Do you remember the Tylenol scare?
Not the truly scary one — in 1982 — when seven died from cyanide-tampered capsules.
No, not that one. Do you remember the scare our president tried to trigger about Tylenol back in September?
If you don’t, it means you didn’t toss the Tylenol when, though he couldn’t pronounce “acetaminophen,” he sought to stir up unwarranted fear alongside a health secretary with all the medical expertise of a street-corner sign-twirler.
“Taking Tylenol is not good. I’ll say it: It’s not good,” said he whose presidency stands as America’s No. 1 cause of head and neck pain.
Per the claimed linkage between Tylenol in pregnancy and autism, health organizations including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Psychiatric Association rushed to say, “Please disregard.”
And Americans did.
As might be expected, use of the drug dropped for a short time after the White House stunt. Since then, however, it’s been remarkably steady. Like vaccinations, Tylenol is back to doing what it’s done for generations.
And our president continues to do what he does best: mis- and disinform with every utterance
This brings us to the pertinent question about his most recent PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE NATION:
To ignore him or what?
Early ratings tell us it may have been the least-viewed presidential message since the birth of the cathode ray tube.
ABC and NBC were threatened by The Man with sanctions for not broadcasting it. If YOU did something other than watch attentively, you may be on Homeland Security’s short list for indeterminate lodging at Hotel El Salvador.
Other than such threats, the problem with ignoring the speech, though chalk-full of specious, hysterical claims that would be ignored out of hand from a wino in need of a bed — is that it was the chief executive talking.
Those who watch this man’s every move, and who remember what he did the last time he lost, warn that he could use July’s lies to subvert November’s vote.
This is the president who would have seized voting machines after the 2020 election if not for a threatened walk-out by top deputies in the Justice Department.
That was then. Know that today his deputies in Justice, at the FBI, in Homeland Security — would not blink at such orders.
The president prattled on-air about unsubstantiated voting fraud and presumed threats to vote security from abroad, though no evidence whatsoever backs up his claims.
As the only president ever indicted for voter fraud (“I just want to find, uh, 11,800 votes”) he has demonstrated time and again that his primary interest isn’t a secure vote but one that benefits him.
The Washington Post headline said it all: this administration has “systematically dismantled election security efforts.”
This president has carried out disabling cuts to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, which has advised states on best practices toward secure elections. Wait. Didn’t he expend prime-time blather time warning us about overseas election threats?
This president just emptied out the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission with the obvious aim of appointing lackeys who will look the other way when MAGA challenges election results.
We are approaching a vote that would swing control of Congress and expose this criminal president to the accountability he’s dodged. No wonder he wants to tamp down voter participation from young people, minorities and the poor.
So, ignore what he’s saying or not?
Not.
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
