Tribal Politics and Political Pawns
From my early childhood I was led to believe that our government functioned by bringing together persons of goodwill who would find ways to address the collective needs of the nation and its citizens. While President Biden seems to still embrace this concept, the current Republican political strategy is wholly focused on motivating its loyal supporters and denigrating its opposition rather than seeking to garner the support of a majority of the country’s electorate by promoting policies that would enhance the nation. Thus, American politics have become a form of tribal warfare rather than a contest of ideas. To implement that strategy, the party has adopted a wide array of obstructionist tactics which has made our nation’s electoral politics more closely resemble the game of chess in which the objective is to weaken the opposition with every move in order to achieve an ultimate victory at the polls. Like in chess, today’s Republican politics involve sacrificing pawns in an effort to win elections.
The January 6th Capitol insurrection was a prime example of sacrificing political foot soldiers in an effort to reverse the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. At this point approximately 675 of the roughly 10,000 misguided individuals who were manipulated into participating in that siege have been arrested and criminally charged for their efforts. At his “Stop the Steal” rally President Trump promised to be with them every step of the way as they “fought like hell” on his behalf. However, immediately following that rally he made a hasty retreat to the safety of the White House where he watched his recruits sack the Capitol. While the former president has showered their efforts with praise and hailed them as patriots, he has done nothing to alleviate their current plight. He didn’t pardon any of them. Nor has he shared with them any of the over $100 million he has raised in the name of the cause they championed, leaving them to suffer alone the consequences of their actions. Such is the fate of pawns enticed to enlist in a game of political chess.
Another game of political chess is now being played in connection with the Biden administration’s efforts to combat the spread of the coronavirus. In it the Republicans have ensnared millions of gullible Americans, including over 70,000 members of the nation’s armed forces, to serve as their political pawns impeding those efforts. You might now be wondering why would one of the nation’s major political parties initiate a campaign against efforts to combat a disease that had already killed hundreds of thousands of their countrymen? Isn’t that like being against God or motherhood? The short answer is that Republican politicians don’t view it as an effort in support of a deadly virus, but rather as one against a Democratic administration. It’s the same mentality that prompted all but thirteen House Republicans to vote against the Infrastructure Bill advanced by the Biden administration even though the provisions of that bill were a veritable wish-list of Republican priorities. In both of these cases, their primary objective was help position themselves to win the forthcoming elections, not to repair the nation’s crumbling infrastructure or to save the nation from thousands of unnecessary deaths.
This current chess game began before President Biden had even been inaugurated. Although the Trump administration had been instrumental in speeding the development of the Covid vaccines, it had made no plans for the deployment of those vaccines. In addition, it had delayed the transition of government, thereby retarding the Biden administration’s efforts to do so. Thus, when President Biden assumed the presidency a month after the vaccines had been approved by the FDA only six million doses had been administered. At that time the number of Covid cases had just reached an all-time high and a new more virulent strain of the virus (the “Alpha variant”) was starting to take root in this country. See, “The Race to Mitigate the Fourth Surge.”
It wasn’t just that Republicans declined to assist the Biden administration’s efforts to head off a fourth surge of the virus, they took numerous measures to impair those efforts. They passed laws and issued executive orders prohibiting the issuance of mask mandates by local governments and they embarked upon a disinformation campaign designed to undermine public confidence in the vaccines. Even though the vaccines had been developed under the auspices of the Trump administration, Republicans harped on break-through infections and on the emergency nature of the FDA approvals to instill doubt over the vaccines’ safety and efficacy. Congressional Republicans even stood silently as their supporters in the media spread numerous false rumors about the vaccine. These rumors ranged from mere misinformation to outright ludicrous fabrications, including (a) you can get Covid from the vaccines; (b) the vaccines aren’t needed if you have already been infected; (c) people with underlying conditions or suppressed immune systems shouldn’t be vaccinated; (d) pregnant or breast-feeding women should not take the vaccines; (e) the vaccines will alter your DNA; (f) the vaccine can make you infertile; and (g) the vaccines contain microchips which will enable the government to control your actions.
These pearls of disinformation, however, did not initially prevent the Biden administration from rapidly ramping up its Covid vaccination program. In fact, it was able to increase the number of vaccination doses from a half million a day in late January to over four million a day by mid-April. This was sufficient to keep the daily number of new Covid cases from exceeding 75,000, which was less than one third of the number that the nation had experienced in early January of 2021. As a result, by the end of April the daily number of confirmed cases was falling rapidly. Although the Biden administration had set a goal of vaccinating 70% of adult Americans by July 4th, that goal was not achieved because the number of Americans remaining willing to become vaccinated had largely been depleted, sending daily vaccination rates back down to a half million a day.
