For Now, The ‘Silent Majority’ Is Fed Up With the Unvaxxed Minority

Had everyone eligible to get vaccinated against Covid-19 done so as soon as practicable and receive two shots and a booster, America - and other countries struggling with vaccine refusers - might be having a very different holiday season and hospitals might not be overwhelmed with critically ill Covid patients, the vast majority of whom through stupidity and/or an insane demand for "freedom" that has been amplified by so many on the right, ranging from scamvangelists, Fox News talking heads and, of course, Republican politicans busy prostituting themselves to MAGA world and Der Trumpenfuhrer.   As a column in the New York Times notes, in promoting illness and death those on the political right who once claimed to champion the will of the "slient majority" and now the champions of a whiny and selfish minority who have no regard whatsoever for the rest of the members of their communities and the nation. In Europe, there appears to be a growing backlash by the too often silent majority against the demands of this loud and ignorance embracing minority of anti-vaxers and far right extremists.  One can only hope that we will see a growing backlash here in America against this minority and those who put the MAGA minority ahead of the health and safety of the majority.  The big issue: will restrictions beat the virus or will the sabotaging of the efforts by the far right eventually erode majority support for sane public health measures. Here are column excerpts:

I recently found myself in a conversation with a libertarian journalist who was visiting Vienna. “Should we be surprised that Austria decided to lock down the unvaccinated and that the government is pushing for mandatory vaccination?” he bellowed at me. “Was it not the Austrians and the Germans who were first to lock down their minorities in the 1930s?” It’s the kind of mind-blowing exaggeration that is so typical these days of vaccine skeptics and the anti-lockdown right.

Traditionally, it was the parties of the far right, some of them with roots in the Nazi past, that were accused of fascist tendencies. Now they are the accusers. I’ve even heard some vaccine skeptics and anti-lockdown activists call for a Nuremberg trial for anyone who advocates mandatory vaccination.

Will these attempts to impugn the overweening state and accuse mainstream politicians of medical fascism work? Maybe. A recent survey by the European Council on Foreign Relations indicates that although most West Europeans support the restrictive policies their governments have put in place to fight the coronavirus, many also have mixed feelings. . . . . Populists are eager to weaponize this.

For the moment, they are failing. Recent elections in Germany, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria indicate that voters are less ready to follow populist leaders than they were just a few years ago. A YouGov-Cambridge Globalism study found in November that populist beliefs had “broadly declined” in 10 European countries over the past three years but that at the same time, conspiratorial beliefs are on the rise.

The populist right has in recent months undergone an identity shift. It used to be that these parties claimed, with their positions on immigration and cultural change, to speak for “the people,” a silent majority. That doesn’t work anymore. Austria’s Freedom Party, for example, has adopted a hard-line anti-vaccination stance. But holding this position means that it can no longer claim to be the champion of the majority; most Austrians have chosen to get vaccinated. At least in Western Europe, the vaccinated are the majority.

Populist parties now claim to speak on behalf of a persecuted minority of nonconformists and are repositioning themselves as champions of liberty and individual rights. This may sound familiar to many Americans: They are the same positions held by the American right, even when it is in power. It’s now clear that the coronavirus crisis has contributed to the internationalization of the populist right.

This gambit to define “freedom” as heroic resistance to the interventionist state will likely falter in Europe’s aging societies, where many worry about the virus. But by opposing pandemic restrictions, these political players will have a better chance of attracting support from members of younger generations who are more likely than their parents to blame their loss of freedom on government policies than on the spread of a deadly virus.

What does this mean for mainstream politics? In the short term, the situation looks good: The parties of the center have benefited by meeting the majority of people’s expectations for precaution and protection. But by endorsing what increasingly seem like never-ending lockdowns and mandatory vaccination, European governments risk misreading a changing public sentiment.

In this context, the Omicron variant presents a major political risk. It requires a decisive response to prevent severe strains on health care systems, but at the same time, by adopting policies of maximum precaution that were the right approach at the beginning of the pandemic but are more questionable today, governments risk falling into a trap of their own making. The big state is back in a big way — but trust in the big state is not.

