When I have constituents respond to my emails about vaccine distribution with angry notes about the virus being a joke and not worthy of their concern, I just think about the people who have worked so hard to mislead them.

And how many of them are in Congress.

Pretending a global pandemic isn't worthy of concern isn't a notion you arrive at on your own.

It takes a concerted effort by people who *fully understand* that they are being deceptive.

And lots of these folks are elected officials who should exist to *do the opposite thing.*

And if your elected official is planning on spending tomorrow objecting to the clear outcome of an election, then I'm talking about that guy, too.

Because this is a reality-detachment thing now.

I just don't understand the ethical willingness to knowingly mislead people.

Incidentally, I reply to every one of those emails.

And here's what I write:

"I'm sorry, but you have been deeply misled. Please do some of your own reading on this. Just use Google and take a few minutes. Pick a number of sources. This is all very real."

And, if that happens to be you and you're still reading:

We love you, we want you to be healthy, we want the people around you to be healthy, we want all of this to end as quickly as humanly possible, and please start doing your own reading from...

non-political sources that have actual editors and standards where people would get fired for being wrong, not blogs or memes.

This is all very real and we're counting on your help to end it.