Why the Republicans Suddenly Care about Vaccination

Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL)

In the past week, Republicans, both lawmakers and major figures in the party, have begun to publicly push for stronger vaccination rates in the United States, which has seen a dramatic drop in vaccinations despite a number of states not coming close to the recommended 70% threshold that has been the goal in hopes to reach herd immunity.  Republicans ranging from Sean Hannity to Rep. Steve Scalise to Gov. Kay Ivey have made a point of calling this out, pushing hard for Republicans to get vaccinated.  This is a fascinating dynamic, particularly as there has been resistance from people like Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to bring back mask mandates.  I wanted to take a look at this because it's a fascinating (and somewhat dark) dynamic that's at play right now, particularly as the Delta variant continues to threaten the whole world, but in the United States at least, with disproportionate numbers that could come back to have severe (and morbid) electoral consequences.

Let's take a step back by pointing out a few things, particularly if you don't live in the United States, as it's worth noting where we're at in late-July on the vaccination situation.  While President Biden mandated that all American adults could get the vaccine as early as mid-April, it's really only been since about mid-May that it has felt like most people can, without too much difficulty, get the vaccine without having to push for vaccine lotteries or stalk the Walgreen's website.  That was, however, over two months ago, and while there are still people getting vaccinated (and if you haven't you should-this article gets a little cynical in the back-half, but I want to underscore that I don't care what your political persuasion is, the vaccine can save your life & you should get it regardless of how you vote), it's not a burden like it is in places like India to get the vaccine here-you can go into any pharmacy in the country, and come out with a vaccine & a bag of chips in about ten minutes.

The vaccine also works, and works stunningly well.  Almost all new cases of Covid in the US (mostly the Delta variant) are in unvaccinated people, and the vast majority of breakthrough cases are "mild" (note-mild doesn't mean pleasant, as needs to be pointed out here, but it does seem more akin to having a cold or the flu than the more dangerous hospitalization & death results we saw in Covid in unvaccinated people).  This puts the vaccinated people (and note-it needs to be people who got both of their shots for the Delta variant) in a considerably less vulnerable position than those who are not vaccinated.  And as I said above, unless you are under the age of 12 or are immunocompromised (obviously the former is a not small portion of the population, the latter an extremely small percentage) there's no real reason other than personal choice that you didn't get the vaccine.

So what has been driving these Republicans, who have been pretty resistant to other measures throughout the pandemic (Ivey, for example, removed mask mandates quite early in the process & has refused to implement vaccine passports in Alabama's airports or concert venues, which might help increase the amount of vaccination in her residents)?  It's because the Delta variant is a game-changer with Covid in that it's considerably more contagious.  As a result, it is going to spread faster among the unvaccinated populations than it would have beforehand.

But obviously this isn't the only reason, and what makes the likes of Hannity, Scalise, & Ivey changing their tune so horrifying (if not surprising): while the Covid vaccine initially hurt people more in urban areas (i.e. more Democrats), increasingly Republican areas, due to lower rates of vaccination, are being disproportionately impacted, which means that we're going to start seeing hospitalization & death rates start to break on party lines very soon.  

You can see this in overall vaccination rates.  67.1% of the population of the entire state of Vermont (not just adults, but everyone) is fully vaccinated, compared to just 33.9% in Ivey's home state of Alabama.  If you look at the maps by vaccination rates, every state that has a strong fully vaccinated rate is in a state that Joe Biden won (not just Vermont, but also Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Washington, New Mexico, & Oregon), while nearly every state that has a distinctly weak one is in a state that Trump won (in addition to Alabama, you have all of the South, including Georgia, the only Biden state with a distinctively low vaccination, as well as Idaho, North Dakota, & Wyoming).  This sets up a situation where a pandemic that Republicans have sought to underplay and dismiss is going to not only continue to ravage certain sections of the country, but it's also going to ravage their base of support.

This might be a case of too-little, too-late for the Republicans (though I hope not).  Short of Donald Trump coming out and starting to beg his supporters to get vaccinated (something he's seemed unwilling to do), it's hard to imagine a situation where swaths of Republicans will heed the call here after hearing "it's not a big deal" for over a year.  This is a problem because then the only real wakeup call will be having friends, family, neighbors and even themselves get the disease, and while there are more important things in that scenario than politics (like your life), it has to be said that politics could factor in here.  Liberal pundits talk about Republicans pejoratively as a "death cult" for supporting policies that shorten their lives & cause them ill-health (not just with Covid, but also public healthcare & environmental safety regulations), but there's a difference between a policy and finding out that a pandemic was a hoax not from the news, but watching a child or spouse or parent die because they refused to get vaccinated.  Death is forever, and the memories of losing a loved one will have an impact on the Republican Party.  This is why, cynically, it seems they are suddenly caring-they are seeing that the damage of having countless voters that are on their side suddenly experience the death or hospitalization of a loved one, and realizing memories might be long enough to cost them in 2022 or 2024 as it'll be difficult to blame Joe Biden, the poster president for encouraging everyone to get vaccinated, for being "anti-vaccine" after the fact.

And the flip side of this is-the Democrats have little incentive to help at this point.  It's obvious to me that while a vaccine passport would be the best choice, it makes little practical sense for the Democrats to risk the clear public backlash they'd receive from the right over implementing one.  Even a narrow-scope one (one that, say, required vaccinations for air travel, cruises, hotels, and public universities) would be met with immediate "overreach" backlash.  And, again a bit cynically but it's reality-while there are some pockets of the Democratic population (especially in Georgia & North Carolina) that are not vaccinated, it's not a large percentage. The vast majority of voters who haven't been vaccinated yet in the United States (but are eligible) are Republicans.  There's virtually no Republican in the party that would be willing to stick their neck out to help save a largely Democratic constituency (see the Black Lives Matter movement for proof)-it's hard to expect Democrats to be willing to do the same for Republicans beyond the obvious plea that "everyone should get vaccinated."  And as a result, we'll likely see the continual unabated spread of the disease in the short term, but unlike for most of the past year, the most dire impacts of the disease is going to impact along party lines, something that the Republican Party clearly didn't think through when they set out to appease Donald Trump's ego by agreeing to his falsehoods about the seriousness of the pandemic.