Tipsheet

Liberal Reporter Knows Why a Certain Media Narrative About COVID Vaccine and the GOP Arose This Week

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  July 26, 2021 1:15 PM

It's the Republicans. It’s the Trump supporters. It’s conservative media. They’re the reasons why vaccination rates have stalled. Meh. Not really. A new Kaiser poll found that 61 percent of the unvaccinated are not Republicans and not Trump supporters. Also, a large majority of the religious, another favorite punching bag for left-wingers with a moral superiority complex got at least one shot by May. Oh, and a lefty polling firm tracked that. 

So, let’s tee off with what NBC News said about the “conservative hostility” towards Biden’s vaccine push:

At last weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., told the crowd: "Don't come knocking on my door with your 'Fauci ouchie.' You leave us the hell alone."

It's the kind of rhetoric that's common for Boebert, who has positioned herself to the right of most other conservative politicians in Washington. On vaccinations, however, Boebert's message is not the exception. For a sizable chunk of the Republican Party and conservative media apparatus, pushing back on the Biden administration’s efforts to vaccinate the country has become the norm in recent weeks.

That animosity reached a peak this month after President Joe Biden announced his intent to expand those efforts as the delta variant spreads, posing a particular threat to the unvaccinated population. His administration had fallen just short of his July 4 goal of getting 70 percent of the adult population inoculated with at least one dose — a shortcoming that was cheered at CPAC.

Well, first, let’s not pretend that vaccinations weren’t a controversial subject. Second, let’s stop pretending that mandatory vaccinations weren’t going to be controversial either. Joe Biden said he wanted to go door-to-door. That should send chills down all our spines since we know government policies like this won’t stop with vaccines or public health. I got the vaccine. I’m pro-vaccine. I think everyone should get it BUT it’s still a choice. And there are some people with pre-existing conditions who cannot take this vaccine. The risk of complications is too great. 

The narrative is clear: the GOP are the anti-vaxxers and they’re getting people killed. Some of the best writers who have shredded these narratives happen to also be self-described liberals. Michael Tracey dug around Twitter and once again could add another notch in the handle of his tomahawk he uses to chop up these fake narratives into mincemeat.

“I was told high-profile Republicans only started advocating vaccine uptake within the past week because they were spooked by the stock market, or something,” he wrote as he posted a picture of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem getting the vaccine.

Recommended

Martha Raddatz's Downplaying of Tren de Aragua Comes Back to Haunt Her Rebecca Downs
'Stain on the Presidency': Biden's Latest Commutations Aren't Going Over Well Katie Pavlich

Tracey added, “Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Kristi Noem, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Kevin McCarthy, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley have all received and advocated vaccines long before this past week, when we've been told the GOP had a suspicious epiphany.”

This goes to the liberal media being bad at their jobs, but more to the so-called experts. They’re the ones who planted the seeds of the skepticism but saying to get the shot but stay masked up and indoors. People will ask if the vaccines work if that’s the messaging strategy. The CDC recently changed the guidelines for the vaccinated, but it’s been a game of political whiplash. Have we forgotten that the CDC and teachers’ unions colluded to keep schools closed over COVID? The medical community got political to boot Trump and they’re paying the consequences. The deprecation of their stature is clear. 

When you say 'get the vaccine' but don’t list the benefits of it—you’re going to screw yourself. They all looked at each other as the bomb went off and now people who get it will do whatever they damn well please as they should while the unvaccinated will still have questions either for medical reasons or now political ones. There’s also another component, which is that there is only so much you can do when it comes to telling grown adults what is and isn’t allowed. Biden and the Democrats want mandatory vaccinations but can’t push that hard as we head into an election year. That alone is a huge red flag regarding the seriousness of this Delta variant and COVID in general. It’s a virus with a 90+ percent survival rate. That’s why the political class can wait regarding their vaccine plans. If it can wait until after the election, well—are we really in DEFCON 1. Should we really panic?