Aaron Rodgers- Better to be thought a dumbass than to open your mouth and remove all doubt
Are we seriously still going to argue about COVID-19 vaccines??
There's a thin line between genius and bottom-barrel stupidness. I hover delicately on a tightrope between the two, wondering where I'll land if I'll ever fall.
Suzanne Crowley, The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous
Ambition is disfigured into arrogance when it becomes unmoored from self-awareness, from a realistic assessment of one's competences.
Maria Popova, Figuring
Aaron Rodgers has a rather distressing habit of believing he’s far more intellectually agile than he is. He’s a gifted NFL quarterback, and he’s destined for the Pro Football Hall of Fame once he retires. But, while he may still be one of the NFL’s best, even closing in on age 40 (and even sidelined for the year with a torn Achilles tendon), he’s not an infectious disease specialist.
While he’s never admitted to not being vaccinated, his anti-vaccine status is well-known, and he’s never denied his opposition to the COVID-19 vaccines. Why? Well, like most opponents, he’s never- at least to my knowledge- made the reason for his opposition clear. So whether there’s a legitimate reason or he doesn’t like mandates, he’s not about to get vaccinated.
And he’s pretty proud of himself. He’s been fortunate not to get COVID yet (at least so far as anyone knows), so perhaps he feels bulletproof. Or maybe he feels it’s no worse than the common cold, another self-delusion common among anti-vaxxers.
Now he wants to show off his boundless ignorance in a debate with Kansas City Chiefs TE Travis Kelce (who, along with his girlfriend, Taylor Swift) has done commercials for Pfizer.
Injured New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers on Tuesday challenged Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce to a vaccine debate, proposing that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Anthony Fauci act as seconds….
“That’d be big ratings,” said Rodgers, a vaccine skeptic who grabbed headlines a few years ago for spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 jab and intentionally misleading the public about his immunization status.
Big ratings? For what? Two football players debating what’s already been well-established? That the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective? I just had my sixth vaccine, and as far as I can tell, I haven’t grown a third testicle or suffered any other side effects.
And he’s using RFK, Jr. as a second? As an anti-vaxxer, the man’s not exactly a fount of factual, science-based information. Like most who oppose COVID-19 vaccines, RFK, Jr. has no scientific background. He’s not an epidemiologist, has no background in vaccine research, and has no scientific training.
But he’s big on conspiracy theories, don’tchaknow?
But Dr. Anthony Fauci’s a man who’s forgotten more about virology and epidemiology than RFK, Jr. and Aaron Rodger have ever known.
So, yeah, that sounds like a fair fight, eh?
For the record, both the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization have confirmed that the available vaccines are safe and effective. Aaron Rodgers may contend otherwise all he chooses, but he has neither the truth nor scientific reality on his side.
And, seriously, it’s time he stopped trying to spread misinformation about the vaccines. Not only does it make him sound stupidly misinformed, but it also makes him sound just plain stupid.
While the participation of RFK Jr., a prominent anti-vaccine activist who’s now running for president as an independent, and Fauci, the former White House pandemic adviser, would seem far-fetched, a smiling Rodgers looked somewhat serious about holding the event.
After Rodgers debuted the “Mr. Pfizer” moniker recently, Kelce fired back.
“Who knew I’d get into vax wars with Aaron Rodgers, man? Mr. Pfizer versus the Johnson & Johnson family over there,” the tight end said in a reference to Jets owner Woody Johnson, whose family’s Johnson & Johnson company has also manufactured a COVID-19 vaccine.
This isn’t a “vax war.” It’s not even a skirmish. Kelce would head into “battle” armed with truth, facts, and the vast experience of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the world’s foremost infectious disease specialist.
Rodgers would engage with the equivalent of a cap gun and RFK, Jr., who’s not even a scientist, and…well, who knows where he gets his anti-vax information? Google? Yahoo? YouTube? The Illumunati? Or perhaps the Trilateral Commission?
Rodgers is free to believe what he will about vaccines, but that doesn’t make it accurate and based on verifiable scientific facts. After all, more than a century’s worth of research demonstrates that vaccines are safe and effective. While the research behind the COVID-19 vaccines may have occurred over a much shorter time frame, they have also been shown to be safe and effective.
Not only that, but vaccines are certainly one helluva lot more effective than Ivermectin or whatever else the YouTube docs may be prescribing to Rodgers. No research- none, zip, zero, nada- shows that alternative treatments like Ivermectin are safer or more effective against COVID-19.
Then again, when you think you know more than scientists because you did a few Google searches, you deserve whatever comes your way.
As for Rodgers, he sounds lazy. All he’s doing is parroting Right-wing talking points and feeding those who sound as if they’re hammering Travis Kelce because they’re jealous that he’s dating Taylor Swift and they’re not.
Although Rodgers’ nickname for Kelce drew giggles from the show’s co-hosts, Pat McAfee and A.J. Hawk, “Mr. Pfizer” is a pretty lazy moniker that shows Rodgers is mimicking talking points from right-wing pundits.
Late last month, Media Matters found dozens of conservative pundits had already attacked Kelce for his appearance in the Pfzier ad to advance their anti-vax agendas. The uptick in right-wing hate aimed at Kelce also seems to be spurred by his recent romantic link to Swift.
Some NFL fans have already expressed overt irritation with the amount of attention Swift gets for merely attending Chiefs games. The singer-songwriter’s left-leaning politics don’t exactly help the situation and have encouraged some on the right to resort to grade-school insults, flat-out criticizing her appearance and labeling Kelce as a less-dominant “beta” male for dating her.
“Beta male?” That’s the cheapest- and silliest- insult I’ve heard in quite some time. When incels and men who couldn’t make it three days doing what Kelce does for a living try to insult him, “beta male” is the best they can do? That’s pretty pathetic.
Besides, I can’t help but wonder how many of the self-superior incels would kick Taylor Swift out of bed? Jealousy can be such an ugly and unproductive emotion, don’tchathink??
Kelce plays a sport that would put most of his critics in traction, so for anyone to criticize his masculinity is pretty comical. But Kelce ignored most of the criticism and was OK with what Aaron Rodgers laid on him.
Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce took a jab at Aaron Rodgers after the New York Jets quarterback called him “Mr. Pfizer,” a nod to Kelce’s recent appearance in an ad for the COVID-19 vaccine maker.
“I thought it was pretty good. With the ‘stache right now, I look like a guy named Mr. Pfizer,” Kelce said Friday, before dropping a witty reference to the Jets’ owner.
Kelce’s remarks come after the injured quarterback, whose Jets lost to the Chiefs last weekend, debuted the Mr. Pfizer nickname on “The Pat McAfee Show.” Kelce and his mother had appeared in a Pfizer commercial that promotes getting immunized against both COVID-19 and the flu.
Yeah, Mr. Two-Things-At-Once seems to be doing just fine, thank you very much. And why shouldn’t he be? He’s one of the best tight ends in the NFL, the owner of two Super Bowl championship rings, AND he’s dating Taylor Swift.
Why would (or should) he give a damn about what anyone else thinks of him these days?
I’d wager that it doesn’t suck to be Travis Kelce these days.
(All of my posts are now public. Any reader financial support will be considered pledges- support that’s greatly appreciated but not required to get to all of my work. I’ll leave it to my readers to determine if my work is worthy of their monetary support and at what level. To those who do offer their support, thank you. It means more than you know.)
The difference between genius and stupidity is, genius has limits.