Europe’s mainstream political parties are now wagering their legitimacy on their ability to beat back the pandemic. It’s a dangerous gamble. Asking people to get vaccinated is good public policy, but it does not guarantee that no one will be infected or that nobody will die. Governments can reduce the risks, but they cannot eliminate them. The paradox is that the higher the percentage of vaccinated people in a society, the less likely it will be to support lockdowns and other restrictive policies.

The arrival of Omicron makes it clear that the pandemic is not yet over. But many people are already living as if the postpandemic world had arrived. In a moment like this, setting reasonable expectations is probably the best anti-populist policy any government can adopt. We cannot hope to defeat the pandemic; we will have to learn to live with it.

Fort Lauderdale Get Away - Day 1

After having two cruises, our 2020 holidays visit to Fort Lauderdale and our usual 2021 Key West trip all cancelled thanks to the pandemic, the husband and I ave finally back in Florida (and will be taking precautionsand outdoors as much as possible).  Thanks to Covid, after getting up a 2:15 am to drive to Richmond for a direct flight we were delayed in taking off for three hours.  The plus side is we got to visit with friends on the same fligh headed ultimately to Cartagena, Columbia for vacation.  Once we landed we picked up our rental arranged through Turo - sort of an Air BnB for cars - and made it to The Grand Resort a block from the beach.  Yours truly parked himself in the sun and enjoyed the sun and 80 degree temperature in the area pictured below.

We had Christmas dinner with Newport News friends who have a beautiful home here in Fort Lauderdale and had a wonderful time.  Today's agenda will include going to Sebastian Beach this morning and having drinks and dinner with other friends who have a home in Wilton Manor.  We will likely also visit Mix to check out possible additional tuxedo jackets. 

Sunday Morning Male Beauty

 

Christmas Morning Male Beauty

 

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Has Trump Belatedly Realized He Is Killing His Base?

In numerous posts this blog has looked at vaccine refusers and the disproportionate number of Covid-19 deaths among Republicans and other "conservatives" - I'd call them champions of lies and ignorance - compared to Democrats who have swarmed to get vaccinated.  The right's vaccine hesitancy has been generated by both past statements of Donald Trump and Fox News talking heads who, seemly in a search for higher ratings, have cast getting vaccinated as an attack on "freedom," a theme further disseminated by self-prostituting Republican elected officials.  Meanwhile, the GOP base has been literally dying at an accelerated rate thanks to such insane and deadly disinformation - a reality seemingly lost on Fox News loud mouths and a considerable portion of the GOP.  Thus, it was stunning when Der Trumpenfuhrer supported vaccines in a recent interview and got into a bit of set to with the right wing extremist interviewer who opposes vaccines.   Since Trump never does anything unless he thinks it is a benefit to himself - and only himself - one has to wonder if Trump has belatedly realized that opposition to vaccines is killing his MAGA base.   Another explanation is merely Trump's desire to me in the news, but the recent booing he received  in another interview suggest the former hypotheis might be the true expanation.  Critically, the unvaccinated are much to blame for America's contining pandemic.  A piece in Vanity Fair looks at the possible Trump turnabout.  Here are highlights: 

In a rare dalliance with the truth, Donald Trump championed COVID-19 vaccines in an interview published Wednesday, pushing back on an attempt by the Daily Wire’s Candace Owens to undermine the shots, calling them "very, very good.” The former president’s defense of the inoculations was, of course, as self-serving as anything he’s ever done, and by no means makes him some heroic defender of public health. But it is a welcome—albeit belated—gesture that one hopes will help convince his resistant supporters to finally get vaxxed.

The exchange with Owens began, as most Trump conversations do, with an egocentric boast. “I came up with a vaccine, with three vaccines,” he said, conjuring an image of the former president in a lab coat and goggles in the Oval Office. “All are very, very good. Came up with three of them in less than nine months. It was supposed to take five to 12 years.”

“Yet more people have died under COVID this year,” Owens responded, emphasizing that it was more deaths “under Joe Biden than under you.” She added, “and more people took the vaccine this year. So people are questioning how…”

“Oh no, the vaccines work,” Trump interrupted, telling Owens that “the ones who get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don’t take the vaccine. 

