had heard it several places, on the radio, on TV and in print, and could not remember which stations, but why would it matter? She said that it was obviously "a Republican thing, I haven't heard it, and Republicans are anti-vaxxers."

But I am, if pressed, a Republican although I am registered as an Independent, and my husband is also a Republican, and so are my cousins Valerie and Glen and their two grown sons and our friend Doug and several work colleagues of my husband, and they have all gotten the vaccine so what could she mean? She said that Tucker Carlson is anti-vaccine and she knows that I watch Tucker.

See, the thing is I can watch Tucker but that has no bearing on what I think, whereas Democrats get their talking points and base their beliefs on the scripts read by Anderson Cooper, Chris Hayes, Fredo Cuomo and Rachel Maddow. And this is where the problem comes in: brain freeze. As they say about any body part, use it or lose it.