Hmm, seems like today’s news is that the vaccinated have lost patience or we’re fed up with the non-vaxxed. Josh Marshall (paywall), David Frum (published Friday — worth a read for some interesting framing that Democrats would never use), Brian Stetler and I assume many others who haven’t been discovered are noting a change. Some of this is the extra credit that comes from exceeding the soft bigotry of low expectations of Fox hosts, who made a few positive noises about vaccines. Of course, they never really meant it and Hannity, for example, quickly backtracked.
This piece by Eric Boehlert sums up the media’s role as enablers quite well:
As the United States careens towards its third Covid-19 surge, driven entirely by Americans who refuse to get vaccinated, the press continues to portray the selfish, partisan dead-enders as misguided and merely reluctant.
The coverage stems from a five-year media crusade to normalize Trump supporters and constantly extend “sympathy.” Today, that means coddling the offenders, especially white, Southern ones, who are infecting communities by refusing to take a miraculously safe and effective vaccine that’s been available for eight months.
I never thought that being nice would get refusers to take a vaccine. It’s clear that what will work is requiring vaccinations for classes of workers, most obviously healthcare workers, as a coalition of 56 healthcare organizations just advocated. And the VA just announced that all of their healthcare workers must be vaccinated. Another good tactic is one that San Francisco bar owners are implementing — requiring proof of vaccination or a recent COVID test to sit inside.
The (non-COVID) vaccination requirements for school-age children are fairly harsh (due, in most part, to anti-vaxxers trying to skirt them): no vaccination, no school. It’s time to be similarly harsh with adults. And we should do it quickly and completely, because Republicans are going to whine about whatever we do, so why bother with half measures?
rikyrah
This breaks my heart. This should not have been her burden to shoulder.
Jules Amin (@jules_amin) tweeted at 10:02 PM on Sun, Jul 25, 2021:
I can’t stop thinking about how Simone Biles said that part of why she didn’t retire is bc she worried that if she did, as the only survivor of Larry Nassar’s abuse who is still an active elite gymnast, it would make accountability for USAG less likely
(https://twitter.com/jules_amin/status/1419493174016413697?s=03)
rikyrah
California and New York are always first.
Government entities – at least in Blue States – will begin to fall like dominoes.
Coming to a Government Employer Near You.
That’s right…bring down the hammer.
The Associated Press (@AP) tweeted at 1:00 PM on Mon, Jul 26, 2021:
BREAKING: California will require proof of COVID-19 vaccination or weekly testing for all state workers and health care employees.
New York City also says it will require its municipal workers to get vaccinated or face weekly COVID-19 tests. https://t.co/BhwhdyX83c
(https://twitter.com/AP/status/1419719251137552384?s=03)
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@rikyrah: Interesting, that NYC decree includes cops. Wonder how that will go over…
C Stars
Ugh, I just found out my step sister is a vaccine refuser. She works as a food server.
Scout211
In California, it’s not just state employees but all healthcare workers, in public and private healthcare settings.
https://www.kcra.com/article/gov-newsom-covid-19-vaccine-effort-july-26/37131018
Old Man Shadow
Announce an expiration date for the government’s coverage of COVID care for the unvaccinated, watch insurance premiums go up on the unvaccinated, see if that convinces anyone.
MattF
A case where owning the libs has backfired. It would be amusing, except for the part about significant numbers of people dying.
rikyrah
@Scout211:
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
Betty Cracker
I just read the TPM piece linked above, and this bit strikes me as true:
This is why they changed their tune, and it’s happening everywhere. Even that moron Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrote a dumb op-ed in an Arkansas paper about choosing to get vaccinated. But once you brand yourself, it’s not so easy to undo that.
FL Gov. DeSantis is among the chorus of Republicans now making mouth-noises to encourage people to get the safe and effective vaccines. But he has branded himself as anti-vax — indelibly, IMO — with innumerable political stunts. I hope it comes back to bite him on the ass. Hard.
rikyrah
Richard Signorelli (@richsignorelli) tweeted at 8:14 AM on Mon, Jul 26, 2021:
Evidence against Barrack appears overwhelming. He has one viable option to avoid a fed prison sentence of at least several yrs: cooperate. Assuming rationality, this is what he will do. He already got a nightmarish taste of incarceration. He does not want to go back.
