Much of the news the past few weeks has been dominated by the increased push for the American public to take advantage of our public health initiative to get the country vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. It remains the first and most fundamental step toward bringing our country’s infrastructure back to an equilibrium. Doctors and scientists and popular personalities have been going on television to discuss the reasons for “vaccine hesitancy” and time and again, the problem facing the country is a mixture of mistrust in our country’s ruling class combined with misinformation from many of the people in that ruling elite. Specifically, it’s the conservative elite pushing bad science and spreading doubt with questions about things that have readily available answers.
Comedian John Oliver dedicated his Sunday night show to vaccines and the many questions surrounding hesitancy and the reasons why it is important for everyone who is able to get the vaccine. None of what Oliver said would be news to anyone reading Daily Kos since last January, when my colleague Mark Sumner began reporting about the potential for a global pandemic connected with the emerging health crisis across the Pacific ocean. But what John Oliver does provide are some funny and heavy hits against some of the more villainous actions and statements by right-wing operatives like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.
After talking about how there are many groups of Americans that are hesitant to get vaccinated for a few different reasons, Oliver goes in on how Republicans have a high rate of vaccine “hesitancy,” which he attributes, justifiably, to the “fears and doubts about the vaccine [that] have flown around conservative media” the past half year. Here’s a chart showing Republican hesitancy.
Oliver segues into Tucker Carlson with this articulate transition, “with one of the most prominent super-spreaders being this fucking guy.” This brings us into a montage of clips showing Tucker and his BS-faced, conspiracy-drenched questioning of mask mandates and vaccine efficacy. The montage ends with a long Tucker run-on questioning whether or not the vaccines are effective at all, now that the CDC is saying that even people that have received both shots should continue to mask up indoors. The clear implication, even though Tucker adds a question mark at the end of his sentence, is that it’s all some kind of deep-state scam on American’s civil liberties.
Oliver begins by saying the obvious: “It is genuinely weird to see someone who is hosting a show on a supposed news network and ending every sentence with a questions mark. Especially when answers to those questions are out there for anyone who cares to know.” He proceeds to answer the last question, an answer which most of us still understand: While there is good reason to believe that these vaccines make transmission of the virus less likely, we do not know that for sure at this point, and with variants, vaccine hesitancy, and other factors still an issue, the CDC is being cautious.
Of course, Oliver says it far more eloquently than that: “The CDC is being cautious and is not spreading bullshit around during a pandemic, like some TV-dinner duke with a TV show. Anyway, I hope that answers one of your gape-mouthed bad-faithed wonders, Tucker. You scrunch-faced fear baboon.” Oh. That’s the stuff.
Of course it is also worth noting here that the conservative echo chamber of misinformation has been particularly effective in dulling the logic and senses of self-identified Republicans, as can be witnessed here.
The whole thing is worth a watch, but if you want to listen to the sweet sounds of Tucker Carlson being righteously demolished, start around the 6:15 mark.