There are numerous ways that Biden is doing the nation a huge favor—and putting himself on the line to make it happen.
But there’s another factor that’s getting left out of 99% of reporting on Biden’s push on the vaccine: People like it. As Kerry Eleveld noted, requiring large employers to vaccinate workers or conduct weekly tests has more than a 20% margin of support versus oppose. So does requiring all federal workers to be vaccinated. Encouraging states to require vaccination for school employees has a 30% margin.
That same kind of support is seen in how this move has been embraced by corporations. Whether it’s the chair of the National Association of Manufacturers or the CEOs of some of America’s largest companies, business leaders recognize that prolonging the pandemic is harming the economy. They stand squarely behind Biden’s push to get their employees vaccinated so they can stay on the job.
By pushing Republicans into a direct fight, right now, on a topic where he enjoys wide popular and business support, Biden is doing everyone a favor.
He’s doing business a favor by cutting down on health care expenses and boosting productivity. He’s doing Americans a favor by simply keeping people healthier. Most of all, Biden may be doing Republicans a favor. Not a favor in terms of giving them a political advantage—an advantage of simply keeping them breathing. At a time when, as The New York Times reports, ICUs in red states are under incredible strain, no one needs another story about people dying or silly rumors or even sillier vaccine resistance. Getting people vaccinated can, and will, save their lives. Biden is going to save them, even if they hate him for it.
However, Biden is also doing Republicans a favor politically. That’s because Sen. Mitch McConnell and other supposedly mainstream Republicans have been too gutless to make a clean break with the Trump-centered madness in their party. Their own passivity is sending them into a situation where, every single day, they’re forced to accept more conspiracy theories, more irrationality, more utter hate for fellow Americans. Surveys already show that the majority of Republicans now think it’s not just important that someone continue to follow Donald Trump, but believe that Trump won the last election.
As with the pandemic, the affliction that has possessed the Republican Party can’t be ended by pretending it will just “magically go away” when the weather changes. If there are genuinely rational Republicans remaining, Republicans who want to see their party survive when this fight is lost—and they’re definitely going to lose—they need to take the hand that Biden is reaching out while they still can.