Posted on 09/13/2021 3:31:59 AM PDT by RandFan
Republicans are seizing on President Biden’s latest coronavirus vaccine mandates as a campaign issue as the party looks to galvanize its base ahead of the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential elections.
On Friday, former Vice President Mike Pence and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) took to Fox News’s airwaves to lambast the president’s move, while Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) called the mandate “an assault on private businesses” in a tweet.
Meanwhile the Republican National Committee vowed on Thursday to sue the Biden administration over the mandates.
Nationwide polling shows mandates are generally popular, but Republicans see an opportunity to use the issue to appeal to their staunchest supporters.
“I think this is going to be a motivating factor,” said Republican strategist Keith Naughton. “In an off-year election it’s always hard to get people to turnout for the president except in a crisis, but you do get the people who are angry with him to turnout.”
Twenty Republican governors, including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, as well as Abbott, have publicly opposed Biden’s vaccine mandate since it was announced on Thursday.
“You’re going to see on the governor’s level a lot of governors taking, either them or their attorney generals, taking a leading role in a lot of these legal challenges,” said a GOP operative.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R), who is running for reelection and said just last month that it was time to “start blaming the unvaccinated folks” for the rise in COVID cases, also hit back against Biden’s mandate.
“Once again, President Biden has missed the mark,” Ivey said in a statement. “His outrageous, overreaching mandates will no doubt be challenged in the courts.
Biden’s mandates would require companies with 100 or more employees to mandate weekly testing as well as plans to require vaccines for most federal workers and contractors.
The president hit back at his critics who are vowing to challenge his newly announced mandates on Friday, saying “have it.”
“I am so disappointed that particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids, so cavalier with the health of their communities,” Biden said, speaking outside of a Washington, D.C. school. “We’re playing for real here, and this isn’t a game, and I don’t know of any scientist out there in this field that doesn’t think it makes considerable sense to do the six things I’ve suggested.”
The back and forth comes as the coronavirus and its highly contagious delta variant wreak havoc on the unvaccinated, while causing breakthrough cases in vaccinated individuals. According to Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. is reporting an average of roughly 151,500 new cases each day. Those are the highest levels seen since January.
An Associated Press- NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released last month found that 50 percent of U.S. workers said they were in favor of coronavirus vaccines being required in the workplace, while 26 percent said they opposed the requirements.
Another poll conducted by Politico and Morning Consult showed that 61 percent of respondents said they would support their local governments mandating vaccinations for employees working in their respective communities, while only 32 percent said they would oppose the measure.
The same poll found a stark division between Democrats and Republicans on the issue of vaccine mandates, with over 80 percent of Democrats and roughly half of Independents saying they are in favor of vaccine requirements for all Americans, and only 35 percent of Republicans saying the same.
Polling also shows Republicans and Democrats have different perceptions as to what stage of the pandemic the U.S. is in. An Economist/YouGov poll released this week found that 51 percent of Democrats said they believe the pandemic is going to get worse, while only 27 percent of Republicans said the same.
“Both sides are responding mostly to their base,” Naughton said.
But Republicans also argue that the issue transcends their base, arguing that Biden’s mandates could hurt him with his own base.
“I don’t think the issue is as simple as Republicans and Democrats,” said a national Republican strategist. “The people who are unvaccinated really break down along income lines so the working class and the less affluent tend to be significantly less likely to get the vaccine.”
A Vox study released in July showed that most Americans who have not received the vaccine make less than $25,000 annually. They were followed by Americans who make anywhere between $26,000 to $34,999 per year.
The same study found that as of July, Black individuals accounted for 9 percent of people who received at least the first dose of the vaccine in the U.S. Black individuals make up 12 percent of the U.S. population and are an integral Democratic voting bloc. Only 16 percent of Hispanics received at least the first dose as of July, according to the study.
“There’s clearly a backlash from Republicans on this issue, but I think there’s also a potential backlash that could come from Joe Biden’s own base on this issue,” the Republican strategist said.
Republicans are also floating potential economic impacts the vaccine mandates could have on voters.