(https://twitter.com/richsignorelli/status/1419647243594969092?s=03)
rikyrah
Kate Sullivan (@KateSullivanDC) tweeted at 1:32 PM on Mon, Jul 26, 2021:
The Department of Veterans Affairs will require many of its frontline health workers to be vaccinated, VA Secretary Denis McDonough announced today. It’s the first area of the federal government to require shots among some of its workers.
(https://twitter.com/KateSullivanDC/status/1419727319204352000?s=03)
dr. bloor
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: With a little luck, they’ll all quit and limit the disease spread to their lairs in Nassau and Suffolk county.
cain
If you were nicer to these people they’ll only turn around and demand things like pass anti-abortion laws or some other buillshit in order for them to take this vaccine and they would still renege and say we weren’t sufficiently nice.
In other words, everything they say are all bullshit. They want us to bow before them.
dr. luba
Eric Boehlert link here. The one above is asking me to sign into WordPress.
Baud
I thought this would happen once the vax got full approval, but Delta upended the timeline.
dr. bloor
@Betty Cracker:
I’m tempted to spearhead a ratfucking campaign that brands DeathSantis et al as bought and paid for by Deep State, but I’d rather see people listen to them and get poked.
Not to mention, someone else has undoubtedly beaten me to it.
ET
I will be very interesting how the talk changes once the vaccines are officially approved (possibly in August). I assume there will be a fair bit of moving of the goal posts from those who are using that as an excuse and that it won’t make any difference to the hard core group. But I assume that it when it has been given the final seal it will be made mandatory for places like the military which haven’t made it mandatory yet.
CaseyL
I can almost – almost, if I squint hard enough – see a “point” for anti-vaxxers who just generally hate Western medicine and believe Ancient Lore is the way to go. They’re morons, but at least they’re philosophically consistent morons.
The GQP weaponizing anti-vaxxism, and their adherents who go in boots and all for it, are motivated by spite (their voters) and political ambition (them). It’s just so beyond any moral/ethical calculus it’s in a range of Pure Evil all by itself. But then, that’s become SOP for those people. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Betty Cracker
@cain: One persistent demand that reveals the whiny and petty nature of these wretched choads is the insistence on giving Trump credit for the vaccines. Seriously, I’ve read at least three op-eds in national dailies that claim vaccine resistance can only be overcome by publicly praising Trump for development of the vaccines. It’s so mind-bogglingly stupid. For one thing, Trump has been publicly taking credit for the vaccines at every opportunity for months, so if that were true, the MAGA morons would be the most vaccinated motherfuckers on the planet.
Scott
I’ve taken to calling the unvaccinated “freeloaders”
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: They know dead people vote Democratic.
smith
I guess we should have realized that cajoling, pleading, and bribing the refusniks would do nothing but make them feel important and special while basking in the light of our concern. Why would they want to give in, and lose all that attention? Enough carrots, time for some sticks.
JoyceH
@CaseyL:
Consistent? Really? Problem is that the same people who cast themselves as Prudent Skeptics (the vaccine is too new, was developed too quickly, etc) also seem to be the ones who will take a horse worming pill because of something they saw on Tik-Tok.
hueyplong
@JoyceH: Or take hydroxy.
jl
Trump and GOP have been entirely cynical regarding vaccines, with their fingers in the breeze and talking out of both sides of their mouths. As Trump was able to keep his base a big factor in GOP, and their threat to incumbent GOPers in upcoming primaries) they went all in on their anti-vax lies, not so much on Trump’s attempt to get total credit for supposedly creating the vaccines. So, maybe they guessed wrong for next general if not primary, and are in a pickle. I hope so.
One thing Marshall remembers to point out is that vaccine hesitancy and lack of access is still a problem, but one that can be solved for several important groups: African-Americans, Hispanics, low income non-Trumper whites, rural areas not in Trump fanatic club. African-American vaccine hesitancy has almost disappeared in most places, Hispanic more accepting that whites in many places, but have trouble with access.
We need to remember that there are still two problems in lower than needed vaccine uptake in order to implement effective programs.
