Standard rule: never ask musicians and athletes for social or political commentary.
Didn't want to make this a political thread. And I respect Mike as a musician, composer and a person, even if I don't care for his political views (which is why I don't follow his twitter).
But the point is that he let his politics, however subtly, slip subtly into his coupon code. In fact given his status as a corona-virus-seriousness-denier, you could almost interpret the sale as cynical.
Some context:
My father was at a local coffee shop over the weekend (a day before the first case was reported in the city). And two guys there were spewing this kind of stuff about it's all completely overblown. Which absolutely no one is say - except Fox News and other water carriers for the narcism and science denial of the White House administration.
My father is also in a highly vulnerable group in this pandemic. And so this isn't about respecting a diversity of political opinions. It's about how they risk actively are putting the lives of people like my father - and indeed all of us - at risk.
Moreover, this kind of alternate-fact anti-science ideological narcissism has also, at least in certain places, led to the best opportunity to stop the pandemic before it began being missed when the experts were shouting to do learn from Asia and something *now*. And if you look at the polls, it's clear that, disproportionately, it's people in these right wing bubbles that are dismissing the seriousness of the situation, and therefore putting themselves and everyone else at risk.
It's also very highly likely that this narcissistic science-denialism will continue to make the containment efforts less effective, since it's now a matter of one's political identity to not believe the science. Which could very easily mean a longer period of musician being screwed. And in this senses, it is also - and this is a fact and not a lefty hoax - materially contributing to the hardship that so many people here are experiencing.
And yes, I know it's just a coupon code. And yes, I really didn't want this to become politicized. And yes, I don't particularly want to come to vi-c for pro- or anti-Trump rants.
But when the seriousness of this denial is something threatening the 2.2 million death and/or the mass destruction of livelihoods and is dismissed as another lefty anti-Trump hoax ("like climate change"), then at some point this is just not a matter of partisanship or of respecting a diversity of political opinion.
And I just though it needs to be called out, in part because it was so subtly and seemingly innocuously seeping into the coupon code. And coupon codes shouldn't be a legitimate platform for this kind of stuff either.
Genuinely sorry for the rant all. And the politics. But there it is.