I’m making an effort not to talk about politics here—after all, fully 75 percent of my tweets as kulturhack are political commentary or curation. And this place is supposed to be Something Else Entirely, not a busman’s holiday. But I frequently find that politics are on my mind upon opening my eyes in the morning. So I guess we’ll just have to put up with a little overlap—at least for the next four years . . .

Today I found myself thinking about the clusterfuck that is the TeaOP’s Obamacare repeal-and-replace—where “replace” is understood to be the same thing a pack rat does when it takes a diamond earring to improve its nest and leaves an old, crumpled piece of tin foil in its place.

What Trump and the TeaOP are about to do is shocking: For what they insist is the (deeply debatable) Good Of The Many, they’re resolutely willing to let people die like so much collateral damage. Where “people” is understood to mean specific classes of people: the poor, the old and the sick. And where “specific classes” is further understood to roll-up into a single category near and dear to politicians: “those who are less likely to vote.”

To be clear, I am an East Coast liberal, but the above paragraph is not liberal rhetoric. Because the old, crumpled piece of tin foil that the TeaOP wants to leave in place of Obamacare will kill people. Many of the poor, the old and the sick currently insured by Obamacare will lose their coverage—which means their potentially life-saving medical care and treatments. And without these continuing, many of the poor, the old and the sick will die.

It’s estimated that as many as 10 million people will effectively be stripped of their health insurance when Obamacare is replaced. And it’s not fear-mongering to assume that a percentage of these newly uninsured people will have their health catastrophically impacted by the cessation of medial care and treatments. Just one percent amounts to 100,000 people. It’s also not fear-mongering to assume that a percentage of these catastrophically impacted will die. All that remains is to quibble if it will be 1,000 or 2,000 or 3,000—numbers that fall in the range of the 9/11 death toll—except that they’re annual numbers.

But now let’s zoom back up to the top: let’s take a look at The Good Of The Many—the thing that the targeted poor, old and sick will be dying for. First and foremost there’s a significant tax cut—definitely—for households earning over $200,000 a year and for healthcare CEOs. And then there’s the promise that you can—maybe—stay with old Doc Fredericks whom you’ve been with for years. And also—maybe—lower premiums. The last two are good things in their theoretical ways. Heavy emphasis on “theoretical.” But for the sake of argument, let’s assume these things can actually be delivered.

Which leads us to this grim thought experiment: You love old Doc Fredericks—you’ve been going to him for 15 years, and you want to continue seeing him. But before this can happen, I just need you to sign-off on the number of the poor, the old and sick that annually need to die for that special relationship with old Doc Fredericks to go forward. How much annual collateral damage in terms of the deaths of others less well off or older or sicker than you best represents your comfortable level?

Hell, I’m an East Coast liberal—and therefore untrustworthy. So let’s say only half a percent of those 100,000 catastrophically impacted without health insurance will die—hey look, 500! We’re below four digits! Whooo! So how about now? Is old Doc Fredericks worth 500 people dying annually? If you see him for 10 more years, that’s—what?—5,000 deaths? Are we still good? Oh, don’t back away and avoid eye contact—and quit squirming uncomfortably. After all, the TeaOp is doing all this for you—and oh yeah, for households over $200,000 and healthcare CEOs—at least that’s what they’re saying . . .

We could repeat this experiment with regard to the cost of your insurance premiums, but those those results would be even more disturbing. Because then we could easily divide the money you save by the estimated number of the poor, the old and the sick who will die to make that possible—neatly arriving at a dollar amount for each individual life. Don’t want to give it a go? I don’t blame you—neither do I.

Here’s my thing: Maybe you’re very okay with the exchange of Obamacare for the TeaOP’s crumpled, old piece of tin foil. We could never be friends, but hey, that’s what diversity of opinion is about. But if you are for the TeaOP replacement of Obamacare, for fuck’s sake own it.

Every TeaOP politician promoting repeal-and-replace, dodges the issue of death-as-collateral damage—and these dodges are identical because they’re baked into the talking points. When confronted with the question “Can you guarantee that everyone now covered by Obamacare will be covered under the replacement plan?” every TeaOP talking head responds like this: “Well, now, I say, I say, I cannot guarantee that because, after all, there is nothin’ certain in this life, I say, there is nothin’ certain in life, am I right? I say, am I right? But I can say that what we are doin’ is in the best interest, I say, the best interest of the majority of Americans—do you read me, I say, do you read me?”

Every TeaOP booster of the replacement of Obamacare sounds like Foghorn Leghorn defending the unthinkable. Southern-fried fascism.

If you’re going to be a Bond villain—if you’re explicitly aspiring to be one (and taking a tax break and lower insurance premiums in exchange for the deaths of hundreds or thousands of the poor, the old and the sick sure looks aspirational to me)–then find some balls and own up. Tell the those targeted classes of citizens what Goldfinger told James Bond: “I expect you to die.”