I’m genuinely surprised that Sleepy Joe made it to V-Day without being infected with coronavirus. Not because he wasn’t taking proper precautions but because American politics is a bad TV drama now and the conventions of the medium all but require the two presidential candidates to have each had a brush with death from COVID at some point.
In fact, after Trump announced his diagnosis in October, I would have bet a decent amount of money that Biden would soon announce his own positive test — and that suspicions would center on Trump himself as the person who probably infected him at their first debate.
Thank god this failing country didn’t have to live through an episode of “your elderly candidate put our elderly candidate in the hospital with a deadly disease!” It’s the only break America got this year. Watch, then read on.
"The administration deserves some credit getting this off the ground," President-elect Biden says after receiving the coronavirus vaccine. pic.twitter.com/eo2hsUjQz0
— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 21, 2020
A who’s who of American politics has now been vaccinated or will be imminently. Biden. Mike Pence. Nancy Pelosi. Mitch McConnell. Mitt Romney. Anthony Fauci will be getting the jab tomorrow. So many members of Congress have gotten vaccinated over the past few days, in fact, that lefties have taken to grumbling about youngish Republicans like Marco Rubio getting the shot before senior citizens did. Why should these GOP COVID-deniers get to cut the line? they say, never mind that Rubio and the rest are setting a good example by encouraging Americans to get the shot as soon as it’s available.
There’s only one major political figure who’s avoided vaccination so far — a man not known for shying away from a photo op, particularly when he’s destined to get good press for it. Hmmmm.
Mr. Trump, however, has neither participated in nor supported the public health campaign to reassure vaccine skeptics worried about its dangers.
On Friday, he did nothing to promote Mr. Pence taking the vaccine, an event held at the White House that officials asked all of the television networks to carry live on TV for maximum exposure. Instead, Mr. Trump was tweeting out anti-mask claims minutes after Mr. Pence received his vaccine.
Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers have defended his decision to put off his own vaccination, arguing that he still has the protective effects of the monoclonal antibody cocktail that was used to treat him for the virus in October.
I offered four theories on Friday for why Trump has thus far refused to get the shot. The truth is probably as simple as this, via CNN: “Through it all, Trump has mostly abandoned the day-to-day running of government. At a Cabinet meeting last week, he spent much of the time complaining about his suspicions of voter fraud, according to a person familiar with the matter, leaving some attendees puzzled at the point of the gathering.”
It seems as if he’s just done with being president, even as he obsesses hour by hour about how he can go on being president for another four years. “That duality in Mr. Trump’s behavior — acting as a bystander while other leaders answered a crisis and simultaneously raging at Republicans who have inched away from him — also amounts to a preview of Mr. Trump’s post-presidency,” said the Times this weekend of his endless voter-fraud campaign. If he’s serious about 2024, he’s missing a glowing opportunity to shine up his legacy and take a “see you in four years” victory lap. He can’t get out of his own way. He’ll probably end up a vaccine skeptic before all’s said and done.
Since we’re on the subject of vaccine politics, let me leave you with an intriguing and rare case of the Squad being at odds with each other. Ilhan Omar is firmly of the opinion that members of Congress should *not* be cutting the line ahead of less privileged Americans and has made that point forcefully over the past few days.
It’s now clear that we don’t have enough vaccines for everyone and there is shortage of supply, we have to prioritize those who need it most.
That’s why it’s disturbing to see members be 1st to get vaccine while most frontline workers, elderly and infirm in our districts, wait. https://t.co/YGcL4jO1Li
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) December 20, 2020
It would makes sense if it was age, but unfortunately it’s of importance and its shameful.
We are not more important then frontline workers, teachers etc. who are making sacrifices everyday.
Which is why I won’t take it.
People who need it most, should get it.
Full stop. https://t.co/JQgMftm5wX
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) December 20, 2020
Note how strong her language is. Not “I respectfully disagree about prioritizing Congress” but “disturbing” and “shameful,” a harsh moral indictment of those who’ve cut the line.
Annnnnnd now here’s her buddy, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, cutting the line. Were Omar’s comments aimed at AOC herself? Someone should interview them together and force them to hash this out.