In an effort to rejuvenate its declining vaccination program the Biden administration, along with several state governments, began offering cash and other incentives to entice vaccine resisters to become vaccinated. These efforts, however, had little noticeable impact. In early July the declining vaccination rate took on new urgency when the Delta variant became the dominant strain of the virus causing a rapid increase in Covid infections. See, “Confronting the Delta Variant”, and “Understanding Anti-Vaxxers Motivations” for why that variant became an overnight threat and why Republican disinformation became so effective in discouraging unvaccinated Americans from getting the protection they needed.
Increasing the rate of vaccinations was not only important to curtail a further spread of the virus, but also to reduce the likelihood of a further mutation that might not be repelled by the currently available vaccines. To reinvigorate its vaccination program the Biden administration chose to impose vaccine mandates on federal government employees and on the employees of federal government contractors. It also encouraged the states and private businesses to impose similar mandates on their employees.
Republican politicians, determined to deprive the Biden administration of a victory over the coronavirus, countered by initiating court actions to block the implementation of these mandates. They also embarked on a public relations campaign characterizing the government’s vaccination mandates as Marxist and Gestapo tactics and contending that they constitute unconstitutional infringements upon the personal liberties of Americans. It didn’t seem to concern them that their opposition to abortion rights represented a much greater infringement on personal liberties. That’s because Republican politicians have long since learned that in a game of political chess accumulating the most votes is how the winner is determined; no prizes are awarded for how the game is played. Unlike in other competitive sports, no referees are standing by to ensure that everyone obeys the rules of fair play; not the courts, not the media and certainly not the FEC. In the minds of Republican politicians it’s more important to excite their supporters by attacking Democratic efforts than it is to act with integrity or to take actions that might improve the lives of Americans.
The disinformation attacks on the vaccine mandates were widely disseminated over Fox News and right-wing media sites. This has led to a great divergence in the vaccination rates among Democrats and Republicans, with 60% of the nation’s unvaccinated population identifying themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning and 17% calling themselves Democrats or Democrat-leaning (see, November 16th Report of Kaiser Family Foundation). This impact was particularly noticeable on U.S. military bases where right-wing information channels receive constant attention.
The current vaccination deadlines for the various armed services differ slightly. The deadline for complying with the Airforce’s vaccination mandate was November 2nd. Active-duty Navy and Marine personnel were required to be fully vaccinated by December 28th and active-duty Army personnel have until December 15th. At present, approximately 9,600 active-duty Airforce members (or 2.9%) are delinquent in complying with their mandate. The Navy has reported that 11,528 of its active-duty members (or 3.4%) have not become vaccinated and roughly 10,000 active-duty Marines (or 5.3%) have failed to comply. The U.S. Army, which is the largest branch of the nation’s armed forces, has reported that approximately 41,000 (or 8.5%) of its active-duty members have yet to become fully vaccinated.
While the vaccination mandates for U. S. military personnel do not provide for an alternative method of satisfying the mandate (such as periodic testing for Covid), they do permit exemptions for religious, medical and administrative reasons. The responsibility for ruling on applications for an exemption is placed in the hands of local commanders. In this way exemption applications can be adjudicated on the basis of the unit’s peculiar needs and operating conditions. It also removes the decisions on the availability of the exemptions from the political realm. In the absence of a valid exemption, non-complying personnel are to be dismissed from their service with a “general” (as opposed to an “honorable”) discharge. Such a discharge would not qualify them for a wide variety of benefits including housing, tuition and other privileges accorded to veterans and could obligate them to repay the government for economic incentives not yet earned.
It’s not clear what was intended to be encompassed by the three categories of exemptions. Presumably an exemption for health reasons might include temporary illnesses and impairments prohibiting vaccination during the period of impaired capacity. While in theory it might also include individuals with a history of severe reactions to vaccines, such persons are not likely to be members of the armed forces who routinely are required to have eleven different vaccinations upon their induction. The Airforce is reported to have approved more than 1,600 medical exemptions, while the Navy is said to have granted a total of six such exemptions. The Army has granted only one medical exemption.
An administrative exemption would seemingly apply in situations in which the services of the individual are both unique and critical to their unit’s mission. Nevertheless, most of the 232 administrative exemptions issued by the Air Force were based upon the imminent retirement of the applicants. There are no reports of administrative exemptions having been granted by the other armed services.
It’s by no means clear what a “religious” exemption is intended to encompass. There is no religious text or commandment prohibiting members of any religious sect from being vaccinated against a deadly and highly transmissible disease. Thus, this exemption category was presumably included in the Biden administration’s order merely to prevent the issuance of court orders delaying (or even blocking) the implementation of the mandate on religious grounds. In an apparent effort to provide some meaning to this amorphous exemption Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees the Catholic diocese responsible for the military services, decreed that troops may conscientiously object to the vaccine mandates based upon “their own personal convictions.” Besides being an apparent break from Pope Francis' urging of all Catholics to become vaccinated, it’s difficult to understand how members of the armed forces who have already received a dozen or more vaccinations as a condition of their military service could have any legitimate conviction against receiving a Covid vaccine.
