Alabama Governor blaming unvaccinated for Covid Spike

[rturner76]

So refreshing to see a red-state governor use his intelligence instead of hs gut.

 

[wing2000]

It’s painfully obvious that the unvaccinated are to blame for the latest surge and they do not respond to facts or encouragement.

Will they respond to politicians blaming them?

 

[loveofourlord]

Will they respond to politicians blaming them?

Should we cuddle them and pretend like they aren't killing people?

 

[ArmenianJohn]

Well, she's 100% correct and it's overdue that government leaders should all be calling out the anti-vaxxers for the continuation of the pandemic which is really entirely their fault at this point.

Hopefully the vaccine will receive it's final approval soon so that it can be mandated by the government for people to get it or go into state-controlled quarantine.

It would be a good idea to set aside housing for the unvaccinated to live in until they get vaccinated and can re-join general society. This way they could continue to have their freedom to say no to the vaccine while also bearing the responsibility of the consequences for their actions.

It's an affront to God that He has provided us with a solution and people are rejecting His help.

 

[variant]

She may be wising up, but what kind of Republican would she be if she didn't point fingers and assign blame?

It's telling that she's blaming the people themselves rather than the ones feeding them anti-vaccination propaganda.

 

[TLK Valentine]

It's telling that she's blaming the people themselves rather than the ones feeding them anti-vaccination propaganda.

Small consolation when she gets primaried out next election.

 

[variant]

Small consolation when she gets primaried out next election.

Hard to say. She has objective truth, and the consequences that come with it on her side.

Primarying out a public official because they dared to do their job and tell you the truth will give you the representation you deserve I suppose.

It's also a question to me of how long the older more conservative population is going to rabidly vote for a group that keeps encouraging younger folks not to get vaccinated.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

A political cartoon can do either or both.

Seems like the good ones should aim at doing both...

And shame on him/her for squandering the awesome power and responsibility that comes with wielding the cartoonist's pen

Clearly their work has reach of some sort, you found it to post it here, correct?

True -- but also irrelevant.

I don't think it's irrelevant... if the goal was to shine a spotlight on the situation in the US pertaining to vaccine refusal, shining a spotlight on only one tiny facet of the problem (because it's an easy way to get a cheap pop from their partisan fanbase) seems a tad disingenuous.

If we take it by the numbers...
Recent polling data would suggest that 40%-45% of republican men are vaccine hesitant (meaning "no I won't get it", or "I haven't decided")

Compared with 45% of Black Americans, and roughly 46% of millenials and Gen-Z who are in the "I won't get it" or the "I'll wait a while and see" categories.

Doesn't seem like a huge disparity there between those two groups.

Yet, there seems to be a concerted effort to make "Vaccine Refusal" synonymous with "Conservative".


I suspect some GOP strategists have caught on to these trends, and that's why they're making this recent push for vaccination among their own party's peeps over these past few weeks (including conservative pundits...I saw Hannity on a video promoting vaccination now) after months of silence on the matter (or counter-productive thinly veiled anti-vaxx sentiments)

If they can roll into the mid-terms and be able to point the finger at 2 demographic groups that lean heavily democratic as "the least vaccinated and the people that are holding us back from herd immunity" it could make for effective political fodder, I suspect that may be the GOP's motivation for their sharp u-turn over the past few weeks.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Unless all of the people in the Black and 18-29 demographics are just a bunch of Trump Loving Republicans... then there's additional aspects we need to be looking into in order to get more people vaccinated.

One of my brothers is in that latter demographic (in his mid-20's), he's a "bleeding heart lib" on almost every social issue that exists, but he won't get vaccinated despite my best efforts to talk sense into him. "Its not that dangerous for people my age" and "I don't want to deal with the side effects after the second shot" are the most common replies I get from him.

I agree. There are many who are not die-hard right-wing ideologs who are also very hesitant to get the vaccine, even after they have seen members of their own community die of covid. Part of the reason goes back to a long-standing distrust of the medical establishment by marginalized communities. Then we have to consider that after misinformation starts circulating, the ideology of the ones who started it becomes detached from that misinformation, and the misinformation takes on a life of its own. People in marginalized communities who run into misinformation on social media may not even realized the political motives the where that misinformation came from. And so they can help to spread it among their community too. So we can't label all believers in misinformation as belonging to any one political ideology. Vaccines were first invented in 1798. The anti-vaccine campaign began in 1799.

 

[TLK Valentine]

Seems like the good ones should aim at doing both...



Clearly their work has reach of some sort, you found it to post it here, correct?



I don't think it's irrelevant... if the goal was to shine a spotlight on the situation in the US pertaining to vaccine refusal, shining a spotlight on only one tiny facet of the problem (because it's an easy way to get a cheap pop from their partisan fanbase) seems a tad disingenuous.

