Wait. Right-Wingers and Public Health People Agree on Something?
This is true for any X, including masks, social distancing, lockdowns, school closings, vaccines, travel restrictions—you name it. I thought about digging up examples to link, but that would be a waste of time. Anybody who has been paying attention knows this is true.
This is why it's so surprising that these groups are now strange bedfellows in their shared opposition to vaccination passports. What's happening?!?
I prophesized back in January that passports would become an issue (you're welcome). At the time, I shared the concerns of public health officials that they would create a class system of sorts, with haves and have-nots, and potentially lead to discrimination against unvaccinated people (as has happened in the past).
I doubt that right-wingers are very concerned with have-nots or discrimination (in this or any other context). Instead, they are afraid that needing proof of vaccination to do things like fly or attend large gatherings will coerce people into getting vaccinated when they don't want to.
And it just so happens that a lot of Republicans fall into that category. Recent polls say half of that party's men don't want the shots. According to reports, a similar proportion of the 211 GOP members in the House of Representatives have refused to be vaccinated.
Accordingly, Republican state leaders like Gov. Florida Man have been grandstanding with emergency orders prohibiting the passports. (Note that it's an "emergency" even though, to my knowledge, nobody in Florida was planning to set up passports.) The governor in Idaho issued a ban too, and the one in Iowa is planning to do likewise.
What is behind this? My guess is that it's some combination of reactance, conservative machismo, antigovernment dogma, belief in loony-bin QAnon and anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories, and the usual extremist positions on liberty/freedom/privacy.
And of course we mustn't overlook opportunism and partisan politics. A Florida Republican consultant said, “It’s a political winner.”
In contrast to the reasons given by public health officials, who are concerned about the collective good, all of these drivers are about the individual good. They are selfish considerations.
I agree that the passports are a bad idea for the same reasons as given by the public health officials. There is also the problem noted in a recent post that zero consideration was given by the previous administration to setting up secure vaccination records that would make passports reliable.
But I strongly disagree that people should avoid vaccinations for ideological reasons. To be clear, not all conservatives are doing so. But a substantial portion are, for selfish reasons, freeloading off of those of us who behave responsibly and get the jab. They are also endangering our ability to achieve population immunity (again, please don't call it by that other name).
Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay
