Opinion | The One Place Where Republicans Think Covid Is Real - POLITICO
By: CHARLES SYKES
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Even as many Republicans rail against mask mandates and spread skepticism about vaccines, GOP leaders have settled on one place where they take the spread of Covid very seriously — the border.
The pivot occurred quickly. This week, one Republican leader after another rushed to blame the spread of the virus, not on the unvaccinated but on immigrants.
Former President Donald Trump put out a statement linking to a New York Post article claiming that "nearly 7,000 immigrants who tested positive for COVID-19 have passed through a Texas city that has become the epicenter of the illegal immigration surge." (Actually, migrants who test positive are quarantined. Videos of migrants roaming free and being dropped off at bus stations turned out to be immigrants who had tested negative and were on their way out of the country.)
But for Trump, who famously launched his presidential campaign by warning about Mexican rapists, the focus on migrants was like playing his greatest hits all over again. Think of it as the 2021 version of the immigrant "caravans."
This is all taking place as public health officials are desperately trying to keep the focus on the urgent need for more vaccinations. Some Republicans, including Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell have joined in the chorus urging Americans to get the shots, but the loudest and most popular messaging, from the likes of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, is that there's no disease dangerous enough that anyone should sacrifice their right to ignore a public health crisis.
Except when you can blame that disease on someone else.
With remarkable unanimity — and a stunning lack of actual evidence — conservative media has seized on the specter of disease-infested immigrants as the real danger to public health.
Fox's Sean Hannity declared that the border (rather than the lack of vaccinations) is the "biggest super-spreader" event of the pandemic. Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire warned of "COVID-Positive Illegal Immigrants Flooding Across The Border." National Review insisted: "This is the reality: The federal government is successfully terrifying people about COVID while it is shrugging at the thousands of infectious illegal aliens who are coming into the country and spreading the virus."
Back in May, the conservative Washington Examiner ran a cover story that declared "COVID Is Over. So, Get Over It." It was accompanied by a picture of a mask being set aflame. But, like other right-wing publications, the Examiner is suddenly no longer over it, pivoting to focus on illegal immigrants — the issue that they never get over. "Biden hypocrisy endangers American lives on southern border," read one headline. "This incoherent, contradictory policy undermines both public health and the rule of law. And it will get innocent people killed."
A Wall Street Journal columnist chimed in as well: "If Biden Is Serious About Covid, He'll Protect the Border." Needless to say, right-wing Twitter is a dumpster fire of xenophobia and hysteria about infections flooding across the southern border.
A viral Facebook post claimed: "The COVID delta variant is so deadly Biden is restricting travel for Americans into Mexico but is keeping the border wide open for illegal aliens to walk right into our country."
As Factcheck.org noted: "Neither of its major points is correct. Biden hasn't initiated any travel restrictions for Americans going to Mexico since the delta variant became dominant in the U.S. in July, and his administration is enforcing existing immigration laws."
Earlier this week, the administration said that it would continue the policy of quickly expelling migrants from the U.S., citing the spread of the delta variant. Despite some stumbles on border policy, the fact checkers pointed out that there were more than500,000 expulsions from February to June under Title 42, which was the law the Trump administration used to expel migrants to prevent the spread of the pandemic.
But infected migrants do not even begin to account for the actual reality of the pandemic, which is spreading far away from the border, and with very different causes. If anything, it's states in the interior such as Missouri and Arkansas that present the greatest risk to themselves and other unvaccinated Americans.
Those facts, however, are unlikely to slow the GOP's campaign to blame the border crisis. Instead, the message seems to be taking root among unvaccinated Americans. A recent Axios poll found that 36.9 percent of the unvaccinated blame "foreigners traveling in the U.S." for the surge in Covid-19 cases. The GOP senses political opportunity in those poll numbers and even officials who have consistently downplayed the pandemic itself have quickly gotten on message.
After President Joe Biden chided him for standing in the way of mitigation efforts, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis fired back on Wednesday: "Why don't you do your job?" he demanded. "Why don't you get this border secure? And until you do that, I don't want to hear a blip about Covid from you, thank you."
DeSantis, whose state now accounts for 1 in 5 new Covid cases, went further, accusing Biden of actually "facilitating" the spread of the virus. "You have hundreds of thousands of people pouring across every month," insisted DeSantis, who has banned vaccine passports and threatened to withhold state funds from school districts that mandate masks. "Not only are they letting them through, they're farming them out all across the country, putting them on planes, putting them on buses."
