https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/12/13/mcconnell-polio-vaccine-trump-cabinet/
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who battled polio as a child, warned on Friday that anyone seeking a Senate confirmation should “steer clear” of associating with any efforts to undermine public confidence in the polio vaccine.
Several people Donald Trump has tapped for high-level roles in his incoming administration have expressed vaccine skepticism, most notably Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom the president-elect picked to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
On one hand, when it comes to vaccines, RFKJr is a kook and a disgrace to his father's memory. No question.
ReplyDeleteHowever, one has to look at the response to his kookiness. Now, HL Mencken is supposed to have said, "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." This is a public where 4% of Americans think Elvis was alive in the late 1990's, and 10% think the moon landing was faked (probably includes Satmar). So if you tell me that a significant percentage of Americans don't believe in vaccinations, my response is "Yeah? Americans believe in the dumbest things so why not that?"
But there is a new factor at play - the CoVID pandemic and the liberal elite response to it. "Follow the science!" we were told only to later learn that the world's top scientists were telling important lies about the virus, the usefulness of masks and social distancing and the efficacies of the vaccines. (For the record, I've had 8 shots and counting) We were told the virus couldn't possibly have escaped from a lab because Trump said it did, only to later discover correspondence between scientific leaders saying "We can't let the news of the lab leak get out because it'll make Trump look good." Fauci just forgot to mention that he funded the lab in Wuhan and was not an impartial actor when it came to analyzing their role in this crisis. Oops.
And into this mess comes RFKJr. Again, yes his ideas are paranoid and stupid but the other side handed him all the legitimacy it needed by abandoning scientific objectivity in the name of political games. Turns out the scientific elite did lie to us. We can't trust them. They're no more reliable that him so why not consider what he has to say?
The liberal elites have only themselves to blame for his ascendancy and the damage it'll cause.