An equally instructive split-screen image came out of a news conference of Senate Republicans on Tuesday: Roy Blunt of Missouri, a longtime party stalwart who is retiring after his current term, pleaded with Americans to get vaccinated, reading aloud news articles about unvaccinated Missourians stricken with the illness. Looking on at his side was Rick Scott of Florida, the head of the partys Senate campaign committee, who has introduced legislation banning vaccine passports and, in a Fox Business interview, called declining to be vaccinated a personal choice.
A growing number of Republicans running for high office have tried to harness conservative discontent by pledging their opposition to new mandates, including Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the former White House spokeswoman running for governor of Arkansas, who this week simultaneously encouraged voters to take what she called the Trump vaccine and vowed not to impose mask or vaccine requirements in office.
Former Gov. Mike Leavitt of Utah, who served as the federal health secretary in the George W. Bush administration, said the countrys leaders should recognize they were still in the early days of the pandemic, as a political matter a demoralizing warning to those hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel.
After a dozen years of partisan warfare about the structure of the health care system, Mr. Leavitt added, it should be no surprise that a pathogen that has claimed more than 600,000 American lives would yield another version of that bitter debate.
When you boil it down, its the same issue: What role should government play in our lives? Mr. Leavitt said.
Peter Kauffmann, a Democratic strategist advising Mayor Bill de Blasio on New York Citys response to the pandemic, said it had become tragically clear that much of the country was unwilling to do its part to hasten the end of the pandemic.
Theres not going to be that aha moment that were all waiting for, Mr. Kauffmann said. Those of us on the responsible wing of the country just have to keep plugging away.read more
‘Covid With a Vengeance’ Consumes U.S. Politics