Bobby Thomson
Should have been done long ago.
kindness
I went to a show at the Greek Theater at UC Berkeley on Saturday. They were requiring showing your covid vaccine papers in order to gain entry. All others need not apply. Thankfully I keep my card in my pack and had no issues going in. Also too, since everyone inside the place was vaccinated, we didn’t wear masks most the show. It was great. I miss live music so much.
Yutsano
I always thought the inflection point would be full approval. Once that happened, we were going to see who wanted to add going poor to pwn the libs. But now Republican voters are dying. Anti-vax hurts them. And suddenly the big propaganda machine finds it has a limit. This is one helluva backfire.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@dr. luba: Thanks, I fixed it.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
I agree with everyone saying you can’t believe a word these people say. They’re using vaccination as an excuse to air their grievances, but whatever you do to address today’s grievance will just cause another one to surface. Nothing you can do will end the cycle, because wingnut grievance is an endlessly renewable resource.
WereBear
They have been skating along because no one enforces consequences for their heedless selfishness.
Make it stop.
Hoodie
@ET: Seems like it’s already time for the CIC to mandate vaccination for all active duty military. This is a straight up readiness issue – we know that Covid affects readiness. It’s a joke to claim that the risk of Covid vaccine is anything near the types of risks that service people are expected to take on a daily basis.
Delk
All the money in the world couldn’t buy back those days.
Bobby Thomson
I’m OK with them suffering the natural consequences of their intentional actions, but they should be kept away from those people who aren’t completely selfish bastards.
mrmoshpotato
@hueyplong: Or inject disinfectant and shove a lightbulb up their butt.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
Twice.
NotMax
@Scott
Notshots.
;)
...now I try to be amused
@Hoodie:
I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already. When I was a military kid everyone including spouses and kids got their shots, period the end.
jl
@Baud: Dead people who really don’t exist from wrong addresses, voting hundreds of times each with harvested bamboo ballots from Communist China!
Immanentize
@dr. bloor: What?? No respect for Staten Island?!
NotMax
@Roger Moore
They rate a demerit badge.
;)
MJS
I really don’t like the “you must be vaccinated, or agree to weekly tests.” Weekly tests are pretty much worthless – you can become positive the day after the test, and have 6 full days to spread Covid. And why should employers bear the burden of testing? It should be “You must be vaccinated. If for medical reasons you can’t be vaccinated, you will be tested daily.”
NotMax
@Immanentize
Staten Island, the Rodney Dangerfield of boroughs.
Mel
OT: I appreciate the The The reference with the title.
Suzanne
@Bobby Thomson: That’s the issue: how to keep them away from us.
Maybe the answer is a wall…. a big, beautiful wall…..
Baud
@NotMax: I like that.
Betty Cracker
It sure would be nice if for once — for fucking once! — the Republican Party’s fecklessness and stupidity backfired in a spectacular way. GWB was reelected after the Iraq War was revealed to be a disastrous sham. Trump got 10 million more votes after mismanaging a deadly pandemic and beclowning America on the international stage for four straight years. So I don’t expect it. But it sure would be nice to see consequences. It’ll be hard to take if Obama-era Dems end up punished more for expanding access to healthcare than Republicans are for kowtowing to a traitorous loser.
Immanentize
@Delk: my thought exactly. That and the fact that I love me an accordion.
Immanentize
@NotMax: I think I need to buy a bunch of those to hand out now and again.
cain
@Betty Cracker: I don’t understand these op-eds. Also who is the audience for these op-eds? It’s another piece of bullshit because they know that it’s going to be read by squishy Dems? So that they’d demand their reps reach out and give tehse assholes whatever they wish? lol Good luck with that
Immanentize
@NotMax: But with guns.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Seconded. But, like you, I don’t see the GOP suffering a major wipeout as long as we continue to be the party of civil rights.
Bill
At the end of WWII we had denazification. Now we need defoxification.
West of the Rockies
This is OT and probably weird anyway, but anyone want to venture a best guess as to when Trump would likely pass on from natural causes or suffer such dementia as to render him unable to appear in public?
Until he is out of the picture, a metric shit-ton of Republicans will screw up our nation’s health, education, and environment.
