Veronica Wolski is not going to be motivated to vote by Republican Party demonization of Biden's vaccine mandates. I mean she would have been, but the infamous anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-health, QAnon sociopath died in the hospital last night after a long, hideous struggle with COVID-19. You may have heard of her when her fan club demanded the Amita Resurrection Hospital in Chicago treat her with sheep de-wormer instead of people medicine. Lin Wood, the Trump lawyer who is about to lose his law license, claims the hospital murdered her by refusing to give her ivermectin. Maybe Wood can declare himself a doctor-- or a veterinarian-- when he can't pretend to be practicing law any longer. Other crackpots from the Trump menagerie who were harassing the hospital over Wolski included Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn.
YouGov's newest poll for The Economist last week included a whole suite of questions about the pandemic. A couple of findings that stood out for me:
• 19% of registered voters say they will not be vaccinated (and 9% haven't decided). But among Republican voters, 30% say they will not be vaccinated (as do 22% of independent voters).
• Also among registered voters, 27% disagree that teachers should be mandated to be vaccinated-- including 40% of Republicans and 34% of independents. They are even more opposed to students being required to be vaccinated (49% among Republicans and 40% among independents)
• 57% of registered voters agree with a mask mandate for students, but 55% of Republicans and 33% of independents do not agree.
• Overall, registered voters are split about the way Biden is handling the pandemic:
approve- 46%
disapprove- 47% (81% of Republicans and 51% of independents disapprove)
unsure- 8%
With Ron DeSantis of Florida, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Bill Lee of Tennessee and other anti-health Republican governors refusing to regularly report COVID deaths any longer, it is hard to say how many daily COVID-related deaths there are in this country... sort of like China and Russia. But what we do know is that 54% of Americans are full vaccinated. These are the most vaccinated states (along with their 2020 vote for Trump):
Vermont- 68% (Trump 30.7%)
Massachusetts- 67% (Trump 32.1%)
Connecticut- 67% (Trump 39.2%)
Maine- 67% (Trump 44.0%)
Rhode Island- 66% (Trump 38.6%)
New Jersey- 63% (Trump 41.4%)
And these are the current half dozen least vaccinated states:
Wyoming- 40% (Trump 69.9%)
Alabama- 40% (Trump 62.0%)
West Virginia- 40% (Trump 68.6%)
Mississippi- 40% (Trump 57.6%)
Idaho- 40% (Trump 63.8%)
North Dakota- 42% (Trump 65.1%)
As you can see, there is a clear correlation between people dumb enough to vote for Trump and people dumb enough to endanger their friends and families by not being vaccinated. Republicans are a far, far greater risk to America than terrorists or foreign enemies. It's even more pronounced on a county level, where you find counties where less than 15% of the people are vaccinated and where 90% or more were Trump voters. Want to guess what the correlation is between Trump voters/vaccine refusers and people who approve of the violent coup attempt on January 6? If any energy wanted to mortally damage America could anything compare to having planted Australian Nazi Rupert Murdoch on our shores with enough money to start Fox News?
At dawn this morning, Hill reporter Julia Manchester wrote that Republican politicians are working to make Biden's vaccine mandates an issue "to galvanize" the moron base headed into the midterms. Greg Abbott called the mandates "an assault on private businesses," while South Dakota governor/murderer Kristi Noem and Mike Pence-- who failed dismally in his assignment to deal with the pandemic in its earliest stages, catapulting the U.S. into them world's worst case country-- ran to Fox to denounce Biden for doing what they refused to do to kill COVID in its infancy. "Meanwhile," wrote Manchester, "the Republican National Committee vowed on Thursday to sue the Biden administration over the mandates." Several Republican governors and random opportunist politicians are also claiming to be suing.
Nationwide polling shows mandates are generally popular, but Republicans see an opportunity to use the issue to appeal to their staunchest supporters.
“I think this is going to be a motivating factor,” said Republican strategist Keith Naughton. “In an off-year election it’s always hard to get people to turnout for the president except in a crisis, but you do get the people who are angry with him to turnout.”
Twenty Republican governors, including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Arizona Gov. Dog Ducey, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, as well as Abbott, have publicly opposed Biden’s vaccine mandate since it was announced on Thursday.
“You’re going to see on the governor’s level a lot of governors taking, either them or their attorney generals, taking a leading role in a lot of these legal challenges,” said a GOP operative.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R), who is running for reelection and said just last month that it was time to “start blaming the unvaccinated folks” for the rise in COVID cases, also hit back against Biden’s mandate.
“Once again, President Biden has missed the mark,” Ivey said in a statement. “His outrageous, overreaching mandates will no doubt be challenged in the courts."
So far 3 Trumpists are challenging Over in the Republican primary and at least two more are considering jumping into the race, including super wealthy Trump-nut and former Slovenia ambassador Lynda Blanchard (who reminds me of a female version of the Leonardo DiCaprio character in Quentin Tarantino's 2012 classic Django).
Biden responded: "I am so disappointed that particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids, so cavalier with the health of their communities. We’re playing for real here, and this isn’t a game, and I don’t know of any scientist out there in this field that doesn’t think it makes considerable sense to do the six things I’ve suggested."