“Those are the people who are going to be affected by this when they are ultimately either fired from their jobs, let go from their jobs, or have to suffer the consequences of their businesses now having to provide testing on a weekly basis,” said the GOP operative.
But Republicans also caution that the midterms are over a year away, and that issues like the economy, crime, and the situation at the southern border could have a longer-term impact on voters’ memories.
“We’re going to keep talking about the border, inflation, and crime,” said the national Republican strategist. “There’s also a lot of Republicans who are vaccinated and want everyone else to be vaccinated. Like I said, I just don’t think it cuts cleanly along party lines.”
What a pile. Thats not for another year. This latest effort was all a distraction to try to get Afghanistan off the front page.
Ethics Professor Gives Heartbreaking Final Lesson on Refusing Vaccine Before Being Fired
https://rumble.com/vm8ie1-ethics-professor-gives-heartbreaking-final-lesson-on-refusing-vaccine-befor.html
Must watch 5m video.
If the people who died on 9/11 were alive today, they’d be chanting “F*** Joe Biden- clap, clap, clap-clap-clap”
They can talk all they want but we are in grave trouble if there are millions of young people like the kid that waited on me in a farm supply store espousing comments that made it evident to me he already drank the Kool Aid (yes, I was checking on the Ivermectin and they were out of the kind I wanted and was informed they were not going to get another shipment)
It might serve to energize the base, which is important in mid-terms.
“while Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) called the mandate “an assault on private businesses” in a tweet.”
I like Abbott and will vote for him (again), but I wish he would say something more in line that this is an assault on individual rights and I wish some Republican would also point out that this is an assault on the black community, as they have lowest vaccination rates. Just because the Left wants white conservatives to be the Jews of the 21st Century, doesn’t mean we have to respond the same way the Jews of the 20th Century responded, which was to put their heads down in shame and hope it will all go away...because it won’t, until people start FIGHTING BACK, and fighting back hard.
Most of the GOP are a bunch of cowards who’ll bend over for dhimmicrat demands.
Antisemite much?
The dems had decided abortion would be the defining issue in 22.... and along came Biden to make it vaccines. I thought only Republicans shot themselves in the foot.
Doesn't look like it to me. I think the post pointed in the opposite direction--an allusion to Meir Kahane's Jewish Defense League and the philosophy represented by their motto, "Never Again":
“The meaning of JDL’s motto, “Never Again,” may not be that clear to those who do not know a lot about us. Never Again means first and foremost that Jews will never again go quietly and submissively to our deaths. Never Again means that Jews will not bend to the will of oppressors. Never Again is a motto shouted with the recognition that Jews are not commanded by G-d to be downtrodden and victimized - quite the opposite. Never Again is the motto of the post-Holocaust, truly sensible Jew, who knows that the world can be a dangerous place and that it often gets much more dangerous for Jews when we fail to assert our rights as human beings.”
Watch what happens in California.
If Newsom survives the recall due to massive cheating (and there’s evidence that it’s happening now), it doesn’t matter how “energized” voters are, or how they vote... Democrats still retain both houses of Congress.
Unfortunately that’s just the sort of thing that makes the corrupt GOP not want to stop vaxx mandates...
It’s true; the mandates would help the GOP. The RATs know this, yet they continue with mandates and other abuses. This tells me they’ve already guaranteed that the fix is in for 2022, else they’d be changing their wicked ways. They aren’t.
“Antisemite much?”
Are you?
Jews fought back in Warsaw, Krakow and wherever and however they could resist. Your caricature of them meekly walking into ovens is a slander.
“Jews fought back in Warsaw, Krakow and wherever and however they could resist. Your caricature of them meekly walking into ovens is a slander.”
A few did, but way too late and only when they knew they had nothing to lose. The vast, vast, majority did as told - packed their bags for what they were told would be a ‘relocation to a safe place’...even AFTER the writing as on the wall (rumors, no one hearing from relatives after they boarded the trains), etc.
Of course, that is what the Republican establishment wants — a focus on Covid mandates rather than on open borders, immigration, critical race theory/anti-white racism and election fraud.
Anyone still listening to mitten’s niece needs to be bludgeoned!
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