So first,
@One Brow you made an excellent post.
I agree Trump played a part in this, as did other forces.
I agree that American narcissism, division, and distrust of expertise didn’t start with Trump either. I mean, I’m old enough to remember Birtherism, Palin, climate change denial, Creationism errr Intelligent Design, and I caught the tail end of AIDS, Stranger Danger, and DARE. I also know that the fringe left prior to just 5 mins ago, was the biggest proponent of anti-vax junk science.
However, Trump fueled this… Distrust of expertise and of modest Covid measures like nothing I’ve seen before. That election year could’ve been the year he brought the country somewhat together and easily won re-election. Truly, I think if he had struck a more Bush 2001-2002 tone he probably would’ve sailed to re-election and saved thousands of lives. But… the reason he has such a cult following is also the reason why he’s so divisive.
I did a search for Trump talking about vaccine effectiveness, and they all came back with Trump defending the vaccines. I get he's not always consistent, but could you link to a couple of times Trump himself downplayed the vaccines?
This was a good catch. I too searched for quotes and generally speaking, he’s been supportive of the vaccines. However, he often praises the vaccines, insults the Biden administration, diminishes Covid, and sows distrust in the election integrity of 2020 in the same sentence so I think the message gets muddled in his word salad. The message I got from this was, “Biden sucks and The vaccines are as phony as the 2020 election.”
the 45th president said in a statement released via his Save America PAC on Sunday. "He's not doing well at all. He's way behind schedule, and people are refusing to take the Vaccine because they don't trust his Administration, they don't trust the Election results, and they certainly don't trust the Fake News, which is refusing to tell the Truth."
The numbers are deeply worrisome.
www.cnn.com
Ultimately, the country would’ve been better served with a better president in 2020. Yes, I think he deserves some credit with the development of the vaccines. But that’s really offset by his “Liberate everything! Don’t let Covid dominate you” mantra that cost us thousands of lives in 2020 and set the conspiracy theories ablaze for after he lost. As if Covid was created to hurt his election and the vaccine was busted out just in time for Biden’s inauguration.
Had the vaccines developed been less effective, would we be praising Trump for helping to develop the vaccines? Perhaps, we should’ve done the best of both worlds? Meaning, invested in the vaccines as our only way out of Covid while also maintaining masking mandates and Covid payouts until the vaccines were widely available?