The latest available information is that 4,817 Airforce personnel have applied for a religious exemption and that none have been granted. Neither the Army, the Navy nor the Marines has released the number of their personnel who have sought an exemption on religious grounds but all have stated that no such exemption applications have been granted.
The current refusals of over 70,000 members of the nation’s armed forces to become vaccinated poses both administrative and political problems for the Biden administration. Non-compliance with an order designed to protect the health and effectiveness of our armed forces should be a terminable offense. The problem is that the summary dismissal of so many military personnel could adversely impair the ability of many military units to carry out their missions. The immediate dismissal of these individuals would also provide some credence to Republican charges that the Biden administration is acting in a dictatorial fashion. While acting in a dictatorial fashion is not something that normally deters Republican politicians (think about abolishing abortion rights or restricting voting), it does seem to weigh heavily upon Democrats who remain concerned about how the game of political chess is played.
To be sure, many members of our armed forces who have refused to comply with the vaccine mandates have done so because of political motivation, which contravenes the notion that our armed forces personnel should remain apolitical. Accordingly, their non-compliance should be dealt with both swiftly and decisively. Most of the non-compliance, however, can be attributed to reliance upon misinformation. While that is not a valid excuse for non-compliance, it doesn’t automatically render a vaccine resister unfit to serve in our nation’s armed forces. The Biden administration has therefore decided to make an attempt to educate non-complying armed forces members as to safety and efficacy of the available vaccines and to offer them a short extension in which to become vaccinated. Should they fail to do so after being correctly informed, they will be promptly discharged.
The data, of course, are overwhelming. It’s not just that all but a small number of the thousands of Americans who have died of Covid during the past six months have been unvaccinated as this would be of little statistical significance if the preponderance of unvaccinated individuals were also overwhelming. The facts, however, are otherwise. This was recently confirmed in a recent study performed by the Department of Health Services of the State of Texas, a state whose government is firmly controlled by Republicans. That study involved the review of millions of lab records, death certificates and state immunization records. It found that during the period from Sept. 4 to Oct. 1 — when the numbers of vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in the state were roughly equal — the unvaccinated were 13 times more likely to become infected with COVID-19 than those who were fully vaccinated and 20 times more likely to die from COVID-19 complications.
During the past week becoming vaccinated took on added importance with the revelation that a new strain of the coronavirus (dubbed the “Omicron variant” by the W.H.O.), had been detected by epidemiologists in Botswana and South Africa. In just a little over a week since it was first identified it has been found in over a dozen other countries and an aggregate of twenty cases have been reported in twelve different states in this country. Like the Delta variant which rapidly became the dominant strain of the coronavirus over the past several months, the Omicron variant appears to be heading toward dominance. It has more than 30 mutations to its spike protein, the component of the virus that enables it to bind to human cells. Specifically, it has 10 binding receptors in contrast to the two found on the Delta variant; and the latest report is that it has been spreading at twice the rate of the Delta variant.
Epidemiologists, while concerned enough to characterize the Omicron variant as a “variant of concern”, have been reluctant to predict the level of havoc it might wreak. That’s because it has 20 other mutations, some of which might render it less harmful than its predecessors. One troubling possibility is that some of its 50 mutations could alter its appearance to the point that it won’t be recognized by the current vaccines. That’s why health officials and vaccine producers around the world have initiated crash efforts to determine whether and the extent to which the existing vaccines will be effective against it. While those vaccines logically should still be able to recognize and cause human immune systems to resist the Omicron variant, its enhanced ability to spread may mean that it will be able to more frequently overwhelm the body’s defenses. In short, the current vaccines are likely to prove less effective in preventing the Omicron variant from establishing itself in the body.
This means that current vaccines may have to be administered at a greater frequency to keep immune systems stronger and/or that more effective vaccines and therapeutics will have to be developed. In any event, the health risks to members of our armed forces will be greatly increased if unvaccinated individuals are allowed to continue to serve alongside of them. In this sense the Omicron variant will increase the pressure on the Defense Department to immediately begin to physically separate unvaccinated personnel until their ultimate fates are decided.
The dismissals of military personnel for failing to comply with the Biden administration’s vaccination mandates will be taking place over the next two months for active-duty personnel and over the next eight months for reserve personnel. Based upon the current political atmosphere, it seems likely that as many as 50,000 active-duty military personnel may have their livelihoods and military careers sacrificed in this, the Republicans’ latest game of political chess. While this will be a tragedy for them, it is also a sad commentary that political contests in the world’s most economically and technologically-advanced country have been transformed from reasoned debates into tribal confrontations.