|
In the course of the hearing, for instance, Wyoming’s John Barrasso, the Senate Republican whip, told Kennedy, “I’m a doctor. Vaccines work. Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.” Despite that, when reporters asked him after the hearing if he still had confidence in Kennedy, Barrasso responded, “I have confidence in what the president of the United States is doing, and I will not second-guess.”
May I gently suggest that a stance such as Barrasso’s might prove electorally problematic for Republicans next year? According to a CBS News poll released earlier today, 74 percent of Americans believe government agencies should make vaccines more available against a bare 4 percent who want those agencies to make them less available. Seventy percent (including 57 percent of Republicans) say the federal government should encourage parents to have their children vaccinated, against, again, 4 percent who say it should not. And despite the pending diktat that would limit Americans eligible for the new COVID vaccines to seniors and the sick, 77 percent believe they should be made available to everyone who wants them.
Given numbers like these and stances like Barrasso’s, it should behoove the Democrats lining up to oppose Maine’s Susan Collins to make an issue of her vote in favor of confirming Kennedy’s nomination while fully aware of his fierce and decades-long opposition to vaccines. It shouldn’t be hard to get hundreds of Maine physicians to demonstrate against her. And even in midterm contests outside the swing states, even in House races where Republicans will respond as Barrasso did, Democrats should raise this issue, too. In the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans raised the completely spurious issue of the “death panels” that the newly enacted Affordable Care Act would allegedly create. Kennedy has now established actual death panels, and the Democrats should campaign on that, calling out every Republican on the ballot who hasn’t demanded Kennedy’s resignation.
Activists don’t have to wait for the midterms, of course, or confine their actions to election campaigns, to highlight the clear and present danger that Kennedy’s policies pose to the populace. The sidewalks outside the headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services await daily demonstrators, peaceful but audible, some of whom may even voice an entirely justifiable chant: Hey! Hey! RFK! How many kids did you kill today?
|