Florida, of course, does not share a border with Mexico. But Texas does, and the GOP there is laser focused on the threat of diseased Mexican and Central American immigrants.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) blamed rising Covid rates not on unvaccinated Texans — there were 9 million eligible as of August 1 — but on the foreigners. "And Biden wants to release even more COVID positive illegal immigrants," he declared. "This is lunacy."
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) went even further, calling for Biden's impeachment over the border issue. "Here we are saying, 'Oh, we're going to have to wear masks on the floor of the House, but we're going to do nothing to stop the flow of people coming across our border,'" he complained to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
In Texas, that rhetoric has become policy, highlighting the contrast between the GOP's laissez-faire approach to the pandemic and its new passion for blaming it on migrants. Even though he had just signed an executive order banning mask mandates and vaccine requirements, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered state troopers to begin targeting vehicles if they suspected they carried migrants who might be infected.
Freedom! Morphed quickly into Lock them Up!
After the U.S. Department of Justice sued, a federal judge temporarily blocked the order, but Abbott remained defiant. "The Biden Administration has knowingly—and willfully—released COVID-19 positive migrants into Texas communities, risking the potential exposure and infection of Texas residents," Abbott said in a statement.
All of this is deeply cynical, but also familiar. The focus on the border allows some Republicans to fall back into their comfort zone of identity politics and the familiar narratives about scary foreigners and the need for big walls. More immediately, it gives them a cudgel to beat Biden, while deflecting attention from the failures of their own reckless policies.
It is a well-worn playbook that plays well with the base … and donors.
"No elected official is doing more to enable the transmission of COVID in America than Joe Biden with his open borders policies," DeSantis said in a fundraising email that went out immediately after his press conference. Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to surge, even as the GOP has decided that stoking outrage over an immigration crisis is a political winner.
Unfortunately, we will count the consequences of their wager in human lives.
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blaming everybody south of the border for everything wrong here is a time tested conservative tradition.
Sure gets the xenophobes riled up.
May I please ask in what context you are using the term xenophobe?
As far as I know it only has one meaning...
Yes, I understand it has only one meaning, but by context I meant how it is used. Are you using it to refer to a particular person or group of people, and if so why?
What context is there...
Yes there are xenophobes and yes all the right wing rhetoric about the border gets them riled up.
Thank you, that's all I was asking.
I agree, and it's all on Biden's side. What about....all the migrants who are not tested at all. The border authorities simply don't have the people or resources to check out every illegal person. What about....all those that don't go through the checkpoints. The Dems can keep trying to deny the seriousness that lots of sick and infected people keep entering the US on the southern border. They are then free to go anywhere in the US, but the evidence is right out in plain sight.
And yes, those who refuse to get vaccinated are the major part of the problem. But with all the conflicting misinformation that has come out of Fauci and CDC during the last year, you can't really blame them.
What evidence? So far I have seen none.
If your republicans are so upset about this where is any legislation for it other than to build a wall..
I don't see members of congress doing a damn thing except complaining.
Here ya go. Seek and ye shall find. It really isn't all that difficult if you're actually interested.
Why is it I can only find that one article and nothing else...
One would think there would be several articles to back this up, they way people are so upset about it.
Try this..... it really is that simple.
Same tired articles, different day...
I guess you missed this sentence in the post I made above.
And where do you get this info? Where is your proof?
Is a Democrat sufficient "proof"?
Doesn't prove anything, just rehashes the motel story.
I actually agree with the person, they aren't showing the people getting deported.
Glad you think so.
May you and your's find a bunch of illegals in your back yard. Covid positive or not? Who cares, you don't care about the people in Texas and I'm sure the feeling would be reciprocal.
Again, nothing.
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Good to know people in custody are tested...
Do you have anything to add other than spamming me with a fox article?
apparently a site mod here thinks that's acceptable for him to do, shocking. not.
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What you keep spamming does in no way prove your claims....
If you want to post or highlight a section of a link fine.
Do not spam my seed with articles.
Why believe the Washington Examiner? They can't seem to get their own stories right.
They prematurely declared the pandemic over and called for immediate end to those mean mandates by power hungry public health people.
That was May 13, 2021.
Today in spite of the 99 million non vaccinated Americans the WE runs hair on fire articles about the southern border.
all the time...
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A seeder here blames the border for a state on the east coast that has the second highest if not the highest CV infection rate in the country.
Interviewer - "Now that you have crossed illegally what are you going to do?"
Crosser - "I am going to Disneyworld."
Geography is hard.
