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“I cannot keep up” is a cruel remark about someone else’s health battle.

After weeks of victim-blaming rape survivors, Megyn Kelly has found a new target of ridicule.

See, Christina Applegate recently revealed that she doesn’t have MS. She was misdiagnosed, and is still looking for answers.

Kelly isn’t mad that doctors got it wrong. She’s mad that Applegate … told everyone?

‘I cannot keep up, you guys’

On the Tuesday, October 20 episode of The Megyn Kelly Show, the eponymous podcaster ranted about the actress’ update on multiple sclerosis (MS).

“Christina Applegate is really the person I think most people, at least famous people, associate with this disease,” she suggested, “because she was one of the first to come out and say she had it.”

Kelly continued: “It’s been so debilitating to her, and you know we’ve seen her look in a wheelchair and with a cane, and she the whole the whole podcast called ‘MeSsy,’ which is based on M and S.”

Applegate has now disclosed that she was misdiagnosed, and is once again trying to find the cause of her debilitating symptoms.

Instead of sympathy, Kelly expressed scorn and derision.

“I cannot keep up, you guys,” Kelly quipped. “I’m sorry.” The apology part sounded insincere.

“But like the woman who’s made like every public statement about health for the past several years all about her MS, she’s hosting an MS podcast, has now come out to tell us all she doesn’t actually have it,” she ummarized.

Kelly complained: “This has all been a wild goose chase.”

Yes … for Applegate, who has suffered a setback after years of treatments missed the mark. But Kelly’s gripe seems to be about, what, her own impression of Applegate’s ailment being wrong?

“She has no idea what she actually has, and I just think this is like the problem with celebrities, wanting to lean into their health problems, and ‘now I will be the face of MS,’” Kelly cruelly characterized. “She’s crying now because I guess she no longer gets to be the face of this disease.”

‘She’s crying now because I guess she no longer gets to be the face of the disease’

Obviously, Kelly is being very unfair to Applegate. But why?

It could be mere opportunism — profiting by taking the most malicious stance on a hot topic to profit from her unhinged audience. We’ll delve into that topic in a moment.

But this actually fits into fairly mainstream conservative anti-science rhetoric. Like all science, medicine means having the best answer at the time with the information and equipment at your disposal.

Applegate shared that her previous best answer was wrong, and that she’s looking for a better answer. That’s normal.

In the world of conservatism, though, there’s no room for admitting to mistakes or adjusting your view when confronted with new information. You need to go all in on one answer, and never budge.

Some have argued that Kelly’s most abhorrent stances, such as her victim-blaming and doxxing threats towards the Cornell University Jane Doe, are a callous attempt to cater to her audience of white, geriatric audience who want their sinister worldviews reinforced.

That is likely true. But it probably isn’t the whole story.

Kelly was offered a contract just shy of $70 million to host her own NBC talk show. It only lasted a year — because she seemingly could not resist making an episode about how she felt that blackface was fine.

(Of course, she got to keep all of those millions, so maybe it was a brilliant business move to weasel out of the job and laugh it all of the way to the bank? Somehow, it seems more earnest than that.)

The most successful fringe-right influencers are those whose malice and clear behavioral problems clearly come naturally and coincide with the most rewarding stances. Regular grifters who aren’t invested in the pointless cruelty just don’t come across as convincingly. Kelly is probably the real deal, unfortunately.