Turkeys of the Year and Golden Drumsticks for 2021

Photo by PPOC, Library of Congress, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Over at the old Right-Thinking blog, I would take advantage of the Thanksgiving Holiday to give out my awards for Turkeys of the Year and Golden Drumsticks. The latter are for those who exemplify the best traits in our public sphere. The former are for those who exemplify silliness and stupidity. I rarely give them out to someone who is evil; they are reserved for those who regularly make me shake my head and wonder what they’re thinking. It’s a sort of “thank you” for making snarky tweeting easier. I’ve now been doing this for over a decade and you can click through to that post above or last year’s post to see past winners.

This year has been a veritable feast of turkeys. A games of clowns. A clash of klutzes. A storm of stupid. A dance with dunces. This was a year when Republicans got a bit overworked about Critical Race Theory and Democrats decided to out-stupid them by saying parents shouldn’t have a role in their kids education. It was a year when bad management and worse planning caused power outages in Texas that were blamed on renewable energy. It was a year when the governor of Missouri tried to outlaw HTML.

So it’s a pretty high bar to clear. But this year’s recipients managed to stand out as unusually stupid even in a year of stupid. So without further ado:

COVID-19 “Skeptics” We now have strong evidence that masks slow the spread of COVID-19 and that the vaccines are stunningly effective. And yet … dishonest grifters like Alex Berenson continue to claim otherwise. Linguini-spined politicians like Ron DeSantis continue to dance with the crazies. The Great Barrington lunatics continue to wield influence despite the horror that erupted in India and Manauas as they achieved “herd immunity”. It’s frustrating. It’s stupid. It’s maddening. But it’s also easily mocked.

Election “Skeptics” This stopped being funny when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in response to two months of lies. But it has now taken on the cadence of a dark comedy as lunatics like Mike Lindell make empty promises of restoring Trump to power and grifters like Lin Wood, Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell find the wheels of justice turning on them. It culminated in the so-called Cyber Ninjas presenting their grand audit finding … nothing.

Andrew Cuomo: Remember when people wanted to draft this dude to run for President? Good times. Cuomo finally resigned in disgrace this year after a harassment scandal. Which may have been the best thing that happened to him, since it distracted attention away from his sending-COVID-patients-to-nursing-homes-and-lying-about-it scandal.

Congress vs. Big Tech: Our congress critters don’t seem to realize that they are being played by Facebook to create a regulatory landscape that will lock the existing tech giants into place. And an enormous amount of commentary on big tech issues — specifically on Section 230 — is stunningly ignorant.

Frustrated Democrats: When this year began, we were told that Biden could have an FDR moment. These takes were, apparently, from people who had never heard of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. or were unfamiliar with his decades-long legislative history. They were also unaware, apparently, of how tenuous the Democratic hold on power was. Biden has been slowly advancing the ball, eventually getting an infrastructure bill passed and undoing some of Trump’s executive orders. But he hasn’t been a revolution. And this has caused a lot of hand-wringing in progressive circles and hurling blame at Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema, conveniently ignoring that these two senators are taking the fire for a much larger part of the caucus that opposes the broader progressive agenda. If Schumer had the votes, they’d go along with it. He clearly doesn’t. So small incremental change is the name of the game.

Which, to be frank, is why people elected Biden in the first place.

Dishonorable Mention Mike Parsons, Matt Gaetz, Larry Elder, Andrew Cuomo, Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert.

Ok, enough of that. Here’s the drumsticks:

Vaccines and Therapeutics: The COVID-19 vaccines have been a stunning success. They give 90+% resistance at first. And even though their effect fades, they still confer significant resistance and dramatically cut the chances of death and serious illness. They are resistant against a strain of virus — Delta — that didn’t exist when they were made. And the initial results of the boosters are very promising. And with hundred of millions of doses in arms, side-effects appear to be minimal. I don’t know what more we could ask for.

In addition, we’ve developed not one, not two, but three treatments for COVID-19 that dramatically improve survival rates, including two anti-virals that were so dramatically effective, the decided it would be unethical to keep giving placebos.

There’s a lot of rocks you can throw at Big Pharma. But this is why we put up with their crap. Because sometimes, we get miracles.

Space: This was an amazing year for space. Perseverance and Tianwen-1 laned on Mars. Lucy and DART began their journey to the asteroids. Blue Origin launched Captain Kirk into space. Virgin had its first sub-orbital flights. Space-X had its first all-private crew. And, keeping our fingers crossed, we may see JWST launch by the end of the year.

Simon Biles and American Gymnasts: The American women had a great performance in Tokyo. Despite losing the GOAT halfway through, they snagged the team silver. Sunisa Lee won the all-around. And they won four event medals, one after Simone Biles retrained herself in days to overcome a terrible case of the “twisties”. But their greatest performance may have been off the mat, where they demanded and continue to demand answers from the people who ignored rampant sexual abuse in the sport. This scandal is not over and will not be over until they’ve gotten justice.

Dissident Republicans: Going against Trump can cost you your career and earn you death threats. But 10 Republican House members and seven Republican senators voted to impeach Trump. Several, most notably Liz Cheney, have pushed back hard against the myth that the 2020 election was stolen. I don’t know if they represent the dying or rising tide of sanity within the party. But I’m glad to have at last reason to hope the party I grew up in can come back from the abyss.

Eugene Goodman: When the Capitol was attacked, the Capitol police found themselves overwhelmed and cut off from any support for hours. Despite that, they managed to evacuate Congress and head off the worst. Goodman is as a good an avatar as any for that day. Alone and unsupported, the army veteran got a crowd of rioters to chase him through the building and away from the Senate chamber.

Of all the names I ever expected to put on this list, Dan Quayle would have been the least expected. But, according to reports, his was the critical voice that talked Mike Pence out of trying to overturn the election, which may have saved us a Constitutional Crisis on top of everything else.

Honorable Mention: The Fire, US military, Glenn Youngkin, Liz Cheney, Reform prosecutors