‘Blinded by partisanship and populism, Republicans have lost all perspective’

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas. AP

Why would any sane person want to be associated with this party of lunatics? Excerpt from Max Boot: The hyperbolic GOP reaction to Biden’s vaccine mandate shows why it’s necessary 

Perhaps the GOP simply objects to the government telling any business what to do? Except, oops, Republican governors and legislatures are doing precisely that when they tell private companies that they can’t ask for proof of vaccination. At least six red states — Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota and Texas — have prohibited most companies from demanding “vaccine passports.” So, apparently, Republicans think it’s okay for the government to force businesses to surrender to a deadly pandemic but it’s not okay for the government to mandate that businesses protect their employees and customers. 

Perhaps the most tone-deaf reaction came from Gov. Greg Abbott (R) of Texas, who just signed a law effectively outlawing abortion. He now takes his stand on “protecting Texans’ right to choose whether they get the COVID vaccine.” As Molly Jong-Fast of the Daily Beast tweeted: “So conservatives want to make sure that women can’t get abortions but they are also against vaccine mandates because ‘my body my choice?’ ” 

It’s hard to take GOP protests against Biden’s announcement at face value given how widespread vaccine requirements already are. In Texas, for example, the state requires that any student attending any public or private school must show evidence of having received at least seven vaccines covering diseases such as polio, hepatitis, measles, mumps and rubella. Those seven vaccination requirements — which have helped banish once prevalent diseases such as polio — cause little controversy. So why is pushing for adults to get vaccinated for covid-19 such a flash point? 

The problem is that covid-19 has been a politicized pandemic from the start. It broke out while Donald Trump was president, and he was terrified that it would tank the economy and his reelection chances. So he consistently played it down, claiming it would miraculously disappear and that it “affects virtually nobody.” His cult followers therefore felt compelled to echo his Panglossian outlook by falsely claiming that covid was no worse than the flu or promoting quack remedies such as hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin as miracle cures. 

The results of all this covid denialism can be seen in vastly differing vaccination rates. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey, 86 percent of Democrats have gotten vaccinated but only 54 percent of Republicans. That, in turn, translates into rising numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the red states. Over the past 14 days, the United States has been losing an average of 1,579 people a day to covid-19. More than a third of those deaths (570 a day) are in just two red states: Florida and Texas. The daily number of deaths in Florida — which has one of the worst outbreaks in the world — is more than three times higher than in California and more than 10 times higher than in New York. (Read more)

Copyright 2021, Sunking278. Stay up-to-date: Twitter – @Sunking278 and Facebook – click here.