By Jim Geraghty
Monday, July 26,
2021
Thanks to Alexandra
DeSanctis for sitting in for me last week. Now, what the heck happened
while I was gallivanting around
New England?
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 increased 32
percent in one week, mask mandates came
back in a few cities, the U.S. Department of Justice decided to not
investigate Andrew Cuomo’s policies for nursing
homes, the Taliban is beheading
Afghans who formerly served the U.S. military as interpreters, the Biden administration effectively
surrendered on Nord Stream 2, Democratic pollsters are warning the party that fears of
inflation are hitting Americans hard, the president insists that the way to alleviate
inflation is to pump a lot more money into the economy in the form of federal
spending, the administration is canceling
border-wall contracts, and the
Cleveland Indians are now the painfully generic Cleveland Guardians?
My return from vacation has become this gif.
It is now clear is that the Biden era will
feature a lot of administrational focus on problems that Democrats think is
convenient for their agenda — climate change, the perennial complaint
about our “crumbling infrastructure,” and the unvaccinated (further
thoughts on that below). This presidency will feature minimal attention on
problems that Democrats think are inconvenient for their agenda — inflation,
crime, the continuing migrant surge at the border that in some places is 288 percent
higher than a year ago, the
Taliban taking over Afghanistan and reverting to the pre-9/11 status quo,
the Russians
hacking everything in sight,
the Chinese
hacking everything in sight, American
companies groveling before the whims of Beijing. . . .
But a problem you ignore is not a problem
that is likely to solve itself.
A president who is elected with a mandate
to just not be like his predecessor is a president who wakes up every morning
and cruises along on the vibe that his mission is already accomplished. Biden
travels around the country and the world giving speeches declaring that
“America is back!” and waits for negotiators on Capitol Hill to work out the
details of yet another massive spending bill.
Biden insisted that the surge of migrants
at the border was part of a regular seasonal pattern. It wasn’t.
Biden insisted that “There’s nobody
suggesting there’s unchecked inflation on the way — no serious
economist.” You don’t have
to look that hard to find worried economists, in part because they thought prices would have stabilized by now.
Biden insisted that he trusts “the
capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and
more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war.” Afghan troops
are deserting their posts and fleeing across the border to Pakistan.
Biden turns 79 in four months. Today,
he’ll be making remarks to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the Americans
with Disabilities Act. That’s a perfectly fine thing to do, but it is not
particularly connected to any of the pressing issues in the country right now.
If the administration wants to argue that the pace of the president’s schedule
will naturally slow in midsummer, fine. But if the Biden team is wondering
why a majority of
Americans are pessimistic about the coming year after being much more
optimistic just two months ago, perhaps our fellow citizens are realizing that this White House’s
first response to a thorny problem is to insist it isn’t really a problem.
But hey, it’s great weather for ice cream.
(Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised to find a ice-cream-obsessed presidency in a
man whose campaign spent $7,724.64 on institutions
with “ice cream” in their names during the 2020 campaign.)
America’s Unvaccinated Big Cities
“The people who aren’t getting vaccinated
are Trump voters” is an oversimplification. Yes, broadly speaking, those who
are unvaccinated and who adamantly refuse to get vaccinated are more likely to
have voted for Trump or self-identify as Republicans, and the data indicate
that more Republican-leaning states and areas have lower vaccination rates. But
significant percentages of the residents of the deepest-blue cities in America
are still unvaccinated, and simple math demonstrates that there just aren’t
enough Trump voters around to make up the not-yet-vaccinated-and-in-no-hurry
demographic in those places.
For example, as of this weekend, 41
percent of New York City residents were not vaccinated. Trump won 22
percent of the vote in NYC.
·
In Chicago, 43 percent of residents are
not vaccinated. Trump carried 24 percent of the vote in Cook County.
·
In the city of San Francisco, about a
quarter of residents are not vaccinated. Trump carried about 12 percent of the
vote in the city last year.
·
In Los Angeles County, just under 30
percent of residents are not vaccinated; Trump won 26.8 percent in 2020.
·
In Maricopa County, Arizona, which
includes Phoenix, 52 percent of residents are not vaccinated; Trump won 48
percent of the vote there in 2020.
·
In Harris County, Texas, which includes
Houston, about 48 percent are not vaccinated; Trump won 43 percent in that
county in 2020.
·
In Philadelphia, Pa., about 37 percent of
residents are unvaccinated. Trump won 17.9 percent of the vote there in 2020.
·
In Multnomah County, which includes
Portland, Ore., just under 63 percent have at least one dose, meaning that 37
percent are unvaccinated. Trump won under 18 percent in that county in 2020.
·
In Milwaukee County in Wisconsin, 61.6
percent have at least one dose, meaning 38.4 percent are unvaccinated. Trump
won 29.4 percent of the vote in 2020.
·
Detroit has vaccinated just under 40 percent
of its residents; Trump carried
5 percent of the vote in that city.
Even in the absurd hypothetical scenario
where every Trump voter from 2020 in these cities and the surrounding counties
refused to get vaccinated, the unvaccinated group would have to include
significant numbers of people who voted for Biden or other candidates. (Yes,
those who are eligible to get vaccinated now include those under age 18, who
couldn’t vote in the election, so this isn’t a perfect one-to-one comparison.
But the point stands: A lot of Democrats remain unvaccinated in those cities.)
A lot of social-media users who are
comfortable — or even enthusiastic about — showing anger and disdain at
Republicans in Florida, Texas, or Missouri wouldn’t allow themselves to show
the same sentiment toward unvaccinated Biden-supporting or non-voting residents
of New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc. A lot
of people who sneer or take glee at infections among Trump voters in rural
areas would perceive infections among residents of Portland, Milwaukee, or
Detroit quite differently. A lot of America’s remaining unvaccinated live in
big cities, but most of the news coverage wouldn’t lead you to that conclusion.
There are Democrats and independents in America who are not vaccinated — and
not particularly interested in getting vaccinated — and they’re at risk, too.
The vaccination effort that looked
like the signature accomplishment of the Biden administration’s first
year stalled just as a much-more-contagious variant picked up momentum. It
is not surprising that a lot of people who were heavily invested in the
administration’s narrative of victory are looking for scapegoats.
China’s New Spin: ‘COVID-19 Has Multiple
Origins’
Yes, the Chinese Foreign Ministry puts out
nonsensical and spectacularly implausible propaganda every day, but the Chinese
government’s claim in mid June that “it is an
obvious fact that COVID-19 has multiple origins and broke out in multiple
places” deserved a lot more public scorn.
Also, while I was away: “Senior Biden
administration officials overseeing an intelligence review into the origins of
the coronavirus now believe the theory that the virus accidentally escaped from
a lab in Wuhan is at least as credible as
the possibility that it emerged naturally in the wild — a dramatic shift from a
year ago, when Democrats publicly downplayed the so-called lab leak theory.”
Welcome to the party, intelligence community.
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