Similary the president is done with Trumpism’s cooky anti-vax stance. Biden called the anti-vaxers out today and said to the vaxed, “I know you’re angry at the unvaccinated.”
This is a culture war that this president can and will win. Today he said, Fine, you want not to get vaxed, you lose your job. I wish he had stoked the anger against the un-vaxed a little more. He emphasized repeatedly the health benefits to getting vaxed. And he had a powerful line, but it was just one, that “Our patience is running thin. You are doing harm to all of us.” That is the most potent arrow in his quiver.
He could have gone further although I recognize that he has to be presidential and that he represents all rhe people. But he cleaved all the people in two today, the 75% vaxed and the 25% unvaxed. He intends to apply maximum pressure to both of these recalcitrant constituent groups. To that end he could have said this:
For your reasons, you don’t care about your health. And although it’s my job to protect all Americans including you, the unvaxed, you have devalued your own lives, and I have accepted you as devalued life. I would have as much concern for your lives as I have the lives of sea turtles, but what you are in your self-devalued form is a weapon, and you are a “harm to all of us.” “That is unacceptable” for the health and the life of people who value their lives more than you do yours, who value your lives more than you do and whose lives consequently I value more than yours. Thus my message to the unvaxed is this: You will be disarmed. You will be vaccinated or you will lose your means to live on.
