Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
Just when it seemed as if current events and political discourse could not become any more surreal or absurd, a story broke that independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, Jr. revealed that at one point he had a parasitic worm that consumed part of his brain. He did not say how large a part. Apparently, according to NPR, this information was uncovered in a 2012 deposition by the New York Times. So, the worm is old news.
While to be sure, this is an unusual story, it is hardly a surprising one. It would not come as a shock if it were revealed the majority of politicians have had parts—major parts—consumed by parasitic worms. And it might very well be that these worms not only consume the actual gray matter, the tissue making up wondrous organ that is the seat of human consciousness but gnaw away at the political conscience as well.
It’s easy to find no-brainers in D.C. and in state capitols nationwide. According to The Annenberg Public Policy Center, a small but vocal minority, spearheaded by the gnawed mastermind RFKJ, maintained that the COVID vaccine was deadly and that vaccines in general cause many health problems in children—assertions which have been scientifically debunked and which Kennedy has since denied. Because of RFK’s strident stance on these issues, it could very well be that thousands of people refused to be vaccinated and subsequently contracted the deadly virus.
Just last week, another politician who very possibly had half of her brain gnawed by tiny creatures is South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. In a preview of her upcoming memoir, No Going Back, she details the circumstances by which she shot her fourteen-month-old wirehaired pointer puppy Cricket. Apparently, the dog was “untrainable”. Noem brought her to a hunt and recounted how the dog happily romped about, chasing the birds—which is definitely out of line for a hunting dog, but which hardly merits the death penalty. Then, after Cricket chased a neighbor’s chickens, Noem took her took a gravel pit and shot her dog—the family pet.
And if that wasn’t enough, the governor went on to recount how she took the family goat to the pit and killed it and then subsequently killed two horses there. That gravel pit is apparently South Dakota’s version of the Jersey swamps.
All this was not brainless enough for Ms. Noem. Killing these animals was and sadistic—and stupid. What was even dumber was putting these incidents in her memoir, and then—after realizing that some people don’t think killing puppies is okay—she tried to justify her actions, saying that sometimes life on a farm is tough and that, according to an interview (CBS News), “the tale was included to show her willingness to do anything ‘”difficult, messing and ugly”’ if it has to be done.” Sometimes it’s necessary to kill puppies. And goats. And horses.
Perhaps a brain scan should also be done on ex-president Donald Trump, who said his share of pretty dumb things before, after, and during his presidency. At one point, he suggested that a good antidote for Covid might be to drink bleach or to shine a light inside and infected body. I wonder what bleach might do to a parasitic brain worm.
During Hurricane Dorian in 2019, Trump mistakenly erroneously stated that the storm would impact residents of Alabama. After frantic residents of the state called the weather bureau to confirm Trump’s claim, he was corrected, but a week later, he insisted he had been right and presented a weather map that had been altered with a Sharpie, showing Dorian reaching into Alabama. Anyone with half a brain could see he was stretching the truth—as well as the storm warning. And, of course, there was the classic when he stated that he believes the noise made by windmills cause cancer.
Ex-president Trump is another classic example of a certain kind of brain damage. While he sometimes seems to lack knowledge of facts—or knowledge in general, an understanding of logic, common sense, and critical thinking abilities, he does seem to be able to implement a fair amount of emotional intelligence, the ability to understand and control your own emotions and manipulate the emotions of others. Well, maybe the first part doesn’t really apply to him, but he does seem to have mastered the uncanny ability to mesmerize others—maybe just other victims of the brain worm epidemic. Or maybe not.
And, of course, brain worms do not discriminate. Nor are they aligned with a single party. Former House member Anthony Weiner was forced to step down from his seat when it was revealed he had been sending sexually explicit photos via his phone. A couple years later, Weiner attempted to revive his career by running for mayor New York City, but it was discovered that he had continued sending more photos a full year after he had resigned. Apparently, that brain worm had gone south of the border.
Representative Lauren Boebert might be the latest victim of this brain-eating affliction. During a performance of the musical Beetlejuice, she was caught on security camera footage disrupting other audience members by singing along with the chorus, laughing, and carrying on like a thirteen-year-old at a sleepover. She was then seen vaping and then groping her date who returned the favor. This is classic symptomatology for a patient who has lost the use of part of her brain.
In fact, there seem to be so many instances of brainless—or less-brained or hare-brained—behavior at the Capitol Building that we at The Pen in Hand tend to believe that we may be in the midst of a brain worm epidemic, and that ground zero for this parasitic invasion is in Washington, D.C. The mechanism for transmitting this parasite remains something of a mystery. Whether the worm is passed through skin contact, crawls into the ear or other bodily orifices at night or is a food-borne parasite remains to be seen. Perhaps it’s a sort of cognitive (or noncognitive) type of osmosis. After all, the Republicans do all sit together in the chamber.
At any rate, if Mr. Kennedy happens to get infected again, he will probably not do well. After all, how much brain can he have left? And even if researchers develop a vaccine for the brain worm, Mr. Kennedy—the highly principled Mr. Kennedy—would never take it. Neither would many of his cohorts. And so, we are sliding into the D.C. culture—Worm Town, U.S.A.
And so, the worms crawl in, they don’t crawl out….