He’s just turned 75.
Matt McIrvin
@JoyceH: Any drug a doctor tells you not to take is safe!
Matt McIrvin
@West of the Rockies: I think Trump’s survival may be irrelevant now–it’s not about him any more.
mrmoshpotato
Delk
@Immanentize: I’m a proud graduate of the Academy of Accordion.
The The took forever to tour but it’s still in my top ten concerts.
Baud
@cain:
Think of the possible outcomes.
The op/eds are essentially trolling because the authors are in a no-lose position.
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
It was never about Trump. He was just a conduit for the feelings of the worst parts of the Republican base. To the extent he changed things, it’s by proving you can get to the very top of the party by pandering to those worst elements.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
That seems pretty comprehensive. You just left out that in 3), they figure out some way of minimizing and/or stealing credit for whatever the Democrats accomplish by ignoring them.
Gravenstone
@Betty Cracker: If Trump wants credit for the vaccines, then he also needs to take responsibility for fucking up the national response to covid. As that will never happen, then he can kindly go fuck himself on the nearest available rusted pitchfork.
Mallard Filmore
@Betty Cracker:
Timing counts for a lot. Early 2020, SFB thought ignoring COVID and suppressing testing would be good for his re-election. It might have worked if the plague started a month or two before the election. Not so much when there is a trail of a few hundred thousand bodies.
Now the GQP is asking adherents to sacrifice themselves for the NEXT election. Again, it’s way too soon to be a good move.
Patricia Kayden
By any means necessary
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: Biden should send every American Groucho masks.
James E Powell
No one at the NYT or WaPo or any Sunday or cable show will admit that this exists.
JoyceH
@Roger Moore:
Trump didn’t create them, but he’s a concentrator. He’s like a magnet that gathers together all the scattered iron filings of wackadoodle-doo. If Trump magically vanished, those iron filings would be all over the place, and the GOP down on their knees trying to gather up the biggest heap of them, and to steal the heaps of the others.
JCJ
@Betty Cracker: another thing is that the first vaccine to get the Emergency Use Authorization was made by BioNTech, a German company, in partnership with Pfizer. Dump had little if anything to do with that
danielx
@West of the Rockies:
Since when have his followers ever exhibited any concern over his mental state? He’s sounded deranged in public appearances for years now. He could be wheeled out on stage in a straitjacket and strapped to a dolly, a la Hannibal Lecter, while frothing at the mouth about the insects and lizards plaguing him….they’d still cheer him.
Baud
@JCJ: The last administration put the first purchase contracts in place, I believe. Europe apparently did a worse job with the initial contracting. It’s not a whole lot in the scheme of things, but it’s fine to acknowledge reality. But that won’t be enough for the people who are demanding Trump get credit.
Baud
Somewhat OT, via LGM
prostratedragon
Aslant topic: Remember that unsettling infant at the end of 2001? Well, somewhat ahead of time this being only 2021, he’s all growed up. He’s a bona fide Talibangelical and his picture is at the top of this post.
Another Scott
STATNews – a new way to visualize COVID-19 Case Surges in the USA:
F = m a – it’s not quite intuitive, but very powerful.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
Here in the Pacific Northwest there are apparently state laws that prevent hospitals from requiring vaccination of health care workers. That is definitely the case in OR according to local news coverage, and I think also in WA. In Oregon this is all pre-Covid and a legacy of the last generation of anti-vax wackos apparently getting influence in the Dem state legislature.
What they need to do is call a special session and end that bullshit. If not, at least work-around it by doing something like a daily PCR test requirement for all health care workers that you can exempt from if you are vaccinated. Make people fucking wait in line to get their nose deep-swabbed on a daily basis and have a supply of vaccine right there ready to go for anyone who gets tired of the daily probing.
We are now getting hospital outbreaks here in the Vancouver area due to this bullshit of coddling health care workers who don’t want to get vaccinated. I’m completely done with these fuckers.
