”Although this misinformation is a real issue, and has driven a partisan divide in vaccination, not every unvaccinated person is being brainwashed by conservative media. The larger issue is that the conservative media’s devotion to undermining vaccination encourages Republican elected officials with political ambitions to make irresponsible public-health decisions, because they understand how media coverage shapes the attitudes of the GOP’s voters. Vaccine mandates for things such as school and air travel are supported by more than 60 percent of Texans, despite the state’s conservative lean. But Republican elected leaders fear the wrath of the GOP primary electorate more than they fear thousands of residents of their states dying of COVID-19.
Abbott and Texas Republican legislators have undermined virtually every effort to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. In June, Abbott signed legislation that would deny state contracts or licenses to businesses that require proof of vaccination. Last month, he issued an executive order banning cities and other jurisdictions from enacting mask and vaccination mandates, even though schools across the state already and rightfully require other vaccinations for students to enroll. “The new Executive Order emphasizes that the path forward relies on personal responsibility rather than government mandates,” Abbott proclaimed, while issuing a government mandate. Many Texas cities are in revolt, instituting their own mask mandates in defiance of Abbott’s directives and taking the governor to court.
Abbott did, however, direct state troopers to stop vehicles suspected of transporting undocumented immigrants, a reaction to the widespread conservative falsehood that immigrants are propelling the pandemic surge. The primary step Abbott has taken to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, in other words, is to encourage armed agents of the state to engage in racial profiling. You know, in the name of freedom.
These efforts are not justifiable on the principles conservatives claim to hold. They are not small-government measures, given that they represent intrusive state intervention. They do not respect local control, given that they bar cities and other jurisdictions from taking measures that their residents want them to take. And they are not deferential to the free market, given that they seek to use the state to punish businesses that engage in mitigation efforts. They are designed solely to appeal to the culture-war shibboleths of right-wing media, no matter how many Texans die as a result.
A pathetic irony is that Texas Republicans such as Senator Ted Cruz, who has proposed banning vaccine mandates on the federal level, formerly insisted that the seriousness of the pandemic was a liberal plot to harm Trump and would subside when he left office, as would liberal support for mitigation measures. But now Cruz, ever the craven apparatchik, the type of man who kissed the ring of someone who smeared his father and insulted his wife, is opposing the policies that would more quickly end the pandemic and make such measures unnecessary.“