Here’s a thought experiment or maybe, more accurately, a possible alternate history of Covid in the United States:
- Donald Trump wins re-election in November of 2020. (It was possible. As I noted here, Joe Biden’s margin of victory was only 66,000 votes.1)
- In December of 2020, a re-elected President Trump goes on national television to proclaim how great the new vaccines are. Because of “his” Operation Warp Speed, “his” new vaccines are going to save millions of lives. (This, too, is possible. Former President Trump could, and did, say almost anything. Consistency was never a concern.)
- President Trump urges all of his supporters to get vaccinated with “his” great new, wonderful, tremendous vaccine. He even gets vaccinated himself, on national television, even though he has already had Covid.
The questions then are:
First, would Trumpers go out and get vaccinated? I think they would – or at least a much higher percentage of them would get vaccinated than have gotten their shots now.
Second, what would Democrats/progressives do? Would they still “follow the science” or would they have questions about “Trump’s” vaccine and be sufficiently hesitant about getting their shots that a smaller percentage would get vaccinated?
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1 Apparently, it is important to make it clear that President Biden did win and former President Trump lost. It is bizarre that it is necessary to say this, but I guess it is, so I am doing it.
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