This week we had 28 cases of Covid break out at the largest local hospital due to a toxic brew of both unvaccinated patients and staff: https://www.columbian.com/news/2021/jul/22/peacehealth-covid-19-cases-more-than-double/
JoyceH
@Baud: I saw that article, and what’s weird is that Parkland was over THREE years ago, and this guy just became convinced it was a hoax THIS year, while living in a house with a blood relative who was THERE. Man, HOW do these conspiracy nuts DO it?!
James E Powell
@rikyrah:
Hard for me to imagine anyone – especially at that age – going to prison if they don’t have to, even for a relatively short stretch. Is he confident of an acquittal or just dreaming of some random thing happening that gets him off the hook?
Kent
@Baud: We need to start calling her “Marge”
Hoodie
@Betty Cracker: That’s only another flavor of own the libs, i.e., make them grovel to Trump and then pull the football away by doing squat. The only thing that will get these people to get vaccinated is loss of privileges or someone close to them dying, although I would expect the former is more of a motivator for a lot of them.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
You beat me to it.
Baud
@Kent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae8t-QKPVY4
JoyceH
@Kent:
I like Empty Gee. It’s MTG, which just a slight rearranging of syllable emphasis.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: If we want to control the narrative the way they have, what we should do is flatly deny that Operation Warp Speed existed, claim it’s a media conspiracy that anyone even thinks such a thing existed, and angrily mock and harass anyone who says otherwise.
...now I try to be amused
@Baud:
Liberal politics is always a harder sell than conservative politics. Right-wingers can appeal to fear, hate, and tribalism; i.e., the hindbrain. We appeal to people’s better nature, and too many people haven’t got one
Which is to say, I agree with you.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@rikyrah: Good. Some of the most anti-government asshats I’ve met, work for the government. These mandates will help stop them from abusing their ‘freedom’ to spread disease or force them to quit. Either is a positive outcome.
...now I try to be amused
@Patricia Kayden: Shy vaxxers!
Baud
@JoyceH:
I don’t know specifically about Qanon. I’ve always thought that the way right-wing media did it over the long term was to regurgitate what their audience believes to be the “truth” about subjects such as race, sex, or religion; and then once the audience gets addicted to that “reality,” not only are they more receptive to other types of lies, it becomes emotionally costly for them to abandon their new community.
The Q stuff spreads with such rapidity, however, than I’m not sure it follows the same model.
varmintito
“Republicans are going to whine about whatever we do, so why bother with half measures?”
We have a winner.
dmsilev
@Another Scott: Just a word of caution. Derivatives, such as the “case acceleration” in that article, are inherently noisy and twitchy quantities. Be careful about drawing too much in the way of conclusions from them. They can be useful ways of looking at the data, but that caveat is important.
dr. bloor
@James E Powell:
Carlos Ghosn waves from Lebanon.
A country in which, as it happens, Barrack hold citizenship.
MattF
@West of the Rockies: I’ve just read the first few chapters of Landslide and the short answer is ‘never’. Trump is already showing enough symptoms to send in the tranquilizer-dart crew. And will continue to as long as he survives.
Betty Cracker
@JoyceH: That’s an excellent analogy! I will never understand how a person like Trump became their avatar, but he did, and I believe you are right that it will be difficult to slot in a replacement.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
They are raised to believe there is no objective truths and making ones mind up about something as true or false is a moral failing.
Another Scott
Across the pond, Dominic Cummings is on the case!
rofl.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Baud: How is that even possible???
Sister Golden Bear
Anyone who’s not a cisgender straight white conservative Christian (man) has been asked to have “sympathy” and coddle them for centuries. Fuck the Neo-Confederates’ feelings.
JCJ
@Baud: There is of course credit for placing the orders for the vaccines which is something nearly every other country screwed up, but I have read claims Dump helped develop the vaccines. I was merely pointing out that BioNTech developed the first vaccine without Dump’s input. Perhaps some of the clinical trials were helped along, but I would argue Angela Merkel should should get at least as much credit (minimal) or perhaps the Bürgermeister of Mainz.
James E Powell
@dr. bloor:
That is, of course, another possibility. Does anyone remember Robert Vesco?
