Former star of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys Kevin Sorbo is back with yet another bizarre, misinformed hot take about the pandemic.
The former actor, who has become notorious in recent years for his diehard support of former Republican President Donald Trump and his amplification of conspiracy theories, tweeted a perspective on influenza that left many people scratching their heads.
In his tweet, Sorbo combined several of many Republicans' favorite things: claiming COVID-19 is just the flu, lamenting the loss of simpler times that never existed in the first place, and of course calling everything he doesn't like Communism.
See the deeply strange results below.
Remember when we treated the flu with tea, soup, and saltines instead of communism.— Kevin Sorbo (@Kevin Sorbo) 1647632791
Sorbo wrote:
"Remember when we treated the flu with tea, soup, and saltines instead of communism."
Based on Sorbo's past hot takes, he presumably means for the flu to stand in as a proxy for COVID-19 and to imply that pandemic mitigation measures like masking and vaccines are totalitarian abuses. You know, standard Republican fare, it's basically a right-wing Mad Lib.
But the tweet makes very little sense. That isn't how the flu is or ever has been treated, for starters. And Sorbo's blasé attitude is a striking departure from how conservatives have been talking about the flu over the past two years.
Crowing about how deadly the flu can be and citing its yearly death counts has become the standard right-wing premise on which to claim that we're all overreacting to COVID-19--or even to claim it's a media-abetted Democratic hoax. "People die of the flu too," has practically become right-wing dogma.
Sorbo himself has trafficked in this nonsense, as seen in the tweet below.
CDC reported 56 million people got the flu in America over the last 6 months. 62,000 people died.— Kevin Sorbo (@Kevin Sorbo) 1587426539
But now, apparently, the flu is just something you tweet with soup and crackers? Okay then.
So, which is it? Is the flu a deadly killer that proves we're overreacting to COVID-19? Or is the flu just something you treat with soup and crackers?
And what on Earth does any of this have to do with Communism?
If you're struggling to make an ounce of sense of this tweet, you are not alone--much of Twitter, many conservatives included, were basically like, "sir, what?"
I think the flu\u2026or communism, (interchangeable) wrote this\u2026https://twitter.com/ksorbs/status/1504907116359954442\u00a0\u2026— S.E. Cupp (@S.E. Cupp) 1647666048
Tell me you don\u2019t understand communism without telling me you don\u2019t understand communismhttps://twitter.com/ksorbs/status/1504907116359954442\u00a0\u2026— paul cicchini (@paul cicchini) 1647641916
Remember when we wiped out polio with a hot cup of Earl Grey?\nAhhh..those were the days.\n https://twitter.com/ksorbs/status/1504907116359954442?s=20&t=nbhN9kEhIHKwcRHvno83Sw\u00a0\u2026 Kevin Sorbo— \ud835\udcdc\ud835\udcfb\ud835\udcfc\ud835\udcdf\ud835\udcee\ud835\udcfb\ud835\udcfb\ud835\udcf2\ud835\udcf7-Non-GQP Conservative, vaxxed (@\ud835\udcdc\ud835\udcfb\ud835\udcfc\ud835\udcdf\ud835\udcee\ud835\udcfb\ud835\udcfb\ud835\udcf2\ud835\udcf7-Non-GQP Conservative, vaxxed) 1647644348
Unclear which option he's calling ridiculous herehttps://twitter.com/ksorbs/status/1504907116359954442\u00a0\u2026— Blake Montgomery (@Blake Montgomery) 1647640787
Remember when we treated childhood illness by dying.\nIt wasn't like the Waltons Kevin.— Dr Mark D'Arcy (@Dr Mark D'Arcy) 1647637653
They gave you saltines for flu? You should've asked for the horse paste and the Cloroxhttps://twitter.com/ksorbs/status/1504907116359954442\u00a0\u2026— Keith Olbermann (@Keith Olbermann) 1647661163
Kevin, you should ask the people on ventilators if they want some saltines.— Ben Collins (@Ben Collins) 1647640663
COVID-19 has killed 50% more Americans in 2 years than were killed in 4 years of combat during WWII. It also has killed more Americans in 2 years than the Spanish Flu did in 3 years, despite a century of advances in modern medicine. You remember nothing.— JohnRJohnson (@JohnRJohnson) 1647633908
How do you feed and wipe yourself? @ksorbshttps://twitter.com/ksorbs/status/1504907116359954442\u00a0\u2026— Titus (@Titus) 1647636819
i am sorry whathttps://twitter.com/ksorbs/status/1504907116359954442\u00a0\u2026— Ed Bott (@Ed Bott) 1647640360
Weird and misinformed tweets have become something of a specialty of Sorbo's, from bragging about abusing Starbucks employees to misunderstanding the basics of American history. So this new probably won't be his last.
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