Heather Cox Richardson’s Letter from an American for Sept. 9 minced no words:
If Biden’s new vaccine requirements slow or halt the spread of the coronavirus, the economic recovery that had been taking off before the Delta variant hit will resume its speed, strengthening his popularity. Those Republican lawmakers furious at the new vaccine requirements are possibly less worried that they won’t work than that they will.
Exactly. Remember Rush Limbaugh’s infamous words about Barack Obama back in early 2009: “I hope he fails.” And Moscow Mitch saying his number one priority being to make Obama a one-term president. The country mattered less to them than getting a Democrat — a Black one, too! — out of the White House.
Hard as it may be to believe, it’s even worse. Richardson nails it: If Biden succeeds in getting Covid under control, then the economy will continue to revive. If that happens, Biden and the Democrats stand a better chance of staying in power.
Taggan Goddard’s Political Wire (where I found the Richardson piece) sums it up neatly:
Covid-19 has now killed more Americans in the last 18 months than all the wars of the 20th century combined.
Are Republicans really going to argue that getting vaccinated is an unreasonable burden? That seems like a losing message.
NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander was equally cynical — in the other direction. At the press briefing going on now, he asked:
““As the White House knows well, the President’s poll numbers have dropped, according to polls from a variety of different outlets right now. Do you acknowledge that the public now has some doubts about the President’s handling of the virus? And is today’s announcement, in some ways, an effort to try to right that?”
As usual, Psaki put him in his place:
“This is not a political speech, and it’s certainly not about poll numbers. What we can acknowledge — and you’ve seen in a lot of these polls — is that the number-one issue, number-two issue, number-three issue for many Americans is COVID and what we’re doing,” Psaki responded.
One could argue that Alexander had been so jaded by four years of Trump’s making everything political and about him that he could no longer recognize statesmanship. I’m not going to go there.
On the other hand, I will acknowledge that there are — still — a few responsible Republican officeholders, like the governor of Vermont:
On the other hand, it is Vermont, so he’s not in danger of being primaried for being a decent governor. On the third (or fourth) hand, Florida citizens are getting more and more fed up with DeathSantis™ and it hasn’t stopped him from doubling down on killing them.
In the meantime, Biden continues to make GOP heads explode by doing thedecent thing. decent thing. More power to him.
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