Ksmiami
@Betty Cracker: death has a way of focusing the mind…
@CaseyL: I don’t really mind if the gop death cult comes to its natural conclusion- I just don’t want innocent people to suffer
Gravie
That’s sure as hell where I am now. The stupid/stubborn/selfish asshats who won’t consider vaccination are undoing all of our efforts over the last year and a half to survive this plague. Not even to mention our efforts to make possible a semblance of normal life. I’ve had it with them. I don’t care if they live or die and actually would prefer the latter as long as they don’t take any innocents with them.
Captain C
@dr. bloor: Or Staten Island, where they’ll be easier to isolate.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Indeed, every NYT Times reporter in the lunch time crowed at this Ohio Roadside dinner told the NYT Timers they could see no effort by the press to romanticize Midwestern GOP voters as an oppressed segment of society.
Sister Golden Bear
@MJS:
I read that Delta goes from infection to symptoms in a little more than days — two less than previous strains. So daily isn’t so farfetched.
FWIW, Israel announced that the unvaxxed refusniks would be required to provide weekly testing results to access pretty much all public spaces — and they’d need to pay for it out of their own pocket. ‘Course I think it’s reasonable those who legitimately can’t get vaxxed for medical reasons, shouldn’t have to pay.
Roger Moore
@JCJ:
We screwed it up, too. I don’t know if you remember, but Trump only ordered 100 million doses of each vaccine and there were threats it was going to take until summer before we got more. It was the Biden Administration that straightened that out and made sure we were going to get plenty of vaccine to go around.
Brachiator
@West of the Rockies:
No.
Also, there are people who have constructed this ghoul pool for many elderly political figures of both parties.
Morzer
@cain: Republicans want three things for the American people: rape, racism and ruin. There’s no compromise worth having with these vicious degenerates.
Ksmiami
@Baud: Covid sez hi! I mean a wipeout doesn’t have to be votes…
The Thin Black Duke
@Sister Golden Bear: Thank you. Anyone who is the ‘Other’ has always known that the only way to satisfy them is to be complicit in your own erasure. The monsters have fangs and they love to bite. Please don’t tell me to believe their lies.
debbie
@Roger Moore:
You do NOT know Donald Trump if you think it wasn’t all about him. Just ask him!
Ken
@Patricia Kayden: Imagine the SNL skit: every member of a family has gotten secretly vaccinated but doesn’t dare tell the others. Hilarity ensues.
Haydnseek
@Betty Cracker: Can’t link, but The Rude Pundit has one of the most beautiful, righteous and gloriously profane rants I’ve ever enjoyed. It’s titled why we’re so furious at the unvaccinated, and deserves wide distribution.
Hoodie
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, they need more than just someone who parrots or sucks up to Trump. They need someone who is a celebrity like Trump. I don’t think Trump wannabes like DeSantis, JD Vance, Hawley, etc. can pull that off. They have to have an independent mythos. Trump had one before he ever got into politics.
James E Powell
@Haydnseek:
Link to Rude Pundit:
Why We’re So Fucking Angry at the Unvaccinated
Also to:
Answering the Dumb Responses to “Why We’re So Fucking Angry at the Unvaccinated”
Geminid
Last week when there was an apparently coordinated pro-vaccination push by Republican politicians and conservative media figures, people wondered how and why this happened. Was it the stock market drop, or a fear of excessive die-off among Republican voters? Were there was alarming numbers in private polling?
It occured to me that there is a sort of public poll that everyone can access: the U.S. vaccination rate that is now 49.7%, and rising. The rate among adults is higher. I bet the rate among adults who vote is higher still. The vaccinated now form a clear majority that will naturally be skeptical if not outright hostile towards the unvaccinated and those who encourage them. This phenomenon could be hazardous to the careers of Republican politicians who do not get on the right side of this pressing public health issue.
These politicians talk a good game about principles like “individual freedom,” “limited government” and the like. But their core principle is, “I must be reelected.”
trollhattan
@Kent:
California’s vaccine hero.
State Senator Dr. Pan is the reason we no longer have a religious vaccine exception for school kids. We happen to live in his district.
ETA no, I do not know what a religious vaccine is. IPA?
Steve in the ATL
@mrmoshpotato: in Illinois, for sure!
