Let's Clear Up This 'Herman Was A COVID Denier' Nonsense
By Dan Calabrese
Published July 31, 2020 at 2:47am

www.nairaland.com/attachments/12034764_capturehermancaindies1_jpegeebf8c575cf7522d83ee3cf8179023de

Yesterday of course was a tough day, although it was made better by all the love and well wishes we received from so many people – and that includes a lot of people on the political left. Even most of the media were nice!

Believe me, it made a difference.

But this is America 2020, and Herman was steeped in political activism, so of course that wasn’t going to be universal. I don’t even know what to do with some of the people who simply crowed about his passing because he was on the opposite side from them, or because he supported President Trump.

To use the word Rob invokes so often, these people are ghouls. I pray for their deliverance. The world certainly needs more Herman Cains (then again, he was one of a kind) and less of them.

But I do know how to address those who think Herman’s death was some sort of “karma” (that doesn’t exist, by the way) because he was, as some of them put it, a “COVID denier.”

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There were a lot of people online yesterday claiming that Herman had this coming because he claimed COVID was a hoax, and he dismissed the importance of mask-wearing and social distancing. None of that is true.

First of all, Herman certainly never said COVID was a hoax. (And for the record, neither did the president. What he said is that Democrats and the media would perpetrate a hoax by lying about the administration’s response to the virus. He never said the virus itself was a hoax.)

To get a sense of Herman’s stance on COVID, all you have to do is watch the first few seconds of any of his recent shows. I’ve embedded one at the top of this page to make it easy for you. Even as early as June 11 when the show above aired, Herman was kicking off every broadcast by asking people to wash/sanitize their hands, social-distance (when did that become a complex verb?) and yes, wear masks.

And he wore a mask. The night our CFO drove him to the hospital, they were both masked up. Did he wear it everywhere and in every situation? I don’t know the answer to that, as I didn’t see him day-to-day with him being in Atlanta and me being in Detroit. But he was not one of these people who was running around telling everyone masks aren’t necessary, or claiming they don’t work, or complaining about his “rights” being violated over having to wear one.

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He wore a mask and he told others to wear a mask. On every broadcast. Right at the start.

Now, a lot of people have mentioned that he was photographed at the Tulsa Trump rally without a mask on. That’s true. And from that, a lot of people have claimed it’s an established fact that this is where he contracted the virus. As we’ve discussed before, we don’t know where he contracted, but we do know that he traveled extensively in the week he was diagnosed. He was on planes going between several cities.

It’s not impossible he contracted it at the Tulsa rally. But most of us on his team tend to think it happened on one of the plane trips, or possibly during his stop in Las Vegas. That’s for several reasons, one of which is simply the inherent (and to me at least, obvious) risk involved with being on an airplane these days. Another is the fact that, for all the attention on Herman contracting the virus, we haven’t heard of a major outbreak of Tulsa rally participants who came down with it.

This tweet – of Herman sitting with other members of Black Voices for Trump – has been passed around a lot since Herman was diagnosed, and especially yesterday after the news of his passing:

www.nairaland.com/attachments/12034737_capturehermancaintulsarally_jpegdd203966da58045c1a71efacb9995c04

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It supposedly is evidence that his condition was “preventable,” and to some people – astonishingly – that he deserved to die.

Have any of the other people pictured in this photo come down with the virus? If so, I’m not aware of it. Herman’s diagnosis attracted a fair amount of attention because he was pretty high-profile. But it’s not very likely you got the virus as a result of attending a rally, if you were the only one there who had it or got it.

But even if he did get the virus in Tulsa – and I’m not saying it’s impossible, just not as certain as a lot of other people seem to think it is – that doesn’t mean he was a COVID denier or that he claimed it was a hoax.

