And the divide over the vaccine reflects our partisan differences. In Gallup polling conducted at the end of September, 92% of Democrats had received at least one dose of the vaccine, while just 56% of Republicans had done the same.
Donald Trump thinks he knows why. Here’s his explanation during an “interview” with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday night:
“During my administration, everybody wanted the vaccine. There was nobody saying oh, gee, I don’t want to take it. Now they say that. And that’s because they don’t trust the Biden administration. I can think of no other reason.
“But they say we don’t want it, we aren’t going to take it. When I was there, everybody wanted it and we were doing great. Well, the military did a fantastic job.”
OK … so Trump is saying that the 44% of Republicans who haven’t been vaccinated are resisting because they don’t like or trust President Joe Biden?
It couldn’t be — and stay with me here — a persistent effort to undermine the very idea of truth over a four-year presidency, could it? Or a president who consistently downplayed the threat posed by the virus, mocked the necessity of wearing a mask to mitigate the spread and sought to undermine experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci? And that, once this seed of denial of facts and expertise takes root, it grows in all sorts of malformed and malicious ways?
Yeah, it’s either all of that or it’s Republicans not trusting Biden even though the vaccine was developed under a plan put in place by Trump — a fact that the former President touts in literally every public appearance he makes.
The Point: We know why vaccine hesitancy rates are so high among Republicans. It’s Donald Trump, with an assist from his friends — like Sean Hannity — at Fox News.
