Vaccination data hints at new pandemic phase in which COVID-19 spreads primarily among Republicans – By Hunter (Daily Kos) / May 24 2021
In news that still surprises approximately nobody, the newest vaccination data confirms that the race to immunize Americans against a pandemic virus that killed 600,000 people in this country has been thoroughly partisanized. Democratic-leaning communities are getting vaccinated. Republican communities aren’t. Analyzing the newest data, CNN reports that 21 of the top 25 most-vaccinated states were won by Joe Biden in the 2020 election, and 21 of the least vaccinated states voted for Trump—including all but one of the bottom 17.
“The correlation between vaccination rates and the 2020 election outcome by state has only strengthened over time,” says CNN analyst Harry Enten. That’s almost certainly because vaccine supply is no longer so constrained, turning personal motivation into the new driving factor for who’s getting the vaccine and who isn’t. We already know who won’t be getting the vaccine, because they are very vocal about it: Trump supporters. Fox News watchers. Diehard Republicans who believe, despite all available evidence and quite probably themselves knowing someone who died, that the world pandemic is a hoax perpetrated by scientists or “globalists” or other supposed elites working behind the scenes.
This never had to happen. Conservative Americans were encouraged to reject pandemic safety for one simple reason: Donald Trump, an incompetent, disinterested, malignant narcissist who at no point was able to learn even the most basic duties of governance, had no idea how to respond to an emerging pandemic. Since he did not know how to respond, he declared that no response was necessary. As the virus trickled into the United States, then began exploding in local communities, he and his team of real estate scions and D-tier yes-men stuck to the notion that each report was a trick by invisible enemies to make Donald look bad.
Because Republicanism had already devoted itself to other propagandas, Republican House and Senate members quickly fell in line. Because Republicanism was already no more than a cheap cult obsessed with harming their perceived enemies and providing omnipresent praise for their allies, Fox News and other fascism-premised outlets began broadcasting the same claims nonstop, buttressing them with conspiracy theories and outright mockery of the severity of the pandemic.
