Never thought I'd see someone get upset about being asked not to swim with active diarrhea, and yet...
It's like they're running out of things to be angry about.
Hello, dear readers,
So, I was sitting at home on Saturday looking at Instagram, as one does, when I saw a post from Ric Grenell, the former Trump administration acting director of national intelligence.
The picture was of a sign reading, “Persons having active diarrhea or who have had active diarrhea within the previous 14 days shall not be allowed to enter the pool water.”
Grenell, the perpetually-outraged person that he is, added, “California politicians have to stop making laws and mandates. The entire culture of California instructs people on everything. This is the entrance sign to a community pool.”
Naturally, I thought it was hilarious that the man who had at one time been trusted with our nation’s secrets was now spending his days on social media throwing a temper tantrum about being told not to swim if he’s had diarrhea any time in the past two weeks. So I tweeted about it.
And Grenell, well known for being a right-wing Twitter troll, threw another little tantrum directed my way.
“Leave it to the radical Left to think if you let people have freedoms then they will swim with diarrhea. Do you put plastic bags over your head if there’s no warning label, too?!” he wrote in the first of two tweets. “Stop assuming Americans need Big Government. #karen.”
“There is a whole generation of Karens who believe they must instruct everyone else,” he continued. “They like power and assume everyone else will swim in diarrhea if they don’t instruct them. It’s weird. And @ParkerMolloy is their 4 Star Karen.”1 2
Parker Molloy @ParkerMolloy
Public pool: Please don’t go swimming if you have diarrhea Dumbest member of the Trump administration: whoa whoa whoa whoa I thought this was AMERICA, where we happily swim in each other’s diarrhea https://t.co/bFnDEFiFKO https://t.co/2SKZM1ciolThe reason I’ve chosen to highlight Grenell’s Instagram post is that it’s a great example of a very specific GOP propaganda tactic.
The point of his post is to make people feel upset about Democratic overreach, to get irritated about misplaced priorities, and whatnot. After last week’s recall of three members of San Francisco’s school board over its decision to devote time and energy to renaming schools rather than making schools safer for students and teachers during the pandemic, it makes sense for Grenell to float this sort of attack. It’s all very, Look! Now they’re trying to control your whole life!!! of him.
There’s some irony in all this outrage being directed at a handful of people on a San Francisco school board for focusing on symbolic things like renaming school buildings during a pandemic that had effectively shuttered schools when there was virtually no criticism of Republican states deciding that the coronavirus pandemic was the perfect time to focus on a “problem” many states didn’t even have: banning trans students from participating in school sports (this, despite there not actually being any school sports at the time). So hey, I don’t really want to hear about misplaced priorities.
And there are a couple of points I feel obligated to make here:
For one, this isn’t new (and Grenell probably knows this). California added the sign requirement in September 2012 as a way to address the spread of cryptosporidiosis (also known as “crypto,” which typically has a very different meaning in 2022), a chlorine-resistant parasite that causes watery diarrhea, stomach cramps or pain, dehydration, nausea, vomiting, fever and/or weight loss. According to the CDC, “symptoms usually last about 1 to 2 weeks in people with healthy immune systems.”
Cryptosporidiosis has a fairly long incubation period (average of 7 days after exposure), the ability to live in chlorinated water for days on its own, and can be shed by people for up to 2 weeks after people have gotten over their symptoms. Most people probably don’t know that last part (I didn’t, at least), which is why the 2 weeks note on there is probably helpful.3
But my second point here is about the tactic of seeking things to be outraged over and blaming the problem on political opponents. That’s exactly what Grenell did here. The attack is simple: Democrats are focusing on the wrong things by requiring public/community pools to post those signs.4 His attempt to frame this as new and somehow related to COVID (“California politicians have to stop making laws and mandates” — also “making laws” is literally what politicians do.) Never mind that in 2019, the CDC (under Trump, mind you) sounded the alarm about a massive rise in cryptosporidiosis, making the frustration at a mandatory sign … a decade after it became a requirement (right alongside the requirement to have “no diving” signs at shallow pools) … as ridiculous as someone throwing a temper tantrum about being told not to smoke on airplanes even though that’s been a policy for 30 years.
The strategy here is to make every little irritation in life, whether it’s seeing a sign asking you to please not swim in the public pool for 2 weeks after having diarrhea (one survey found that 24% of Americans said they would resume swimming within one hour of having diarrhea) or being asked to wear a mask during a trip to the store so as not to spread the deadly pandemic virus that’s killed nearly 1 million Americans to employees and other customers, as oppression. You see it in how right-wingers talk about the Canadian truck protests, you see it in how they discuss everything. This distracts from areas where people and ideas are actually being oppressed by the government.
Fox News and others in right-wing media have used this playbook for years. It’s unbelievably sad how effective it still is.
“Karen” is one of Grenell’s favorite insults, though he never quite uses the term correctly. If anything, someone seeing a pool sign that makes them angry and then posting it to their Instagram to whine about it seems a little more “Karen” than a person pointing out how ridiculous it is to get angry about a sign and post it to Instagram, but… Grenell gonna Grenell.
Grenell: “They like power and assume everyone else will swim in diarrhea if they don’t instruct them.”
A 2019 survey from the Water Quality and Health Council found that 24% of Americans would resume swimming within one hour of having diarrhea. So… That’s… something.
In 1993, an estimated 403,000 people in the Milwaukee area became sick after contracting the cryptosporidium parvum parasite after one of the city’s two water treatment plants failed to filter it out. The CDC estimated that roughly 44,000 people were sick enough to see a doctor, and 4,400 were hospitalized.
In 2004, more than 250 people contracted cryptosporidiosis at a California waterpark. In 2004, nearly 750 people contracted the parasite after attending Seneca Lake State Park’s “Sprayground” water play area in Geneva, New York.
Despite how he makes it sound, no, there’s not an enforcement mechanism in place to ensure that people have been diarrhea-free for two weeks. The sign is the only requirement.
This diarrhea is a perfect metaphor for the shit show that is American politics. Also, if you see that guy at the pool, avoid the water.
I was struck by how he tries to co-opt the term "Karen" to mean essentially the opposite of what it means. I've seen signs like these before and always sort of rolled my eyes, like, yeah, I would never go in the pool if I had diarrhea. But the 2-week thing seemed excessive until I understood why, which is why the sign needs to be there. These guys just don't like laws that apply to them, I think.