That is illegal immigrants- get it straight. No one is blaming legal immigrants that have to pass Covid 19 tests and quarantines to get into this country. Damn the amount of BS from the left is staggering.
Here are a few facts for you.
1) The illegal immigrants streaming across our southern border are not tested for Covid 19; nor are they quarantined. They are put in large tightly packed detention centers before they are shipped all across the US.
2) The rise in Covid 19 cases is directly connect to the surge in illegals coming into the US. Spin, deny, deflect, and try and cast blame all you want. Simple fact is Biden allowing this to occur by ending Trump policies that forced illegals to stay in Mexico until their US court dates; sent unaccompanied minors back to their countries of origin; and ending the border wall construction. Nothing like ringing the dinner bell for illegals to come.
3) Stating Biden is enforcing US immigration laws is a joke and a half. He is enforcing only one immigration law; the rest are being ignored.
The left are great at bitching, whining, and moaning about US citizens; but have put blinders on when it comes to illegal immigrants surging into this country under Biden's watch.
The first link quotes two right wing rags that offer no links or data to back up their assertions.
The second link is about Visas and greencards...
Third link is only about how crossings and apprehensions have gone up..
Fourth link is the same as the third...
None of anything you posted has anything to do with the assertion that they are spreading the virus...
You'll need to check with Wolensky of the CDC on that. She did note that unlike the initial variant of the virus, the DELTA variant is more transmissible. The initial spread ratio was about 1 positive to 1.5 or two infections. The DELTA spread is about 1 to 4.5 to 5 infections. So if you believe infected illegal aliens in some way don't spread the virus, please educate the people in the CDC as they're obviously fucking morons compared to you.
Personally I could care less. I'm vaccinated and have been since early on. If other morons don't want to get vaccinated that's their problem. However, it's not the red neck republicans that aren't getting the vac. It's predominantly the black and Hispanic communities. I can understand the blacks hesitance as they have no trust or faith in the CDC after being guinea pigs in the CDC syphilis study.
Has zero to do with what we were talking about.
Squirrel moment noted though...
why would it...as that would be silly, as the silly strung along buy watt they don't knows, despite watt we cut off from facing, herd immunity, is knot, a bull too make through, hard thick craniums, obviously lackin a brain in thems', creating D Nile o' virus quite real, width that don't fit sew many times X's, the areas covered, should B 3 sheets to the wind up wind blowers of fans that vacuum up what sux as they blow, USA weigh dragon USAll down A Wholes are those drugged buy watt other artificial realities stitched together create at any cost, cause they have , and continue to be the wons who've lost, and a loss fore USALL from tiny minds, and hands, so FCKN SMALL, but hey
let's take OUR MILITARY's MONEY, for that MEXICAN PAID FOR WALL, cause never a small tall tail to debone and wail, cuz only related to faces not so pale, in comparrison to the FCKN TRUTH
So you're claiming that covid positive illegal aliens are not spreading the virus to other illegals and citizens and legal alien residents?
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I am not claiming they cannot spread the virus nor do I claim they never have...
That is hair on fire rhetoric and nothing more.
I understand him just fine.
igknorantzrulz is channeling his inner e.e. cummings, who are you channeling exexpatnowintn?
sounds like a chanel serf in for the Royals, for know a mount of a scratched poll or overabundance of fore playin clause, can make peep stop, four pause, cause once dug inn, they seam to possess the inability to de claw any ore all four paws,
witch should cast a pause, for US All, to sit round the caldron and get busy gettin call waitin, in the call waiting waiting room too full of it, to realize how much, they and Bullz, shit
talk, while skip pin the wayward walk, asz they chew their gumz, while skipping to walk the walk thay have difficulty grasping, irrregardless of de-clawed and can't pause for any food for thought, asz
never the TRUTH actually be sought
just what for they and them, was provided and bought and brought forth, asz
our country tends to migrate South of a border, while collie becomes mellon, cause LIES and disorder, and know tellin, watt the herd kneads knot worthy for they to know,
but hey
quite the shit show
and do eye see myself liking it....no
See #4
Charles Sykes is a bred in the bone Republican that Trumpism refers to as RINOs. As the purity game plays itself out TINOs will be next in line for cleansing.
looks like a few, might be lost....
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Stop spreading lies on my seed.
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Proof of claims?
I'd like to see that.
Of course you have none....
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No its not.
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Stop spamming my seed with lies that you cannot back up.
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Which has to do with what?
Did you read the article? The connection should be obvious.
Only to you I guess...
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So far I didn't see you deleted. So I guess you only came in here for meta?
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removed for context