{"id":310836,"date":"2021-07-29T05:55:59","date_gmt":"2021-07-29T02:55:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/smug-dems-have-only-selves-to-blame-for-vaccine-hesitancy\/"},"modified":"2021-07-29T05:55:59","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T02:55:59","slug":"smug-dems-have-only-selves-to-blame-for-vaccine-hesitancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/smug-dems-have-only-selves-to-blame-for-vaccine-hesitancy\/","title":{"rendered":"#Smug Dems have only selves to blame for vaccine hesitancy"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Smug Dems have only selves to blame for vaccine hesitancy<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThen there was the educated Texan from Texas who looked like someone in Technicolor and felt, patriotically, that people of means \u2014 decent folk \u2014 should be given more votes than drifters, whores, criminals, degenerates, atheists and indecent folk \u2014 people without means.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Joseph Heller, Catch-22\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On \u201cThis Week With George Stephanopoulos\u201d this past Sunday, a bafflegab of Washington pooh-bahs, including Chris Christie, Rahm Emanuel, Margaret Hoover and Donna Brazile \u2014 Stephanopoulos calls the segment his \u201cPowerhouse Roundtable,\u201d which to my ear sounds like a Denny\u2019s breakfast sampler, but I guess he couldn\u2019t name it Four Hated Windbags \u2014 discussed vaccine holdouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The former George W. Bush and Giuliani aide Hoover said it was time to stop playing nice:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to get government-provided health care, if you\u2019re getting VA treatment, Medicare, Medicaid, Social<\/a> Security, anything \u2014 and Social Security obviously isn\u2019t health care \u2014 you should be getting the vaccine. OK? Because we are going to have to take care of you on the back end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brazile nodded sagely, but Emanuel all but gushed cartoon hearts.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, I\u2019m having an out-of-body experience, because I agree with you,\u201d said Obama\u2019s former hatchet man, before adding, over the chyron, FRUSTRATION MOUNTS WITH UNVACCINATED AMERICANS:<\/p>\n

\u201cI would close the space in. Meaning if you want to participate in X or Y activity, you gotta show you\u2019re vaccinated. So it becomes a reward-punishment type system, and you make your own calculation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rahm
Rahm Emanuel was former President Barack Obama\u2019s White House Chief of Staff in his first term.
\n<\/figcaption>
AP Photo\/Charles Rex Arbogast, File<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This bipartisan love-in took place a few days after David Frum, famed Bush speechwriter and creator of the \u201cAxis of Evil\u201d slogan, wrote a column in The Atlantic titled<\/a> \u201cVaccinated America Has Had Enough.\u201d In it, Frum wondered:<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes Biden\u2019s America have a breaking point? Biden\u2019s America produces 70 percent of the country\u2019s wealth \u2014 and then sees that wealth transferred to support Trump\u2019s America. Which is fine; that\u2019s what citizens of one nation do for one another . . . [But] the reciprocal part of the bargain is not being upheld . . . Will Blue America ever decide it\u2019s had enough of being put medically at risk by people and places whose bills it pays? Check yourself. Have you?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m vaccinated. I think people should be vaccinated. But this latest moral mania \u2014 and make no mistake about it, the \u201cpandemic of the unvaccinated\u201d p.r. campaign is the latest in a ceaseless series<\/a> of such manias, dating back to late 2016 \u2014 lays bare everything that\u2019s abhorrent and nonsensical in modern American politics, beginning with the no-longer-disguised aristocratic mien of the Washington consensus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you want to convince people to get a vaccine, pretty much the worst way to go about it is a massive blame campaign, delivered by sneering bluenoses who have a richly deserved credibility problem with large chunks of the population, and now insist they\u2019re owed financially besides.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s always been a contingent in American society that believes people who pay more taxes should get more say, or \u201cmore votes,\u201d as Joseph Heller\u2019s hilarious Texan put it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a conceit that cuts across parties. You hear it from the bank CEO who thinks America should thank him for the pleasure of kissing his ass with a bailout, but just as quickly from the suburban wine mom who can\u2019t believe the ingratitude of the nanny who asks for a day off. Doesn\u2019t she know who\u2019s paying the bills?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ABC
ABC Chief anchor George Stephanopoulos leads \u201cPowerhouse Roundtable,\u201d which featured a segment that blames average Americans for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine. <\/figcaption>
Lorenzo Bevilaqua\/ABC via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The delusion can run so deep that people like Margaret Hoover can talk themselves into the idea that Social Security \u2014 money taxpayers lend the government, not the other way around \u2014 is actually a gift from the check-writing class.<\/p>\n

