A Letter from Austin #13: Vaccines Work Bigly
Donald Trump Wants You to Know
He did it with all the subtlety of a shipwreck, all the modesty of a mattress commercial, but he did it. Donald Trump began his 2024 campaign for President this week. And it may end up saving some lives.
I’m talking about Trump’s recent proclamations that he has received not only two vaccination shots, but also a booster. This, he says, is a great thing. Development of the Covid-19 vaccine during his presidency is something he should be getting credit for. It works. It’s effective. And it was — in his own estimation — one of the “greatest achievements of mankind.”
It’s hard to know where to start with this one. We’ll set aside the superlatives, for now, but yes — development of the vaccine was important. Trump deserves credit for pushing the pharmaceutical industry to create a vaccine against the virus in record time. The industry responded, producing not one but three effective vaccines. Tens of millions of Americans have taken the shots, and the experts tell us that they have thereby protected their own lives and quite possibly those of many others.
What makes Trump’s pronouncements so surprising is not so much what he’s saying now as what he’s said — and done — in the past. The ex-president has a consistent and perverse history of downplaying the dangers of the virus, questioning the necessity of wearing protective face masks, and finally of playing footsie with the urgency and efficacy of the vaccines that he is now touting as one of his (and mankind’s!) signature achievements.
First, the virus: Trump, along with his many minions in the media, long discounted the seriousness of the new sickness. He jokingly called it the “Kung Flue,” predicted it would “disappear” with warm weather in the summer of 2020 and suggested that overreaction to the illness was a Democratic tactic to embarrass him and his Administration. In interviews with author Bob Woodward, Trump admitted to underplaying the seriousness of the threat when speaking about it to Americans, claiming that he was trying to avoid causing a panic.
Covid didn’t disappear, of course. In fact, by recent counts, some 800,000 Americans have died of the virus. But as the pandemic worsened, and the American economy suffered as a result, Trump famously declined to wear a face mask — despite the repeated recommendations of mask-wearing by the Centers for Disease Control. The reasons for the president’s refusal were unclear, but probably had to do with his fear of appearing weak or vulnerable. Perhaps predictably, the president contracted the virus and had to be hospitalized in October of 2020. While the severity of the illness has yet to be fully disclosed, it was evidently serious enough to require the president to be placed on supplemental oxygen. Would a face mask have protected him from the infection? It’s impossible to say. What we do know is that the White House implemented strict testing, vaccination, and face-mask wearing protocols for presidential staffers, even as the president himself continued to appear mask-less to proclaim his own good health and to urge Americans to return to their normal pursuits.
Finally, vaccinations. It’s undisputed that Trump, his family, and his closest advisors are all fully vaccinated, as are such vocal Covid skeptics as Senator Ted Cruz (who famously picked a fight with the Sesame Street character Big Bird for encouraging vaccinations). What these luminaries share — or shared, until recently — is a notable reluctance to advertise this fact. Trump himself took his first shot in secret, precisely so no one would see The Big Boss rolling up a sleeve to expose a pudgy upper arm and a prudent, if non-Nietszchian, practicality.
But a funny thing happened when Trump and his followers cast the virus as a convenient lever of control for power-hungry Democrats, criticized masks as a sort of social choke-hold acceptable only to liberal “sheeple,” and mocked Democratic Party-pushed vaccine mandates. Many Republicans took the political posturing seriously. They staunchly declined to get themselves vaccinated or to follow simple Covid safety precautions, like mask-wearing and social distancing. On social media, talk radio, and commercial airliners, a certain brand of conservative made it a point of pride to resist the entire notion (they call it a “narrative”) that Covid is even a substantial health risk. Indeed, the news is replete with examples of prominent right-wingers figures who declined to take the Covid vaccine and then caught, and in some cases died from, the illness.
One result of Trump’s ambivalence about advocating for precautionary Covid measures like vaccination was the election of Joe Biden to the presidency in 2020 — a loss that Trump still has trouble acknowledging. Many moderates and independents joined progressive Democrats in blaming the president for creating a political Petri dish in which all manner of ugly and unpredictable conspiracy theories grew. Among these conspiracies were stories that the vaccines were a way for the federal government to control Americans, implant us with microchips, turn us into slaves, etc. Unsurprisingly, many Trump followers swore not to take the very medicines the Trump administration worked so hard to develop.
So this is the context for Trump’s recent touting of the vaccines. He is pivoting to the center, now, to try to reclaim some of the moderates who gave him such a convincing election win in 2016 — the suburban moms and healthcare workers and teachers and firefighters who see the vaccine as a simple and effective way to keep hospital beds open and America’s aged and immune-compromised people living more or less normal lives. Is anyone listening at this point? Some right-wingers resent hearing this kind of talk from the Anti-Vaxxer in Chief — or at least the person they assumed was the Anti-Vaxxer in Chief. But Trump and his handlers may be calculating that these folks are reliably in the Trump corner anyway. More important for Trump’s future control of the country is his appeal to other segments of the population.
To get there, Trump is going to have to hope anger ebbs for his part in the January 6 insurrection, and that at least some middle of the road voters can be convinced that he really does want Americans to get the vaccine he is now attempting to take credit for. Better late than never, right? Tell it to Herman Cain, Bob Enyart, and Marcus Lamb — and the thousands of other Americans who decided not to give Democrats the satisfaction of seeing them alive and able to vote again, based in part on Donald Trump and GOP’s apparent disdain for the vaccine Trump is now so enthusiastically promoting.
Will Trump’s pivot work? If it encourages hitherto recalcitrant Americans to get the shots, let’s hope so. If it aids him in his quest for a second term of office, well…let’s not contemplate that parade of horribles at the moment. After all, it’s a holiday.
Onward.
