I have to give a lot of praise to Barstool Sports and its founder "El Presidente" Dave Portnoy. I don't agree with some of the content they put out there, but if you ever wanted to see a great example of what the system of capitalism can produce, Barstool is one of those great examples. Portnoy and the staff at Barstool know the value of hard work, and if someone at that organization doesn't, Portnoy makes sure they do. It's all about the hustle at Barstool.
That being said, while Portnoy typically likes to ham it up in his videos, he took a more serious tone in a now-viral video he posted to Twitter Wednesday evening. The video's caption simply asked the question, "When Did Flattening The Curve Turn Into Finding The Cure?"
While Portnoy spoke in terms of the overall situation, the motivation for the video seems to have come from comments Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti made on Wednesday during his appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"We’ve never been fully closed, we’ll never be completely open until we have cure," Garcetti told ABC's George Stephanopoulos.
Also very telling from Garcetti's comments was HIS theory that the people might as well learn to live in this style of society, because it's here to stay.
"I think we have to all recognize that we’re not moving beyond COVID-19,” Garcetti said. “We’re learning to live with it."
What a bunch of garbage. Then again, he is the mayor of L.A., so they're used to piles of garbage at this point.
Portnoy, who has actually been helping some small businesses by hosting daily video reviews of frozen pizza from around the country, seems to have had enough of having to stay in his home while politicians move the goalposts.
"When did this become 'flatten the curve, flatten the curve, flatten the curve' to 'we have to find a cure or everyone's going to die?" Portnoy asked near the beginning of the video.
"People have been mentally preparing," Portnoy said after pointing out that officials are constantly changing the "rules." "We're doing what you've asked. We've done exactly what you said, now you're changing the rules."
Portnoy also spoke about businesses suffering that will continue to suffer and go out of business because officials can't make up their minds about how they want to deal with the virus.
As of this writing, the video has been viewed over 4.1 million times on Twitter, with over 54,000 retweets and over 160,000 likes.
From beginning to end, Portnoy had great take after great take. Watch for yourselves (Note: Some Strong Language):
Emergency Press Conference - When Did Flattening The Curve Turn Into Finding The Cure pic.twitter.com/ZaSTxL6Tuc
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 14, 2020