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MAGA Welfare Queens [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-01-08

People can participate in Making America Great Again by being free, proud, and independent of government. While these may be worthy goals, as we shall see below, they are difficult to live up to.

Examples of these free people are the unencumbered folks who refused to wear masks during COVID-19. They remained free to receive and spread the COVID virus. Some might think we owe a debt of gratitude to these proud people who stood up for independent thinking and refused to listen to medical authorities.

Some of these folks insisted that masks did not work - that they did not prevent the spread of an airborne virus like COVID. But they could not explain why every competent surgeon in the world wears masks in the operating room to prevent the spread of viruses and bacteria.

Would they want to get cancer or appendix or heart surgery with doctors and operating room nurses coughing into their open wounds during surgery? Probably not. But getting on an airliner with hundreds of people breathing each other’s air for hours would not convince them to wear a mask when they were standing up for the principle of freedom.

But let’s discuss how independent some of these modern-day dissidents really were.

As an example, I have a close relative who insisted COVID-19 vaccines were bad based on his listening to some questionable news sources and Blogs. His many siblings took the COVID vaccination and did not get COVID. But he refused.

So, when he contacted COVID-19, he spent more than 10 days in the hospital ICU and was lucky to avoid being intubated – a procedure which for some was an eventual death sentence. On the surface, he remained free and independent and lived according to his beliefs and values.

Some 2022 CDC data said that unvaccinated adults were about 97 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people. So, the above situation is far from uncommon for the unvaccinated.

But looking deeper, we note that his state averages a cost of $2800 a day for treatment in an ICU. So, the minimal cost of his stay was about $28,000 and the total cost was probably considerably more.

Who paid the bill for his independence? The US government injected many billions of dollars into the hospital system to treat COVID patients. He was over 65 and was therefore on Medicare and would likely have received his COVID treatment for free in any case.

Now he was well off and could have shown how truly independent he was by paying for his hospital stay. Since he chose not to get the COVID shot, according to the data above, he was mostly responsible for the financial consequences.

Did he consider paying? Did any of these proud people who got COVID after refusing to wear masks and refusing to get the COVID shot consider paying?

The answer: Maybe one in one hundred or one in a thousand but I think we can agree that the number is close to zero. Where did all that pride and independence go?

The idea of the Welfare Queen was popularized during the Reagan era. She was some imagined inner-city women with kids, no husband, who got public support (welfare) but had other unclaimed sources of income. She lived a lavish lifestyle and drove a Cadillac.

The Welfare Queen is one of the most disliked people by conservatives because of her dependence on government and because she did not take responsibility for her actions by having children she could not support.

So, who paid the bill when conservative citizens made their irresponsible choices to remain free and proud - to remain unvaccinated? Answer: The US government.

Welfare Queens seem to come in many sizes and shapes and exist in unexpected political parties. Ironically for many of the people who wanted to Make America Great Again, their independence seemed to generate a great deal of financial dependency on government and their freedom turned out to be a very expensive personal choice also for the government. Who would have guessed?

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/8/2295786/-MAGA-Welfare-Queens?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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