First of all, the idea that Joe Biden is hyperpartisan is a canard, for the simple reason that most Americans agree with him on the most pressing issues facing our country. On infrastructure, voting rights (specifically the For the People Act), and climate action, Americans back Biden’s agenda with strong majorities.
As for Republican priorities—slapping faux penises on 3D cartoon potatoes, stridently defending racist Dr. Seuss drawings, or banning the teaching of graduate-level college courses in kindergarten—I haven’t found any polling on that. Because it’s fucking stupid, and I don’t fucking care. So I didn’t look.
Unfortunately, Republicans’ lack of interest in anything resembling a real crisis has prompted them to deflect and obfuscate like never before. The problem? In their telling, it’s that the party and president who are respecting the public’s clear wishes are being “partisan,” whereas the party that’s enthusiastically embracing COVID hegemony the way Kent Brockman blithely accepted the new world ant order is somehow reaching across the aisle. (And I suppose it is. To shake as many snot-covered COVID hands as possible.)
At least that’s what Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy will tell you. As a doctor, he knows that vaccine hesitancy is unnecessarily killing thousands—especially in Southern states like the one he represents, and particularly in Republican redoubts. We have highly effective and safe vaccines, but many people aren’t taking them. Why? Because, well, Joe Biden is too partisan, apparently.
Enjoy:
CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: “Your state of Louisiana is the fifth lowest in vaccination rate. Only 36% of people in your state have been fully vaccinated. You’re a medical doctor. Your thoughts about that, about the resistance to the vaccine in Louisiana, and is there anything you can and plan to do about it?”
CASSIDY: “A couple things. First, people are surprised when citizens don’t trust government. When you have partisan comments coming out of the White House regarding next Jim Crow laws, or people like Sen. Schumer and the White House not cooperating on a bipartisan bill. Oh, here we’re going to be partisan, but over here, you better trust us. That just doesn’t work. But I would also argue as a physician, you need to go back to your health care workers. It shouldn’t be the president advocating. Again, he’s depicting himself as uber-partisan. You need to have your doctor, your nurse, your physician’s assistants, who speaking to the patients they normally care for, they see at the PTA meeting, they otherwise communicate, this is good, it saves lives. What I’m doing, I’m trying to educate. Yesterday, one of my former students had a nice video—we’re choosing between vaccination or accepting higher rates of death. Put it on my social media today, we’re pushing that, that’s our choice. You choose either to be vaccinated or to accept a higher rate of unnecessary death. That’s the way to communicate, through your physician, your nurse, your PA, etc., not through some uber-partisan person who asks us to trust him, except when they’re making incredibly partisan statements.”
Again, protecting voting access is not a partisan issue—it’s an American one. And we’ve already seen that the kind of infrastructure spending Biden favors is wildly popular. What is partisan, then? Dishonestly invoking George Orwell when your president promotes door-to-door outreach to save people’s lives. It’s not like Biden refused to concede an election he lost or incited a bumblefuck putsch to overthrow the U.S. government. It’s literally that he’s doing everything in his limited power to keep Americans from dying unnecessarily. So let’s heat up the tar and start plucking feathers, shall we?
Of course, it’s clear enough that the current lag in vaccinations has more to do with segments like this one—hardly an outlier—being aired on deeply irresponsible media outlets like Fox News:
And, once again, I find myself envious of Canada, and not just because they discovered Corey Haim and insulin and we didn’t.
For the nontweeters:
1. ~80% of eligible Canadians have received a 1st dose of a #COVID19 vaccine & 2nd doses coming in fast. Nice!
2. This still leaves millions unvaccinated.
3. Delta (& all COVID) is +++ contagious, so no surprises when non-vax people get infected as measures lift (eg Europe).
I never thought I’d see millions of people merrily skipping to the gallows because they want to make their president look bad—or because their heads are still ensconced in the ruddy arse of the ex-president. But that’s where we are.
Yes, yes, I admit it. I’ve been pwned. MAGAs are dropping like flies to spite Joe Biden. They showed me.
Of course, Republicans in Congress can blame Joe Biden all they want for this 100% preventable mass die-off, but this is an almost entirely GOP-enabled crisis—and, sadly, it’s only getting worse.
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