Dan B
@James E Powell: My take is the Covidiots know that our polite words are fake. We’ve been distressed about what they are doing and saying because it increases the chance that people we care about will fall ill and it will prolong the pandemic by years. The first rule of communication is be honest. If you don’t want to then hold your tongue or leave.
We go nowhere if we conceal our true feelings.
Baud
@Dan B:
I don’t think Biden had been fake.
Haydnseek
@James E Powell: Thank You! I appreciate it.
Mike in NC
I just finished reading “I Alone Can Fix It” and feel like a long shower is in order to wash the Trump stench away. A few of the revelations about what the Orange Clown wanted to do when reelected: (1) drop out of NATO to please his mentor Putin, (2) pull all US forces out of South Korea to please his little buddy Kim, and (3) continue to hollow out the federal government and insert unqualified lackeys in important roles. He particularly wanted loyalists in place at the FBI, CIA, and DOD so that he could decide when to declare himself emperor for life. Imagine cokehead Don Jr. as director of the CIA, or idiot son Eric appointed to run the FBI. No doubt he’d have brought General Flynn back as Secretary of Defense. He also had a huge list of enemies he wanted to humiliate and fire, starting with Dr. Tony Fauci, who had the temerity to not constantly kiss his fat ass.
Trump will truly go down in history as one of the biggest pieces of shit that ever drew a breath.
Seanly
@Scout211:
Good. Get vaccinated. And not just for COVID, but all the other vaccines that one should get.
My wife works for the largest employer in Idaho – St Luke’s Healthcare System. It and St Alphonsus Hospital are trying to mandate vaccinations for all staff who work in the hospital (there’s lots of admin staff who work in other facilities or from home like my wife). Idaho’s Lt Gov went nuts.
I wonder if the video of the white guy in a hospital bed pronouncing that the 3 month hospital stay was worth not getting vaccinated played a role in tipping the scales. How could anyone look at that & think he’s making any sense
Also, I usually try to have empathy for people but I am tapped out on empathy. I don’t want to get COVID. You’re still free even if you have to get a couple of shots to keep you from dying. You can still eat, drink, drive, or shoot yourself to death.
NotMax
Has this been mentioned?
Carl Bernstein Dubs Trump a ‘War Criminal’ Who Suffers from ‘Delusional Madness’
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike in NC: I started the audiobook yesterday. I don’t know if I ever knew that Laura Ingram was The Beast’s source on hydrochloroquine (sp?), which I thought of again when I saw this thread
GSV Sleeper Service
@Seanly: All the Boise providers pulled the trigger on the same day, so the snowflakes couldn’t just jump ship to a different provider – I guess they can work at one of the restaurants that are bitching about no workers, or see if Saltzer out in Covid County is hiring…
My sister works at St Luke’s, she says they’re considering delaying elective surgeries again.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This also reminds me of people I know who reject traditional medicine as “untested” but eagerly jump for folk medicine and supplements.
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: Come on Steve, you know damn good and well that it’s just in Chicago. Well, okay, and the Chicago suburbs.
Brachiator
@Mike in NC:
Yep. But paradoxically he will be championed by his loyal base forever.
Danielx
@Mike in NC:
One of (the many) refreshing things about not TFG in the Oval Office is not having the media paying attention to the utterances of his idiot offspring.
sab
@Haydnseek: That had been my life with our new demon cat.
Geminid
@Danielx: Another refreshing thing: trump had a rally in Phoenix Saturday night, and no one is talking about it.
The Pale Scot
All, absolutely all of the policies and memes coming from right are nothing but an effort to delegitimize collective action, all kinds of collective action. It started in the 50’s as a way to hobble civil rights, moved on to discredit environmental action, the to lead, tobacco etc. After 60 years they have to keep the amplifier at 111+! to keep the attention of they’re targets. This week it seems the drum is going to banging on crime, crime in NYC, Chicago, LA. That double murder in Arcadia by two white crackers this weekend, not a word about from the local MAGAts. They’ve succeeded in generating disbeliefs, now it’s about running a Gish Gallup to prevent any reflection.
The deepest conservative belief is that asset owners joining together to increase the leverage of their wealth is a vital engine for free enterprise.
