By Cliff Kincaid
[DISCLAIMER: The opinion in this article is the sole opinion of this author and is not necessarily the opinion of NewsWithViews.com, it’s employees, representatives, or other contributing writers.]
Former President Trump’s battles with Mitch McConnell and Liz Cheney are minor compared with the Trump base splitting with their leader on the issue of coronavirus vaccines. “A house divided against itself cannot stand” declared Abraham Lincoln about the American civil war. One poll shows that 45 percent of Republicans will not take the life-saving vaccines that were made possible by their favorite Republican President.
“I’m all in favor of the vaccine,” Trump told New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin. “It’s one of the great achievements, a true miracle, and not only for the United States. We’re saving tens of millions of lives throughout the world. We’re saving entire countries.”
However, as countries like Israel return to some semblance of normality after a massive vaccination campaign against the virus, America’s battle could drag on for years with various strains or mutations. “The huge percentage of GOP voters refusing to get vaccinated is likely to drag out the pandemic” declares Vanity Fair.
Trump’s supporters will be blamed and the Republican Party will pay the political price.
Based on the responses I have received to my own pro-vaccine columns, many Trump supporters fear the vaccine is either a deadly killer unleashed by Bill Gates or Anthony Fauci to depopulate the world or else that it contains a microchip on the road to the Biblical apocalypse and world government ruled by the Anti-Christ.
Devotion to this apocalyptic view has reached such heights that my pro-vaccine columns once carried on conservative sites are now run with warnings and disclaimers, when they are carried at all. “The reason I have not run your pro-vaccine columns is because I believe the ‘vaccines’ are very dangerous,” said one leading conservative editor.
Hence, censorship is occurring on both sides.
Trump Supporters Turn on Trump
Ironically, this means that pro-Trump editors and others are resisting the signature achievement of former president Trump. “The enemies of America exploited Trump’s well-known and well-documented fear of sickness and death,” said one pro-Trump columnist who has now turned on him. “It was the fatal flaw of President Trump’s magnificent first term.”
Trump adviser Peter Navarro, who was right about the China threat before he joined the administration, says with pride that “The father of the [coronavirus] vaccine is Donald J. Trump.” The former president calls it the Trumpcine.
As these comments suggest, this is the kind of issue that Republicans should be exploiting, not running away from. But their base fears the vaccine more than the virus.
Trump told Sean Hannity he encourages people to take the Covid-19 vaccine. “I encourage people to take it. I do,” Trump said. “I had it and I took it.” He added, “They want me to do a commercial saying take the vaccine,” he continued. “And they think that’s very important and I’d certainly do it.”
This makes Trump a villain among his own supporters, weakening his own base of support as he tries to rally people against the socialist schemes of the Democratic Party. This divide in the GOP makes it easy for the Democrats to solidify and expand their one-party rule.
Young Republican-leaning voters are turned off by the anti-vaccine rhetoric. They would rather be safe than sorry when it comes to saving lives and are taking vaccines to save themselves and their families.
Without a quick turn-around, the Republican Party will forever be tainted by the notion of being resistant to progress on the most fundamental issue of our time – how to respond to Chinese aggression in the form of the China virus. It could change the political direction and landscape of the country forever.
Sensing this is the case, a writer for The Federalist noted Trump’s pivotal role in developing the vaccines but then tried to offer an explanation for why so many of his supporters are balking at taking it. The writer tried to insist the reluctance is because Trump supporters have reasonable arguments for avoiding the vaccines. He writes, “Perhaps they assessed the risks of getting COVID compared to the risks of an experimental medical treatment whose long-term effects are unknown, and decided that the former is a risk they’re willing to take. Is that unreasonable? Is it crazy?”
The real problem is that many on the conservative side are still getting bombarded by claims that the China virus doesn’t even exist. The new revolutionary vaccines are seen as diabolical schemes to make them into slaves and zombies.
