Trump Is Right About Politicians And Their Vaccination Status

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has been the Managing Editor of Ordinary Times since 2018, is a widely published opinion writer, and appears in media, radio, and occasionally as a talking head on TV. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter@four4thefire. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew'sHeard Tell Substack for free here:

Related Post Roulette

25 Responses

  1. Pinky says:

    An easy day for me, since I don’t like him and think he’s wrong. The personal doesn’t have to be political. People without a military record can speak about foreign policy; men can have opinions about abortion. I’d be less impressed by a politician who didn’t get a vaccine, but even less impressed than that by a politician who looked like he was trying to get points by saying he did get the vaccine.

    There’s also the slightly different matter of leadership. But on 1/12/22, I wouldn’t consider it leadership to announce you’ve been vaccinated, outside of the impact on certain target communities. Current data indicates that a vaccinated delta-variant patient’s experience is comparable to an unvaccinated omicron-variant patient’s, and a vaccinated person with omicron typically suffers even less. Some of the regions with the lowest death rates are seeing upticks [edited: those are generally northern areas that have higher death rates in winter], and we have to watch out for that, but there’s every reason to believe that we’re coasting toward the finish line.Report

  2. Saul Degraw says:

    I am not sure we need to give Trump too much credit. Most of the anti-vaccination/COVID-denialism stuff is his to begin with and now he is trying to have it both ways. The GOP look like they could win big in 2022 midterms and this is despite (or because of) killing off a good number of people in their base. This is quite an evil parlor trick but it exists. Trump’s admin came up with a decent COVID mitigation plan in 2020 but then thought the disease was only killing those people in blue cities and threw it out the window. I’m not sure why civility requires giving him some brownie points now.

    I await the comments from the usual suspects on how rude I am.Report

  3. Saul Degraw says:

    I also don’t think this is going to work. The GOP politicians are no longer toadying up to Trump. Trump was booed at a rally when he made positive comments on vaccination. A good portion of the GOP base are adamantly anti-vaccination and sticking to it. Look at how Cruz need to kowtow on Lord Tuck Tuck’s white power hour.Report

  4. Damon says:

    As one of the guys at the gym said to me when we were discussing an outbreak of a skin rash at said gym, “I don’t discuss my medical info with anyone I’m not legally required to.” Seems like a good idea to me. It’s no one else’s business. Politicians gonna hypocrite and lie, that’s a known quantity.Report

    • Greg In Ak in reply to Damon says:

      Hmm skin rash going around in a public space with shared shower/toilet facilities. At least no ones elses behavior will effect anyone else ( puzzled face with ” i got no idea” arms out) emoji.Report

  5. Kazzy says:

    I’d argue that not only is he right, but this is a potentially GOOD thing. If this encourages anti-vaxxers to abandon that idiocy, that is a good thing.Report

    • JS in reply to Kazzy says:

      His own supporters keep booing him TO HIS FACE about it.

      So…no.

      He made this bed, he sold this bed, and now he’s like “You’d be crazy to lie in it” doesn’t, you know, change the fact that this is the bed he created and pimped like crazy for over a year.Report

    • Saul Degraw in reply to Kazzy says:

      All evidence points to no. He was booed by his own supporters at a rally when he told people to get vaccinated and that he was vaccinated. The damages is done and cannot be undone.Report

  6. North says:

    A stopped clock is right once a day. Guess today’s Trumps day.Report

  7. Burt Likko says:

    More than happy to say Trump is right about this.

    I notice that vaccine hysteria appears to override the Trump cult of personality.Report

    • JS in reply to Burt Likko says:

      He did literally spend a year telling them it was no big deal, got COVID, pretty clearly only survived because he got cutting-edge treatment no one else would have gotten at the time, walked out of the hospital, claimed it was AGAIN no big deal. That it would all go away, that it was a media hoax, that it was overblown, that it was just a cold, that everyone who said otherwise was lying.

      And specifically that it was all Democrats behind all the lies, to make Trump look bad, to make him lose.

      And they don’t believe it’s a big deal. And then the vaccines came out after he lost, so despite him trying to take credit (like anyone was against throwing money at the problem), his base didn’t listen because it was no big deal, Trump proved that — so why would they want a Deep State Big Pharma Democrat vaccine (that they also point out Trump invented) for a fake news disease?

      Trump can switch from contradictory belief to contradictory belief in the same sentence of a speech, but his audience clearly…can’t.

      Especially when the MAGA politicians are often still repeating those lies, while fighting vaccination (even as many of them are, of course, quietly vaccinated.)

      A year of telling them it was no big deal and Democrat lies — why wouldn’t they believe the vaccine was nefarious, dangerous, or something bad? It was invented by Democrats to fix a Democratic lie. Clearly at best it’s simply some sort of scam, and at worst it’s 5G chips and sterilization injections.Report

      • Chip Daniels in reply to JS says:

        Although, if we actually had invented a deadly virus that specifically targeted older, Fox watching rural Republicans we could hardly have done a better job.Report

        • JS in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          No kidding, and after the vaccine came out it started really killing the unvaccinated.

          A glance at the vaccination status of ICU COVID patients shows that. And while some Democratic voters have refused the vaccine, the partisan breakdowns show refusal is very, very, conservative leaningReport

          • Mike Schilling in reply to JS says:

            And they blame China! Are we good, or what?Report

            • JS in reply to Mike Schilling says:

              The blame China, Fauci, and liberals, while also claiming it’s a hoax, not a big deal, and the vaccine is far more lethal.

              They’ve literally applied the classic enemy trope to a virus. It’s simultaneously incredibly lethal and ignorable. It’s dangerous, but you shouldn’t change anything about your life or get vaccinated because it’s not dangerous.

              If you get it, you should drink bleach, eat horse paste, drink your own urine, get antibody therapy — but you shouldn’t vaccinate because THOSE antibodies are full of 5G chips.

              I’ve seen the same people call it a Chinese bioweapon and a Democratic hoax in practically the same breath, while demanding the government DO SOMETHING as long as that something isn’t masks, vaccines, social distancing, or changes anything in any way whatsoever.

              End if the poor sods end up in the ICU, they tend to either deny they have COVID until they die (while demanding horse paste) — or they start begging for the vaccine. Generally all while berating the staff that’s been working 18 hour shifts for two years to try to save their asses.

              Oh, and generally in the hospitals of the deep blue cities they hate, that they wish would leave, because their rural ICU isn’t set to handle more than one or two people, so they’re all rushed to the cities to overflow those hospitals.Report

              • Pinky in reply to JS says:

                This is a fallacy, probably several fallacies. You’re taking every position that “they” have taken (or mentioned) at any time and implying that they hold to fall of them at the same time, and thus are contradicting themselves. It’s actually similar to the attacks on Fauci saying that he contradicts himself on masking.Report

            • Chip Daniels in reply to Mike Schilling says:

              And to think Killary Klinton is right there, hiding in plain sight.Report

  8. I really hate to agree with him, but if you’re vaccinated because you value your own health, but express skepticism publicly because that’s the popular thing, “gutless” is the mot juste.Report

  9. Dark Matter says:

    Trump continues to have zero problems with exposing himself to the public and doesn’t care about internal self-consistency.

    He also takes a lot of credit for the vaccine and likes to showcase “his” successes.

    I guess there is nothing new to any of this.Report