If we take it by the numbers...
Recent polling data would suggest that 40%-45% of republican men are vaccine hesitant (meaning "no I won't get it", or "I haven't decided")

Compared with 45% of Black Americans, and roughly 46% of millenials and Gen-Z who are in the "I won't get it" or the "I'll wait a while and see" categories.

Doesn't seem like a huge disparity there between those two groups.

Yet, there seems to be a concerted effort to make "Vaccine Refusal" synonymous with "Conservative".


I suspect some GOP strategists have caught on to these trends, and that's why they're making this recent push for vaccination among their own party's peeps over these past few weeks (including conservative pundits...I saw Hannity on a video promoting vaccination now) after months of silence on the matter (or counter-productive thinly veiled anti-vaxx sentiments)

If they can roll into the mid-terms and be able to point the finger at 2 demographic groups that lean heavily democratic as "the least vaccinated and the people that are holding us back from herd immunity" it could make for effective political fodder, I suspect that may be the GOP's motivation for their sharp u-turn over the past few weeks.

And yet... still irrelevant.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

And yet... still irrelevant.

Is the thread not about "blaming unvaccinated for covid spike"?

...your response was to a poster who was making a statement about how covid was politicized. (in which you posted something that was attempting to draw a political link to vaccine refusal) IE: politicizing covid

How was what I posted not relevant?

 

[TLK Valentine]

Is the thread not about "blaming unvaccinated for covid spike"?

...your response was to a poster who was making a statement about how covid was politicized. (in which you posted something that was attempting to draw a political link to vaccine refusal) IE: politicizing covid

How was what I posted not relevant?

Seems a lot of verbiage over a political cartoon...

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Seems a lot of verbiage over a political cartoon...

A political cartoon is a medium for conveying an idea just like any other artform.

By that standard, any idea that's inaccurate, counter-productive, or aimed at negatively portraying a particular group shouldn't be taken too seriously when called out for it as long as it was in the form of a political cartoon?

Someone should've told NY Times, The Hill, CBS, and ABC (who all made it front page news) when a White House aide posted a political cartoon mocking Fauci back in 2020...and in each of their articles, went out of their way to correct the inaccuracies (at length) with what the cartoon was trying to portray.


If this was another hot-button topic, and a die-hard right-wing person posted this in response to it:

People would just let it slide because "it's just a cartoon, don't take it seriously"? Highly doubt it. People would be rightfully upset about the unflattering depiction as well the narrow one-sided view it was attempting to convey.

 

[variant]

Seems a lot of verbiage over a political cartoon...

To be fair. ThatRobGuy's skillset has never seemed to include brevity.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

To be fair. ThatRobGuy's skillset has never seemed to include brevity.

Hey now...in all fairness, when I'm posting from my phone they're usually shorter since it's not as easy to type on there

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Primarying out a public official because they dared to do their job and tell you the truth will give you the representation you deserve I suppose.

How does that old saying go with regards to democracy?

"the idea that common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard"

 

[variant]

How does that old saying go with regards to democracy?

"the idea that common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard"

That's actually the good argument for republics and representative democracy (rather than to advantage one group over another) and liberal democracy (where steps are taken to protect human rights regardless of public will).

I'm hoping that the AI revolution will give us better simulations so that we can better ask the public what they want the end goal to be rather than arguing about what "ISM" works.

Information technology should probably be put to better use than expediating the process of making sure we all hate each other.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

That's actually the good argument for republics and representative democracy (rather than to advantage one group over another) and liberal democracy (where steps are taken to protect human rights are protected regardless of public will).

I'm hoping that the AI revolution will give us better simulations so that we can better ask the public what they want the end goal to be rather than arguing about what "ISM" works.

Yep...

While direct democracies sound like they may be "the most fair way to do it" to some...

The whole adage of "two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner" carries some truth to it.

Although, I'd say that simply having a republic by itself (while better than a direct democracy) still needs to have the human rights safeguards you mentioned in place regardless.

A representative layer creates a nice proxy and layer of separation that can weed out some of the problematic group-think. But as we've seen in our own republic, on some issues, the group-think just gets moved up to the rung of the ladder. Especially when legislative reps transition from "representing the majority" to "pandering to the majority"

 

[variant]

A representative layer creates a nice proxy and layer of separation that can weed out some of the problematic group-think. But as we've seen in our own republic, on some issues, the group-think just gets moved up to the rung of the ladder. Especially when legislative reps transition from "representing the majority" to "pandering to the majority"

I would wager that the groupthink might be worse up the ladder than among the electorate currently.

We're currently dealing with one of the known problems of republics where concentrated power and tribalism of the representatives actively try's to undermine the public welfare and will in order to tilt the scales in it's favor for more power.

Which is why I'm giving a lot of credit for those not acting like they're looking out for the best thing for "the tribe" but rather just looking for the best course of action.

 

[hedrick]

There are lots of reasons for not being vaccinated. Being a Republican is only one. But it does seem to be an important contributing factor.