It has not even been 12 hours since former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain was pronounced dead from COVID-19, and the usual partisans are already using his death as an opportunity to score political points.
“Herman Cain thought Covid was a hoax, scoffed at wearing a mask. Died of Covid,” said CNN’s characteristically grotesque Ana Navarro-Cardenas. “Bill Montgomery, co-founder of pro-Trump, Turning Point USA, scoffed at virus. Died of Covid. Rep. Gohmert refused to wear a mask. Has Covid.”
“See a pattern?” she asked. “Covid doesn’t care about partisanship.”
Cain died from complications brought on by the coronavirus, the late businessman’s official website announced Thursday morning.
“We knew when he was first hospitalized with COVID-19 that this was going to be a rough fight,” said hermancain.com editor Dan Calabrese. “He had trouble breathing and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. We all prayed that the initial meds they gave him would get his breathing back to normal, but it became clear pretty quickly that he was in for a battle.”
Calabrese adds, “We didn’t release detailed updates on his condition to the public or to the media because neither his family nor we thought there was any reason for that.”
Unfortunately for Cain’s friends and family, left-wing activists and other grave-dancers are already using his death as an occasion to attack both President Trump and those who question social distancing guidelines (anti-police rioters and protesters excluded, of course). And all this because the late businessman tested positive a little over a week after he declined to wear a mask at a June 20 GOP rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Never mind that it has not been confirmed that Cain indeed caught the disease at the rally. Don’t get hung up on the details, say Cain and Trump’s gleeful detractors.
“Herman Cain has died,” said MSNBC’s Joy Reid, “weeks after attending Donald Trump’s Tulsa rally, not wearing a mask. Condolences to his family.”
Her MSNBC colleague Mika Brezinski added, “Just the facts — Herman Cain went to the [Trump] TULSA SUPERSPREADER rally —no mask. The campaign squashed people close so the crowd would look bigger. They cheered for their President for hours. Cain tested positive for COVID nine days later. Now Herman Cain is dead.”
American Independent Executive Editor Kaili Joy Gray declared, “Donald Trump killed Herman Cain,” making sure to add the hashtag, “MAGA.”
“Trump killed him,” said Brookings Governance senior fellow Norm Eisen. “He has also killed tens of thousands of other Americans. He did it intentionally. It is a high crime. And his GOP enablers are [sic] acessories.”
Failed 2016 presidential candidate Evan McMullin added elsewhere, “Herman Cain was hospitalized for coronavirus two weeks after he attended Trump’s Tulsa rally without a face mask. He’s the first senior casualty of the science denial Trump cult. The question is whether even that can wake others up about the dangers of Trump and the virus.”
They know Cain’s body is not even cold yet, right? If I did not know better, I would say they are genuinely ecstatic that a political opponent has died.
Politico contributor Renato Mariotti tweeted:
Herman Cain died today after a long fight with coronavirus.
Below is a photo of Cain in a crowd of people without a mask at Trump’s Oklahoma rally last month. pic.twitter.com/5mDe9mznID
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) July 30, 2020
Vox’s Aaron Rupar likewise tweeted:
Herman Cain’s last public appearance was appearing at Trump’s Tulsa rally without a mask. He posted an anti-mask tweet the day before that has since been deleted. https://t.co/8Z6MisLzAs
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 30, 2020
“Dear [Trump],” said author Don Winslow. “If this man had not attended your Tulsa rally, he would be alive today. Think about that real hard. And then realize Herman Cain is only one of the 150,000 dead because of your failure to have protected this nation from.”
Maybe I am a cynic, but I am not entirely convinced that Winslow is really broken up about Cain’s death, considering Winslow is the same person who said Monday after the late businessman’s conditioned worsened, “This was the IDIOT who went to Trump’s Tulsa rally without a mask and smiled for photos. He’s not smiling now. But remember, it’s just a HOAX, right???”
Said author Sady Doyle, “The first thing this brings to mind is that Herman Cain cannot possibly be the only fatality, and that there must be several other, less famous people that Trump killed.”
It goes on.
Never mind that it is unconfirmed whether Cain actually contracted the virus in the state of Oklahoma, let alone in Tulsa. And never mind that Cain could have caught the disease anywhere, really, including from any of the unmasked counterdemonstrators who showed in person to protest the Tulsa rally.
Then again, when one is the type of person to hoist himself on top of a corpse in service of a political point, details and facts are likely of little or no concern.