To carry this one step further, in preparation for an upcoming conference, the Red Pill Expo is now advertising “one of the most popular and most Internet-banned truth-tellers” and how he “will strike at the roots of the greatest medical hoax of all time” – the China virus. The promo says, “Virus? Virus? WHAT Virus? This Doctor Says There is no Such Thing!” In a follow-up, we are told that a microbiologist will say that “vaccines will decimate world’s population.”
In fact, it’s the China virus that is already doing that, and many are taking the vaccine to stop the spread and save the lives of others.
The Red Pill Expo is a Poison Pill
Journalist Alex Newman, one of the Red Expo Speakers, told me, “It is my personal opinion that there is a real virus known as SARS-CoV2, engineered in a Communist Chinese bio-weapons lab in Wuhan, that was released on the world for strategic purposes. However, with the massive global deception surrounding this whole situation — and the unprecedented censorship we’re seeing — I believe it behooves everyone to listen to alternative points of view before making important decisions that could have life-long ramifications.”
But the issue is whether these “alternative points of view” contribute to a rational discussion or whether they are misleading people on a matter of life and death.
Claims about the virus being a hoax are absurd on their face, especially in light of the fact that Trump himself — their favorite president — got the virus and the disease. Trump was given 8 drugs to treat the disease, with one through an IV.
Such paranoia feeds upon itself. When I wrote a column about the strange bedfellows of Trump and Obama taking the vaccine, one person replied, “How can we know that the elites are really taking the vaccine and not a vitamin B shot or something else harmless?” Another wrote, “He did not really take it – they injected a sugar-water placebo.”
This is an indication of the paranoia gripping many in the Trump base who believe he betrayed them.
Trump Was Pro-Science
These people forget that it was Trump who championed “America First” policies and scientific breakthroughs, especially in medicine. On his list of accomplishments, he emphasizes that his administration “promoted research and innovation in healthcare to ensure that American patients have access to the best treatment in the world.” One example of that was passage of “Right to Try” legislation to give terminally ill patients access to lifesaving cures.
In this context, as millions are dying from the China virus, Trump has recommended taking his vaccines on several occasions and major Christian leaders such as Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, and Dr. James Dobson have endorsed them.
Graham calls it the “Good Samaritan” approach to take the vaccine and save the lives of others.
The New York Times story, “Least Vaccinated U.S. Counties Have Something in Common: Trump Voters,” is an indication that Trump voters will be portrayed as uneducated, anti-science, and standing in the way of herd immunity and a normal life.
The political charge will have some sting, since it is my impression after years in the conservative movement that that this attitude constitutes a modern form of the Luddite mentality that resists life-saving and other advances for humanity. I have noticed that some of these same people are also paranoid about 5G technology, digital currencies, artificial intelligence, cell phones and Zoom technology.
While the issue ought to be Democratic Party extremism, Republican voters will find themselves pigeonholed as anti-technology fanatics in the mold of Theodore Kaczynski, whose bombing campaign against modern society from an isolated Montana cabin earned him the title “Unabomber.”
Kaczynski killed three people and wounded many others, getting a punishment of life in federal prison.
The anti-vaxxers who believe the China virus is a fake or as harmless as the common cold will be blamed for many more dead Americans. Those who dispense such claims are not serving the public interest and are creating a nation of the vaxxed and the vaxxed-not. Their leader Donald J. Trump and his Republican Party will suffer politically as a result.
“Biden is delivering on his vaccine promises” declares the Center for American Progress (CAP), a major liberal think tank, taking advantage of what the Biden Administration inherited from Trump. It reports that 200 million vaccine shots have been delivered. CAP says the next step is making sure everyone who can get vaccinated actually does get vaccinated.
It is ironic that Trump’s supporters are in the forefront of denying their leader the credit he deserves while Biden assumes responsibility for what the Trump Administration made possible. This political outcome spells doom for the GOP.
© 2021 Cliff Kincaid – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Cliff Kincaid: kincaid@comcast.net
*Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org
