Republicans Continue to Play Politics to Appeal to the Most Extreme Parts of their Base
Last week, the GOP tanked a $10 billion package which would have allowed the government to purchase vaccines, boosters, therapeutics, and tests – tools vital for continuing our fight against COVID-19. They did this so they could pick a blatantly political fight in an attempt to hurt the Biden administration, dragging out the pandemic.
This week, Republicans continued their efforts to prolong the pandemic, despite the fact that people in red areas of the country are dying at a higher rate than Democratic areas. Republican leaders have made it clear that they don’t care if their constituents are the ones who get hurt by their partisan games. By promoting vaccine hesitancy, fighting against common sense measures to mitigate COVID-19’s spread, and finally, by denying the federal government the funds it needs to continue its fight against the virus, Republicans continue to show that they will stop at nothing to score their political points.
Elsewhere, in Republican efforts to prolong the pandemic…
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis went on a typical unhinged rant about Democrats who’ve gotten COVID-19, saying it’s clear they weren’t abiding by their own policies, and that mitigation efforts didn’t work. Never mind that most of the country continues to stay within the CDC’s guidelines and social distancing, and that the people who’ve unfortunately contracted the virus at these events are staunch promoters of vaccinations, unlike Governor DeSantis.
While the B.A.2 variant continues to rise in Florida, DeSantis remains in denial for his policies which put Floridian lives at risk, all to serve his own political ambitions.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, upon hearing that masks would still be required on airplanes for a few more weeks as the government monitors an uptick in cases, tweeted “time to vote out these petty tyrants.” He does know that Donald Trump used to be president, right?
West Virginia Congresswoman Carol Miller and Florida Congressman Vern Buchanan introduced legislation that would stop intellectual property on vaccines from being shared with other countries. This is a terrible idea – the best way to prevent new variants is to vaccinate the world. Republicans know this and would rather enact empty political gestures than work on getting as many people vaccinated as possible, as quickly as we can.