Trump maintained that “it’s still their choice” whether people want to get the jabs or not. But in clearly saying that “if you take the vaccine, you’re protected”—even if it was in the service of annoying self-congratulation—Trump finally advocated for the most effective tool we have to fight the pandemic in a way that he should have done before. Indeed, while Trump has consistently sought credit for the vaccines that were developed while he was in office, he has sent mixed signals about the shots and declined to forcefully advocate for them, even though he, himself, has been vaccinated and boosted.

The results don’t appear to be a coincidence: Counties that went for Trump, who spent his final year in office downplaying the pandemic and politicizing public health measures, have lagged behind counties that went for Biden when it comes to vaccination rates. That resistance has put not only his own supporters at greater risk for the worst effects of COVID —it has affected the nation’s pandemic response as a whole.

With the more transmissible omicron variant surging across the country, Biden has redoubled his efforts to rally Americans around vaccines and boosters—even giving his predecessor credit for their development during an address this week. But such pleas from the Democratic president seem unlikely to move those steeped in misinformation, including those who have been conditioned by Trump to view Biden as illegitimate and by the right-wing media to view vaccines and public health measures as government tyranny.

Vaccine hesitancy can be a complex issue that incorporates multiple factors, not only political affiliation. But for those who might be inclined to listen to Trump, a question remains as to whether he can even convince such holdouts at this point.  . . . But the mistrust he sowed in public health and the politics he injected into the pandemic response have become entrenched to the point that he may not be able to do anything about it, even if he really wanted to. When Trump revealed in an appearance with Bill O’Reilly on Sunday that he had received his COVID booster shot and suggested attendees do the same, his own supporters booed him. He said the jeers came from a “very tiny group” and that, by remaining unvaccinated, conservatives were “playing right into [Democrats’] hands.” But the reaction suggested that some in his base might be out of reach. 

It’s nice that he’s pushing back directly against misinformation—even if it’s because, as he acknowledged to O’Reilly on Sunday, he wants to “take credit” for the life-saving vaccines. It would’ve been nicer, though, if it hadn’t taken him until now to do so.

I suspect many in MAGA land will still refuse to get vaccinated and that base will continue to have a disproportionate death rate.  Trump's turnabout may be a case of too little too late.

Christmas Eve Male Beauty

 

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It Is Time to Criminally Investigate Trump and the Other Coup Plotters

A long op-ed in the New York Times by a former Harvard law professor and two former federal prosectors makes the case of why it is critical that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland launch a criminal investigation of Donald Trump and his acolytes involved in formenting and participating in the January 6, 2021, insurrection.  The piece also lays out why a failure to do so almost guaranties that another coup attempt - this time perhaps successful - in 2024 if the guilty parties are not prosecuted and hopefully barred from holding public office under the 24th Amendment.  The willingness of a large number of Republicans to literally die of Covid rather than follow the advice of medical experts they perceive as working for Democrats and President Biden makes it clear that any dreams of uniting the nation are a fantasy and that the much needed criminal investigation will not create more division than already exist.  Indeed, one might argue that exposing the truth and prosecuting wrongdoers could open the eyes of many sane Republicans - admittedly a disappearing species - and cause them to finally put democracy over devotion to Trump and their own latent racism.   Here are highlights from the op-ed:

In his nine months in office, Attorney General Merrick Garland has done a great deal to restore integrity and evenhanded enforcement of the law to an agency that was badly misused for political reasons under his predecessor. But his place in history will be assessed against the challenges that confronted him. And the overriding test that he and the rest of the government face is the threat to our democracy from people bent on destroying it.

Mr. Garland’s success depends on ensuring that the rule of law endures. That means dissuading future coup plotters by holding the leaders of the insurrection fully accountable for their attempt to overthrow the government. But he cannot do so without a robust criminal investigation of those at the top, from the people who planned, assisted or funded the attempt to overturn the Electoral College vote to those who organized or encouraged the mob attack on the Capitol. To begin with, he might focus on Mark Meadows, Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and even Donald Trump — all of whom were involved, in one way or another, in the events leading up to the attack.

Almost a year after the insurrection, we have yet to see any clear indicators that such an investigation is underway, raising the alarming possibility that this administration may never bring charges against those ultimately responsible for the attack.

