Sometimes The Line Between "Class" And "Ass" Can Be A Matter Of Life And Death
The grifting goes on forever, and karma can be a real bitch
Since the dawn of the Trump Administration, many reprobates have happily participated in spreading propaganda and misinformation, particularly about the COVID-19 pandemic and the vaccines intended to protect us from it. However, few did that with more enthusiasm and joy than the duo of Diamond and Silk, two Black women from North Carolina who, for whatever reason(s), decided to carry water for Donald Trump.
There were growing rumors that Diamond had been hospitalized just after Thanksgiving due to COVID-19, though those close to her were understandably silent. Having refused to be vaccinated, it wouldn’t be a good look to admit that she’d contracted the virus and was struggling. Then came the sad news on Monday:
Diamond of the pro-Trump entertainers Diamond and Silk has died, the former president as well as the duo's verified Twitter account announced Monday night. She was 51.
Both women, sisters whose names are Lynette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, respectively, were born in 1971, with Diamond making her debut on Thanksgiving Day, according to their 2020 book, "Uprising."
Calling her death "really bad news for Republicans," former President Donald Trump said on his Truth Social platform, "Our beautiful Diamond of Diamond and Silk has just passed away at her home in the state she loved so much, North Carolina."
Of course, one can understand that the family’s desire for privacy might be legitimate. Then again, one also might wonder what they’re hiding. Diamond and Silk, having both been virulently anti-vaccine, might have just been visited by karma. That would be tough to admit.
Yeah, imagine having to acknowledge that the virus you’d spend the better part of three years downplaying came back to bite one of you in the ass. That would certainly be humbling, wouldn’t it?
Both of them built a career on lies- about Donald Trump, COVID-19, the vaccines, and anything else that fit their agenda. Diamond and Silk were as dishonest as the day is long, which is probably why Mango Mussolini loved them. He saw kindred spirits in them. They loved that he paid attention to them, and they were willing to haul coals to Newcastle for him.
The “unexpected” death of Hardaway, one of Trump’s most ardent supporters, was labeled “really bad news for Republicans” by the former president.
“Really bad news for Republicans and frankly, all Americans,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Our beautiful Diamond, of Diamond and Silk, has just passed away at her home in the State she loves so much, North Carolina.”
Referring to Hardaway as “Magnificent Diamond,” the ex-POTUS said her sister Silk Herneitha Rochelle Hardaway was “with her all the way, and at her passing.”
“There was no better team anywhere or at any time,” Trump added.
Because no information has been released about her death, the speculation that it was related to COVID-19 has been prevalent online. There’s currently no way to confirm that to be true. But, given Diamond and Silk’s commitment to lies and disinformation regarding both COVID-19 and the vaccines, it’s also not an unreasonable conclusion to draw.
And it’s beginning to seem as if karma is beginning to catch up with Conservatives who are unvaccinated. There’s no longer any doubt that GOP leaders are complicit in the deaths of thousands of their party’s supporters.
Culpability? Nah, these are Republicans we’re talking about. Not only will they never admit they’re wrong and apologize, but they’ll also never be held civilly or criminally liable.
And they know it.
First Amendment, don’tchaknow? They were giving people information, and the sheeple made up their own minds.
Right; they led the lemmings to the edge of the cliff…and those poor, uneducated fools “did their own research” and jumped of their own volition. Stay classy, eh?
Is this what caught up with Diamond? Did she fall into line with the GOP’s groupthink regarding COVID-19 and vaccines? Or was she a victim of her own hubris and arrogance in thinking that she didn’t need science and doctors to beat the virus?
It’s just a bad cold…right?
Perhaps, like too many Conservatives, she didn’t believe in science. The thing about science, though, is that it doesn’t give a damn what anyone believes. It does what it does based on empirical, provable, and measurable data.
And that data says that COVID-19 is dangerous up to and including the point of being deadly, but that the available vaccines are safe and effective. They’re certainly a helluva lot safer than taking on the virus without the protection the vaccines provide.
And yet, too many Conservatives continue to believe they can do precisely that.
No country has a perfect COVID-vaccination rate, even this far into the pandemic, but America’s record is particularly dismal. About a third of Americans—more than a hundred million people—have yet to get their initial shots. You can find anti-vaxxers in every corner of the country. But by far the single group of adults most likely to be unvaccinated is Republicans: 37 percent of Republicans are still unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated, compared with 9 percent of Democrats. Fourteen of the 15 states with the lowest vaccination rates voted for Donald Trump in 2020. (The other is Georgia.)
We know that unvaccinated Americans are more likely to be Republican, that Republicans in positions of power led the movement against COVID vaccination, and that hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated Americans have died preventable deaths from the disease. The Republican Party is unquestionably complicit in the premature deaths of many of its own supporters, a phenomenon that may be without precedent in the history of both American democracy and virology.
But not even the deaths of people they know and love have been enough to shake Conservatives from their torpor. They’re going to continue to believe that COVID-19 vaccines are Joe Biden’s evil mind control devices, with microchips that will allow the government to track and control them.
WTF? Are some Americans really that dense?
You don’t want to know the answer to that question.
As if these mental and moral nonentities are worth tracking and controlling, right? Most of them aren’t worth the effort it would take to put them on a list, much less what it would take to monitor, track, and control them.
Most of those folks devote the bulk of their mental energy to putting one foot in front of the other. What sort of arrogance leads them to believe the government would devote resources to tracking or controlling them?
Sorry, y’all, but most of the idjits spreading disinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines are worthy of attention only because the falsehoods they’re spreading can be so deadly to so many. There’s no way of knowing how many died because they were taken in by Right-wing lies and propaganda. That said, guessing that the number is in the hundreds of thousands doesn’t seem outrageous.
And then there’s the time-honored tradition of Conservative grifting. This story wouldn’t be complete without an episode of “My Friend Died, Please Send Me Money.” Preferably lots of money
Ah, don’tcha LOVE America, where even the death of a friend can be monetized?
I’m not going to dance on anyone’s grave, but neither am I going to pretend to weep for someone who trafficked in lies, disinformation, and Right-wing propaganda. Diamond and Silk built their fame and notoriety on reverence for Donald Trump's monomaniacal egotism and his 30,000+ lies during his Reign of Error. Diamond was neither a “True Angel” nor a “Warrior Patriot for Freedom, Love, and Humanity.” She was a grifter and a propaganda peddler.
There will be no tears from this corner, and not just because Diamond’s lies and propaganda may have contributed to the deaths of thousands of Americans.
Her sister-in-grifting using her death to raise money only confirms that both of them existed primarily to separate rubes from their hard-earned cash (it beats working). That Silk is now trying to milk Diamond’s death for donations is the perfect illustration of how hypocritical and sophomoric they were together.
“My friend died. Send me money.” Sorry, but I’d rather sit at my backyard fire pit and throw $20 bills into a roaring fire as I empty a bottle of Old Grand Dad.
A friend and colleague of mine from grad school, rather than becoming a doctor of philosophy went on to become a doctor of medicine. By late 2021 he was vocally considering throwing in the towel as far as practicing medicine went, and just moving into administration or something. He'd signed some 60 death certificates in two years, and had patients who, with their last breath before being intubated, cursed him for lying about what was happening to them.
So, yeah, Diamond? Harry Morgan's line to John Wayne in "The Shootist" comes to mind: "Book, the day they put you under, what I'll do on your grave won't pass for dancing."