We ran a lot of pieces on this site – almost all of them written by Rob and me – questioning the media’s narrative on the virus. That included pieces in which we questioned their predictions of a “second wave” when the numbers were clearly not showing one had started. The numbers in a few states are worse now, but even when we wrote those pieces (and remember, Rob and I wrote them; Herman didn’t), we weren’t questioning the reality or the seriousness of the virus. We were questioning the public response to it and the media coverage that drove much of it.

It seems remarkable, and not in a good way, that I should have to go through all this today in response to such cruelty concerning Herman’s passing. No one deserves to die because of an idea they expressed, or an opinion they held. No one’s death should be mocked or snickered at because they disagreed with the mocker about something.

We’ve always had a rule on this site – and on our social media – that when we report news about a person on the left being sick or dying, we will not allow comments of any kind apart from well-wishes. We go through these comments and if we find any, we ban people. (Don’t go combing through them looking for evidence that we didn’t. I’m sure we missed a few.) This is because – again to use Rob’s term – we refuse to be ghouls. Once your politics has driven you to that, you need to step back from it.

We don’t root for people to die because there’s some political advantage to be gained from it, and we don’t applaud when they do. Death hurts people. It devastates families and breaks children’s hearts. Nothing you want out of politics is worth that.

It’s distressing to see some of the things people said about Herman yesterday, but we knew it was coming. We also know that those who said and did these things are a small minority, even among liberals, and for that we’re grateful.

But we’re glad to clear up the “COVID denier” nonsense. Our boss was no such thing. He wanted you to mask up and do all the other things to protect yourselves. And he would still want you to do that today.

So please do. We don’t want your family and friends to go through what we’re going through now.

Clear Herman COVID-19 Denier Nonsense >>>

I'm tagging all ghouls and liberals who took joy in the demise of their political opponent. Kopfschmerzenmd; Ladyhippolyta88; feedthenation; SonofLincoln; salford1; budaatum

Listen to yourself seeing in March what you are denying in July! Or do tell deg, do you too plan to delete all the history in your threads? You this magaliar!

Back in March you were here yelling corona is a lie to close your church, we was libtards who had tds, "it was fakenews" "it was fakenews", and messiah magatrump would save your ass with his no-mask and his HCL, and now you want to be twisting the truth like you never said?

Keep lying like Trump. Truth cannot be hidden.

budaatum:
Listen to yourself seeing in March what you are denying in July! Or do tell deg, do you too plan to delete all the history in your threads? You this magaliar!

[url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ coronavirus-deniers-outbreak-hoax/2020/03/19/46bc5e46-6872-11ea-b313-df458622c2cc_story.html?outputType=amp]Back in March you were here yelling corona is a lie[/url] to close your church, we was libtards who had tds, "it was fakenews" "it was fakenews", and messiah magatrump would save your ass with his no-mask and his HCL, and now you want to be twisting the truth like you never said?

If you cannot show me where I made those claims then you have just proved that you are the confirmed child of your father.

OLAADEGBU:


If you cannot show me where I made those claims then you have just proved that you are the confirmed child of your father.

Going through your posts would deaden my mind and you'd only shout "misquote" when I'm done. Even you can see through your forest if you but open your eyes and look.

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budaatum:

Going through your posts would deaden my mind and you'd only shout "misquote" when I'm done. Even you can see through your forest if you but open your eyes and look.

www.nairaland.com/attachments/8238675_8212680fbimg1543152155040jpegfed6d8384d583ec074aed84f802466ad_jpeg09a085f551b69a172338dbae1b9489f3

I told you that Charlatan needs psychiatric evaluation. No rational being spout out garbage as much as that Charlatan does. I hope his family commits him to a psychiatric home because the guy is about a mile before entering the public square.

budaatum:

Going through your posts would deaden my mind and you'd only shout "misquote" when I'm done. Even you can see through your forest if you but open your eyes and look.

[img]https://www.nairaland.com/attachments/8238675_8212680fbimg 1543152155040jpegfed6d8384d583ec074aed84f802466ad_jpeg09a085f551b69a172338dbae1b9489f3[/img]

You've been unmasked.