While the Justice Department has filed charges against more than 700 people who participated in the violence, limiting the investigation to these foot soldiers would be a grave mistake: As Joanne Freeman, a Yale historian, wrote this month about the insurrection, “Accountability — the belief that political power holders are responsible for their actions and that blatant violations will be addressed — is the lifeblood of democracy. Without it, there can be no trust in government, and without trust, democratic governments have little power.”

The legal path to investigate the leaders of the coup attempt is clear. The criminal code prohibits inciting an insurrection or “giving aid or comfort” to those who do, as well as conspiracy to forcibly “prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law of the United States.” The code also makes it a crime to corruptly impede any official proceeding or deprive citizens of their constitutional right to vote.

Based purely on what we know today from news reports and the steady stream of revelations coming from the House select committee investigating the attack, the attorney general has a powerful justification for a robust and forceful investigation into the former president and his inner circle. As White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows was intimately involved in the effort to overturn the election.

Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio reportedly promoted a scheme to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject duly certified Joe Biden electors. And from their war room at the Willard Hotel, several members of the president’s inner circle hatched the legal strategy to overturn the results of the election.

The president himself sat back for three hours while his chief of staff was barraged with messages from members of Congress and Fox News hosts pleading with him to have Mr. Trump call off the armed mob whose violent passion he had inflamed. That evidence, on its own, may not be enough to convict the former president, but it is certainly enough to require a criminal investigation.

By this point in the Russia investigation, the special counsel Robert Mueller had indicted Paul Manafort and Rick Gates and secured the cooperation of George Papadopoulos after charging him with lying to the F.B.I. The media was reporting that the special counsel’s team had conducted or scheduled interviews with Mr. Trump’s aides Stephen Miller and Mr. Bannon, as well as Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Of course, there is no way to know for sure whether Mr. Garland’s Department of Justice is investigating the leaders of the attack behind closed doors. Justice Department policy does not permit announcing investigations, absent exceptional circumstances. Mr. Garland, unlike his predecessor, plays by the book, keeping quiet about investigations until charges are filed. But the first of the rioters to plead guilty began cooperating with the Justice Department back in April. If prosecutors have been using their cooperation to investigate the top officials and operatives responsible for the siege of the Capitol and our democracy, there would likely be significant confirmation in the media by now.

It is possible that the department is deferring the decision about starting a full-blown investigative effort pending further work by the House select committee. . . . . But such an approach would come at a very high cost. In the prosecution business, interviews need to happen as soon as possible after the events in question, to prevent both forgetfulness and witness coordination to conceal the truth. A comprehensive Department of Justice probe of the leadership is now more urgently needed than ever.

It is also imperative that Mr. Trump be included on the list of those being investigated. The media has widely reported his role in many of the relevant events, and there is no persuasive reason to exclude him.

First, he has no claim to constitutional immunity from prosecution. The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel has recognized such immunity only for sitting presidents because a criminal trial would prevent them from discharging the duties of their office. Mr. Trump no longer has those duties to discharge.

Nor is exclusion of the former president remotely justified by the precedent President Gerald Ford set in pardoning Richard Nixon to help the country “heal” from Watergate. Even our proud tradition of not mimicking banana republics by allowing political winners to retaliate against losers must give way in the wake of violence perpetrated to thwart the peaceful transition of power.

Furthermore, the pending state and local investigations in New York and Atlanta will never be able to provide the kind of accountability the nation clearly needs. . . . . even if the Atlanta district attorney is able to convict Mr. Meadows and Mr. Trump for interfering in Georgia’s election, they could still run for office again. Only convicting them for participating in an insurrection would permanently disqualify them from office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

[C]oncerns about a conviction are no reason to refrain from an investigation. If anything, a federal criminal investigation could unearth even more evidence and provide a firmer basis for deciding whether to indict.

To decline from the outset to investigate would be appeasement, pure and simple, and appeasing bullies and wrongdoers only encourages more of the same. Without forceful action to hold the wrongdoers to account, we will likely not resist what some retired generals see as a march to another insurrection in 2024 if Mr. Trump or another demagogue loses.

[O]nly by holding the leaders of the Jan. 6 insurrection — all of them — to account can he secure the future and teach the next generation that no one is above the law. If he [Garland] has not done so already, we implore the attorney general to step up to that task.

Thursday Morning Male Beauty