After months of ignoring, and sometimes spreading vaccine misinformation, GOP politicians are increasingly speaking out in an effort to persuade people who are skeptical about COVID-19 vaccines to take the shots as the more contagious Delta variant sends caseloads soaring.
The change in attitude this past week or so has been astounding, and it is sad that it had to take a surge in coronavirus cases to wake lawmakers up to the fact that it is the unvaccinated – primarily in Red states who are getting sick and sometimes losing their lives.
Louisiana congressman Steve Scalise, the House’s No. 2 Republican, posed for a photo of himself getting a vaccine shot, many months after he was eligible, and urged others to do the same, reports The New Yorker.
“Get the vaccine,” Scalise said, at a press conference on Thursday. “I have high confidence in it. I got it myself.”
In Florida, reports the Associated Press, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis this week pointed to data showing the vast majority of hospitalized COVID-19 patients hadn’t received shots.
“These vaccines are saving lives,” said DeSantis, who also says Florida will never mandate masks or rely on lockdowns. He is also responsible for his campaign selling T-shirts and beer koozies that read “Don’t Fauci My Florida,” referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top government infectious disease official.
CBC Canada points out that even Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell — a childhood polio survivor who has consistently advocated on behalf of the COVID-19 shots, is urging the unvaccinated to ignore “all these other voices that are giving demonstrably bad advice.”
It may be too little, too late
The New Yorker suggests the backtracking by GOP politicians, as well as FOX News, is not a coincidence – but a coordinated attack, adding, “And no wonder: the new politics of the pandemic are following the alarming new math of the pandemic.”
For months, following the lead of former President Trump, GOP lawmakers and some conservative media outlets have been stoking vaccine hesitancy, refusing to take the shots or downplaying the severity of the virus.
“I think they’ve finally realized that if their people aren’t vaccinated, they’re going to get sick, and if their people aren’t vaccinated, they’re going to get blamed for COVID outbreaks in the future,” said GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who has been working with the Biden administration in crafting effective messaging to bring the vaccine-hesitant off the fence.
Well, it looks like the future has arrived. Those conservatives are actually cheering the news that the Biden administration is falling short of its vaccination goals. Colorado GOP Representative Lauren Boebert warned the White House, “Don’t come knocking on my door with your Fauci Ouchie! You leave us the hell alone.”
So this makes me wonder – How is the GOP going to explain why so many of their constituents have come down with the coronavirus and died?