In the last decade or so, I had the misfortune of watching this phenomenon rise within both parties. After 2008, the \u201cWe\u2019re pulling the oars, so we should steer the boat\u201d argument dominated the GOP. Offshoots of Ayn Randian thinking about ubermenschen producers and their dubious obligation to society\u2019s masses of parasitic looters provided talking points both for TARP recipients (who insisted America needed to be invested not just in their survival but their prosperity) and the Tea Party.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Remember Rick Santelli on CNBC, calling for a referendum on whether or not we should \u201csubsidize the losers\u2019 mortgages\u201d or whether we should \u201creward the people who carry the water, instead of drink the water\u201d?<\/p>\n

Then Trump came along, and the media and political landscapes were reordered. Now there was no philosophical or political split among America\u2019s wealthiest and most educated people. Both strains of snobbism \u2014 one looking down on the unschooled, the other looking down on an economically parasitic underclass \u2014 fused, putting wealthy America\u2019s pretensions under the same tent for the first time.<\/p>\n

\"Former
Former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile
\n<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 2016 election brought forth this weird paradox. On one hand, it was abundantly clear that Trump was playing class politics. His schtick was aimed at \u201celites,\u201d and the response to him was couched as an openly upper-class defense of \u201cexcellence\u201d and \u201cexpertise,\u201d and against \u201cpopulism.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Thomas Frank wrote in his terrific \u201cThe People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism,\u201d Trump was portrayed as an ignoramus revolting against his betters, with a New Yorker cartoon<\/a> depicting a mutiny of airline passengers capturing the tone:<\/p>\n

\u201cThose smug pilots have lost touch with regular passengers like us,\u201d bellows one of them. \u201cWho thinks I should fly the plane?\u201d<\/p>\n

Propaganda aims, however, required that it be denied that Trump was about anything but race. Statistic after statistic was cited proving Trump was not a \u201cworking class\u201d phenomenon, that while the median Trump voter earned less than the Kasich voter, that person also earned more than either the Clinton or Sanders voter.<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s the case. But there were other, more telling numbers. The Brookings Institute noted that Hillary Clinton won 472 counties in 2016, which accounted for 64 percent of the country\u2019s GDP. Trump meanwhile won 2,584 counties, many in flyover territory, which collectively produced 36 percent of national wealth.<\/p>\n

By 2018, it was also true that 41 of the 50 wealthiest congressional districts voted Democratic, with states like California, Virginia, New York, Maryland, and New Jersey dominating. Furthermore, those Brookings stats became an active talking point \u2014 for Democrats, who now began to stress the affluence of their voters as an indication of their moral supriority.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI won the places that represent two-thirds of America\u2019s gross domestic product,\u201d Hillary Clinton crowed, on a trip<\/a> to India. \u201cSo I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats for the first time in a long time not only outperformed Republicans in affluent white communities, but essentially owned those territories.<\/p>\n

By 2020, the divide was greater, as Frum himself noted. Joe Biden\u2019s 509 counties accounted for 71 percent of the nation\u2019s wealth, while Trump\u2019s 2,547 counties accounted for 29 percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In practical terms, what this meant is that education and income, which track pretty closely with each other, became primary determinants in national politics.<\/p>\n

This is why it\u2019s no longer surprising to see people like Frum \u2014 an incomparable villain in liberal circles even 10 years ago \u2014 cheerfully identifying himself as part of the \u201cBlue America\u201d that\u2019s \u201chad enough.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Vice
Vice President Kamala Harris previously doubted the COVID-19 vaccine simply because the Trump administration worked on it.
\n<\/figcaption>
Ken Cedeno \/ Pool via CNP \/MediaPunch<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Like Rand\u2019s famous Atlases, they all want to go on strike. American politics is no longer an argument about supply-side economics or war or big vs. small government. It\u2019s about check-writers versus check-takers, the book-learned against the dolts.<\/p>\n

