Incidentally, Trump’s weak attempt to walk back his Lysol remarks came on the same day the Food and Drug Administration put out a warning regarding “serious heart rhythm problems in patients with COVID-19 treated with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine, often in combination with azithromycin and other QT prolonging medicines.” This, of course, was the quack cure Trump was pushing before his latest quack cures. (I know, it’s hard to keep up.)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hit the nail on the head at her weekly news conference when she quipped, “No money for the post office. Instead, inject Lysol into your lungs as we shut down the states.” She pointed out that in the space of 24 hours, we saw Republicans “reject science and reject governance.” She practically spat out the phrase “extracurricular stuff,” explaining Congress included money for testing, for hospitals and for the small businesses that could not access Paycheck Protection Program loans in the previous Cares Act.

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Not just “stuff,” Mr. Brady.

Meanwhile, for the second consecutive day, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) ripped into McConnell:

As for McConnell’s notion that funding states hit by the coronavirus the hardest would be a “blue state bailout,” Cuomo shot back, “Kentucky is the No. 3 state in taking from the federal pot every year than they put in the pot every year. Every year.“ New York, by contrast, is one of the biggest “donors” to the federal treasury. If McConnell wants to oppose bailouts, Cuomo declared, “Just give me my money back, senator.”

You do wonder — aside from the attention, self-importance and status — why Republicans bother to run for government or want to hold office. Increasingly, it seems to serve merely as a perch from which to rant at “elites” (those who believe coronavirus is highly contagious, climate change is real, and the Constitution did not create a king with “absolute” power). They have become content generators for Fox News (disclaimer: I am an MSNBC contributor) and the rest of the right-wing media, which in turn makes money by feeding the seemingly bottomless pit of resentment and anger in their base. The point increasingly for Republicans is not to solve problems or to govern well or even to “protect liberty” or the taxpayers’ money but to create toxic issues and moments (caravans!). (If good governance was the goal, they would not insist on building a wall that smugglers have sawed through 18 times in just one month last year.)

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That works for many Republicans (thanks to gerrymandering and residence in deep-red states) for an election cycle or two — at least until real-world catastrophes pop up. Then, when voters feel physically or economically vulnerable, they expect government to do something, do it fast and do it well. For that, they will need to elect politicians who appreciate and understand government, have competence in governing and a rudimentary understanding of science.

Not Republicans, in other words.