I knew about him from Crusader Kings 2
It's embarrassing how much Euro-African history I learned that way.
And it pains me to think where/who I might be, right now, if we as a species had properly united against this threat. The Watchmen comics were apparently too optimistic. Particularly when sociopathic demagogues are around.
This cult shit took everything from me. It drove a wedge between me and my RL friends, it drove me past the breaking point of acceptable alcoholism, and oh yeah it killed people in my life. Not the virus. The virus is simply a force of nature, and we were pretty well prepared for it in 2016. A cult swooped in, threw out those plans, and destroyed all rational discourse. It sustains the virus.
I don't mean Trump, Trump is just a focal point for this madness. He's trying to take credit for the vaccines and the cult dropped him, because it was never about him. He is as irrelevant as he always was. There is a madness overtaking us in the Western World. People are too well informed to simply be happy off the exploitation of the third world. They seek some sort of justification for the inequality, and they land on globe-spanning... also, racist... conspiracies. Because the simple truth is too painful.
I would love to go back two-three years and steel myself. I'd tell myself to stick with strong people, and not to try to wait this out. This wasn't the sort of issue I could hibernate through. I thought people would unite against something like this. Most people did, but so many people didn't.
I didn't. I thought it would pass.