The other deepest belief is that workers joining together to increase the leverage of their labor or communities acting in concert against the interests of asset owners is an affront to god and the natural order.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: except for the routers thing (his latest conspiracy theory is votes stolen by routers, the consensus is he doesn’t know what a router is)
frosty
@James E Powell: Man, I have got to start reading Rude Pundit again. Who else can talk about nipple rings in a post about vaccinations?
Brachiator
@Hoodie:
I don’t think this is true, but we will see how it shakes out. Trump benefited from being a celebrity, but Trumpism is about anger and white resentment. The GOP can easily exploit this.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
maybe this will motivate those troublesome Youths!
NotMax
FYI.
Suzanne
@Patricia Kayden: WTF?!?!
That is the weirdest shit.
Republicans are weird. Every one of them.
Dan B
@Baud: I and my communications experts / pros believe this honesty is one reason Biden / Harris / Psaki has had success. They won’t move the intractable but they may earn some respect. And the persuadable are likely to begin to trust them.
trollhattan
Newsom gathers some fans.
trollhattan
@Suzanne: The Don’t Show Me State.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
It seems really clear that the thing that makes people reject modern medicine is something other than what they’re saying. There’s something they don’ t like about modern medicine, but they aren’t being honest about what it is.
Dan B
@Dan B: They’re not “my experts”. They’re friends and fellow activists. The common observation is the Biden / Harris team is doing an excellent job of mass communication. There have been a couple glitches but the reason they stand out is they are a glaring contrast to 99%.
The Thin Black Duke
@Roger Moore: Believing in modern medicine means listening to the smart people behind it, and these folks don’t want to do that because smart people makes them feel dumb. So they get angry instead.
Dan B
@Roger Moore: I wonder if part of the distrust is modern medecine’s logical and dispassionate communication. This would dusturb people who are emotional communicators. The other facets could be confusion and inability to grasp complex chemistry and scientific principles.
And there are people who have had bad outcomes and / or know people and believe must be the result of some terrible secret flaws.
Kent
@Brachiator: It really takes one to know one I guess.
Dan B
@The Thin Black Duke: That’s definitely one cohort. If not the biggest cohort.
dr. bloor
@Haydnseek:
A trigger warning is warranted.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
I don’t know. Some people seem to have a natural affinity for woo. They want to believe that natural, organic and folk and non-traditional stuff is better or somehow more magically in tune with nature.
I once tried to suggest to a friend that it made no sense to believe that taking more vitamins and supplements than could ever exist in a normal meal was a reasonable idea. He just looked at me like I was crazy.
Another person I know is convinced that there is no such thing as germs, and that only weak minded people get sick.
I know people who distrust Big Pharma and will instead go to Chinatown for herbal remedies. I asked how they knew that they were actually getting what the label said and how they could verify that they were always getting the prescribed amount. Trust.
There is an alternate universe in which modern medicine is too new to be trusted. And the only way to get real medicine is by means of something you eat or maybe rub on your skin.
The way the universe intended.
ETA. Some of the personal responsibility and libertarian types are not that far removed from some posters here and in other forums who believe that they are smart enough to read the medical literature for themselves and decide what to do.
But of course most of these personal responsibility types simply cry “liberty” and then do what feels comfortable or what someone on Fox News told them what to do.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
RE: 500 San Francisco bars to require proof of vaccination.
Challenge accepted. Yoots are incredibly inventive and tribal when it comes to ways to party and to drink and take drugs together. The US, the UK, France and Spain, among other places, have been the source of stories about illegal parties from the beginning of lockdowns.
It’s like how speakeasies spontaneously arose with Prohibition.
trollhattan
Holy cow, Sacramento county new infections are ahead of where they were one year ago. [headdesk]
Gravenstone
@NotMax: Reminds me of an accident scene I drove by a couple years ago. Car was pulled onto the shoulder with the front half (seriously, the seat and rear wheel were nowhere in evidence) of a motorcycle extending upright from the middle of the grill. I tried to imagine the force required to achieve that configuration.
Another Scott
Cheers,
Scott.
Just Chuck
@Betty Cracker: Katrina pretty much tanked Shrub for a second term. Shutdowns also turned out to be really unpopular. But I’m having a hard time thinking of anything recent… I think incompetence is the point now.