The former group, the people who say they\u2019re paying the bills, have spent years now trying to let the rabble know there\u2019s a limit to both their patience and their generosity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve made it clear there are limits to how much speech freedom they\u2019ll confer, how much political choice or right to assembly will be permitted, how much ignorance will be allowed to fester.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The news<\/a> landscape has become Frank\u2019s dreaded \u201cutopia of scolding,\u201d with every screen full of finger-wagging Rahms and Brian Stelters telling us how \u201cfed up\u201d they are with others\u2019 inadequacy. This app<\/a>roach not only will fail, it already has, over and over.<\/p>\n

Now, this new vaccine debate has been amped to 11. The universal consensus of the \u201cPowerhouse Roundtable\u201d types is that it\u2019s time to start opening the whoop-ass cans on the vaccine-hesitant, yanking services and civil liberties from those murderous holdouts who are, the president tells us, \u201ckilling people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

They do this acting like the public doesn\u2019t remember the messaging from the Biden-Harris campaign last year, which was talked about at the time as being irresponsible precisely because it set a precedent of urging the public to distrust the vaccine. Biden repeatedly came out with statements like:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we finally do, God willing, get a vaccine, who\u2019s going to take the shot? Who\u2019s going to take the shot? You going to be the first one to say, \u2018Put me \u2014 sign me up, they now say it\u2019s OK?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s bad enough they went this route last year, which almost certainly resulted in some of the early reported \u201chesitancy\u201d among communities of color, but now that Biden and Harris are in office, aristocratic America is exerting its institutional influence to sterilize their history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Politifact, which now basically exists to deflect criticism from the Biden administration, rated \u201cFalse\u201d the claim that Biden and Harris \u201cactually had reservations about the safety of the vaccines.\u201d The site\u2019s excuse is that the then-candidates \u201cwere raising questions not about the vaccines themselves, but about then-President Donald Trump\u2019s rollout of the vaccines.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

What the hell does that mean? That it\u2019s OK to have reservations not just about the White House but about the CDC, FDA, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna and every other institution involved with the vaccine effort if you don\u2019t like or trust the president? Isn\u2019t that exactly the problem with Republicans who say they won\u2019t get the vaccine now?<\/p>\n

\"President
President Joe Biden helped promote vaccine hesitancy in lower income communities by antagonizing the success of the Trump administration\u2019s Operation Warp Speed.
\n<\/figcaption>
AP Photo\/Andrew Harnik<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Along with other transparent fabrications \u2014 like that Republicans only last week became pro-virus, and didn\u2019t implement 27 state vaccination programs, and didn\u2019t have Trump on Fox twice in March and April to boast about Operation Warp Speed and urge people to get the vaccine \u2014 the press and Democratic politicians alike are compounding the very problem they claim to care about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There was similar end-of-the-world howling about everything from the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to Trump\u2019s Helsinki meeting with Putin to the \u201cinsurrection,\u201d which we\u2019re told daily was worse than 9\/11 when it clearly was not. People see the hyperbole, and don\u2019t adjust back to credulity when they\u2019re told to get a shot.<\/p>\n

This is the same political story that\u2019s dominated America since Trump arrived. Why did Americans vote for such a truth-challenged candidate? Because they trusted the political aristocracy less.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How did the aristocrats respond to that damning message sent at the ballot box? They doubled the lies and doubled the scolding, increasing the mistrust.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Is anyone going to bother trying to break this cycle?<\/p>\n

Reprinted with permission from Matt Taibbi\u2019s TK News, taibbi.substack.com\u00a0<\/em>\n <\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

For forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Smug Dems have only selves to blame for vaccine hesitancy” \u201cThen there was the educated Texan from Texas who looked like someone in Technicolor and felt, patriotically, that people of means \u2014 decent folk \u2014 should be given more votes than drifters, whores, criminals, degenerates, atheists and indecent folk \u2014 people without means.\u201d\u00a0 \u2014 Joseph…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":310837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/07\/Bidencolumn.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[70855,112952,82862,10701,4941,77997,991,28776,113012,67874],"class_list":["post-310836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-2016-presidential-election","tag-7-28-21","tag-covid-vaccine","tag-democrats","tag-donald-trump","tag-george-steinbrenner","tag-joe-biden","tag-race","tag-rahm-emanuel","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}