President Joe Biden, Dec. 21, 2021
Biden is trying to re-position Democrats. Good. Smart. High time.
Biden is trying to re-position Democrats. Good. Smart. High time.
It will work best if someone criticizes him bitterly for it.
Biden announced a change in direction on COVID. Democrats have been associated with COVID shutdowns and mandates. They are the disciplinarian party. The spoilsports. The ones that mandate vaccinations and say to wear masks outside. They are the party that shuts down businesses and schools and holiday gatherings. Biden is saying it is OK to start getting back to normal. Meanwhile, Trump said he was boosted and suggested others make up their own minds and then get boosted, too. He praised the vaccines and took credit for their fast development. Two pivots.
America is moving on because of Omicron, not despite it. Omicron ends any notion we can hide from COVID. This variant is very contagious, but appears not be as dangerous as the Delta variant, especially for the vaccinated and boosted. Those two facts close the loop for the COVID-concerned majority of Americans. We have no choice but to live with COVID, and we can do it. The COVID-conscientious are exhausted by COVID protocols and are ready to move on. COVID-minimalists were ready from day one. Vaccine and mask resisters are everywhere, and even vaccinated people get breakthroughs and are briefly contagious. Time to go back to near-normal life, defined by vaccinations and frequent testing, not by sheltering.
America is moving on because of Omicron, not despite it. Omicron ends any notion we can hide from COVID. This variant is very contagious, but appears not be as dangerous as the Delta variant, especially for the vaccinated and boosted. Those two facts close the loop for the COVID-concerned majority of Americans. We have no choice but to live with COVID, and we can do it. The COVID-conscientious are exhausted by COVID protocols and are ready to move on. COVID-minimalists were ready from day one. Vaccine and mask resisters are everywhere, and even vaccinated people get breakthroughs and are briefly contagious. Time to go back to near-normal life, defined by vaccinations and frequent testing, not by sheltering.
Extra people will die every year. Americans are ready to pay that price, as long as they need not acknowledge openly that it will be paid. No one will say aloud that it is OK if an extra 500,000 people die in the next twelve months, but accepting deaths is the accommodation we have made with traffic and gun deaths. The deaths will be concentrated among stubborn Trump supporters who have chosen their fate, and among the elderly and sick who die in the natural course of things.
It may not be evident that Biden announced a change in direction because he has not yet caught hell for it. He needs the criticism. It would be handy if Anthony Fauci publicly condemned the policy. Biden needs some public health experts to say "Too soon! Too soon!" so that Biden can disagree. It would show that Biden is in control and not a doddering puppet of public health professionals and White House staff.
Trump has countless flaws, but he understands public sentiment and political body language. He has a showman's skillset. He realized he was associated with vaccine refusal and stubborn know-nothing conspiracy thinking on vaccines. The one-two punch of his insisting the 2020 election was stolen on top of vaccine denialism gave him a credibility problem. Trump had a solid grip on the support of rural Americans driving pickup trucks with "Let's Go Brandon" flags, but educated suburban moderates were catching an undeniable scent of kookiness. They were vaccinated but did not notice that they had become pawns of Bill Gates or George Soros. Trump announced in front of a conservative crowd that he was boosted. He got boos. It was exactly what he needed.
The confrontation showed Trump had the courage to disagree with the vaccine-resisters he created within his own team. It gives vaccinated moderate voters a basis to think Trump is not wacky, not really. Maybe Trump isn't at fault for the disproportionate deaths among his supporters. After all, he said to get vaccinated.
The boos made us notice. Trump didn't back down. This confirms that Trump leads a movement; he is not a pawn of it.
Biden needs boos from people who represent past COVID policy. After getting them, he needs to be resolute to show he leads America's COVID policy and is not a pawn of anybody.
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7 comments:
It’s sad but true: we’re resigning ourselves to living with a deadly disease that could have been eradicated. We were smarter than that with polio and smallpox, but now even public health has become a political wedge issue.
Conflicts abound, but peace is possible. “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” ---Jimi Hendrix
Merry Christmas
We should not be encouraging and recommending conflict or disagreement with public health officials (doing a dangerous and thankless job) for political gain. That is the other party. Democrats want cooperation and solutions, not destructive drama and lies.
"Trump announced in front of a conservative crowd that he was boosted."
Not surprising that facing declining influence that Trump changes his tune. Also not surprised people falling for it.
Don't.
Americans have no spine or compassion.
There are so many things that cause premature death but it's always "someone else's problem."
America should be a leader in the field of education and science.
Why do people who ignore facts and hang on to superstitious beliefs/conspiracies get a free pass at the expense of society?
We were never going to be able to eradicate Covid. It’s too agile. Look at the breakthrough infections we are having with people who are fully vaccinated.
We were never going to be able to get the entire world vaccinated quickly. Even now, large swaths of the planet are only vaccinated at low rates. That’s fertile ground for the virus to produce new variants.
We’re just going to have to learn to live with it and hope for better and better antiviral medications, or that the virus evolves into a very infectious form (crowding out other variants) that produces very low levels of harm, something like the common cold.
The shift is from "the unvaxed die: meh." to "elderly and sick" VAXXED "will die too in the natural course of things". Humans have prided themselves on being able to modify environments and behaviors for species survival in inhospitable climes.It is interesting that id, ego and societies' economic priorities trump behavior modification and survival.
I agree with Michael Trigoboff on this one, definitely a "learn to live with it situation" and no amount of hand wringing about what could have been done differently will change that. At some point, covid will be thought of in similar terms as the yearly flu if not the common cold like he says.
And as Peter says, people are sick and tired of dealing with covid related restrictions, to the extent that Biden pivots away from being the disciplinarian even if he doesn't get public pushback, I imagine that will be a win for him politically.
In response to the anonymous comment at 4:51, I would say that for many people who are covid conscious shall we say (I would count myself among those ranks l) I would say there will be alot of behavior modification. For me personally, I recently hosted a dinner party for friends who helped me work on our new house. The people who attended were all vaxxed and it was great, felt like old times to be honest. I imagine I won't be having any unvaxxed friends or acquaintances invited into my house anytime soon.
I also plan on continue wearing masks in public indoor spaces such as grocery stores, I've really enjoyed NOT having the common cold be a multiple times a year event that my family deals with. To the extent that the covid conscious choose to continue wearing masks and being careful (similar to how countries like Japan have behaved for a long time ) I would say that definitely counts as behavior modification. It might not be perfect or universal, but it is something.
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