Hate-Preacher: I Don’t Know What a Pandemic Is but “COVID-19 Is Not a Pandemic”

Last week, Christian Hate-Preacher Greg Locke tweeted that a CNN reporter had come by his church to film a segment. He said it was going to be a “hit piece”… which is usually conservative Christian-speak for “They asked me normal questions and that’s persecution.”

What I couldn’t figure out immediately was what that normal question would be. Did reporter Elle Reeve ask him why he opposed masks? Why he didn’t care about the increasing COVID death count? What it would take for him to listen to the scientists?

Turns out it was much, much simpler than any of those.

After Locke denied that we were in the midst of a pandemic, Reeve asked him to explain himself.

LOCKE: I’m saying the sickness is real. I’m saying the pandemic is not.

REEVE: I don’t understand what you mean when you say “pandemic’s not real.”

LOCKE: … The pandemic is not real.

REEVE: But what do you think a pandemic is?

LOCKE: Not… Not COVID-19.

REEVE: But what do you think a pandemic is?

LOCKE: It is no pandemic.

PUBLICIST (offscreen): I think we’ve stuck on the pandemic question too many times.

REEVE: Well, why can’t you answer it?

LOCKE: It’s ridiculous… I did. There’s no pandemic! COVID-19 is not a pandemic.

REEVE: But what would a pandemic… But what is a pandemic then?

LOCKE: Not what we’re experiencing. I’m 44 years old. We’ve not had one in my lifetime, so I don’t know. And this is not it.

“I don’t know. And this is not it.” What a perfect encapsulation of the MAGA cult in action: They hate something they don’t understand.

Locke doesn’t know what a pandemic is, but he’s absolutely certain that the thing he can’t explain isn’t happening. (Oh, and by the way, he refuses to take a vaccine for it. And if his church members follow suit, so be it.)

That whole exchange is very similar to Christians who reject evolution without being explain to properly explain it. Their ignorance becomes unearned pride.

Reeve was right to follow up repeatedly. For all his bluster, Locke doesn’t have the goods to back it up. He’s too ignorant to know what he’s talking about, but he knows that if he speaks loudly and confidently and in ALL CAPS on Twitter, his followers will be gullible enough to think he’s some sort of religious leader when he’s really just a con artist leading people to their doom.

Reeve, by the way, is the excellent reporter who gave us a behind-the-scenes look at what white supremacists were doing in Charlottesville. She has experience dealing with confident, ignorant men who spew hate. This interview is just an extension of that.