Donald Trump is taking credit for the coronavirus vaccine. But Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports that many of his supporters say they won't get vaccinated:
Elizabeth Graves, an ardent supporter of President Trump, is not opposed to vaccines. She said she had taken flu shots and pneumonia shots and, having just turned 50, was interested in being vaccinated against shingles.
But Ms. Graves, a legal transcriptionist in Starkville, Miss., said she would not be taking a coronavirus vaccine — and the sight of Vice President Mike Pence rolling up his sleeve to get vaccinated on live television on Friday, she added, would not change her mind.
Lawrence Palmer, 51, a field service engineer in Boiling Springs, Pa., and Brandon Lofgren, 25, who works in his family’s trucking and construction business in rural Wisconsin, said they felt the same way. All are fans of Mr. Trump, and echoed Ms. Graves, who said she was “suspicious” of government and that Mr. Pence’s vaccination “doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
It is a paradox of the pandemic: Helping speed the development of a coronavirus vaccine may be one of Mr. Trump’s proudest accomplishments, but at least in the early stages of the vaccine rollout, there is evidence that a substantial number of his supporters say they do not want to get it.
And therein lies the essential lunacy behind Donald Trump's presidency:
For the most part, public opinion has been swinging in favor of vaccination. Seventy-one percent of Americans are willing to be vaccinated, up from 63 percent in September, according to a survey released this week by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Still, the survey found that Republicans were the most likely to be hesitant, with 42 percent saying they would probably not or definitely not be vaccinated, as compared with 12 percent of Democrats.
The Republican response to Trump and the vaccine is essentially schizophrenic -- another sign of the insanity which has swept over the United States.
Image: Tiltfactor
