There is no vaccine for our deeper national sickness
By Colbert I. King,
I want a coronavirus vaccine to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration and distributed for inoculation as soon as there is scientifically approved evidence of its safety and efficacy — but not one moment sooner. There is a moral imperative, but no political imperative whatsoever, to move forward as soon as possible.
Whether the arrival of the vaccine occurs before Election Day on Nov. 3, and whether it helps or hurts President Trump or Democratic nominee Joe Biden, is of little moment. Trump should leave town regardless.
Ample evidence is contained in Trump’s 3½ disastrous years in the White House to warrant his rejection at the polls.
What’s more, Trump’s admission to The Post’s Bob Woodward that he knew that coronavirus was “deadly” and worse than the flu but deliberately minimized the danger (“I wanted to always play it down”) was a dereliction of duty. Covid-19 has killed at least 188,000 people in the United States. A family friend of more than 40 years who died last month from covid-19 might still be with us if Trump had only told the truth.
Even if an FDA-certified vaccine arrived within the next 10 minutes, I would not vote for Trump.
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On a more positive note, this week The Post reported that the FDA may grant emergency-use authorization to vaccinate front-line health workers, those over 65 and those with underlying medical conditions — even as large clinical trials continue. If true, I won’t line up for a shot.
I don’t quarrel with the idea of giving priority to people at greatest risk of severe illness and death, or to workers crucial to maintaining core societal functions.
Yes, I am way older than 65. And health records will confirm both my underlying medical conditions.
What they can’t tell you is how strongly I believe that my place belongs to someone else.
There are millions who should get their shots first: those who have much more to give; those who need more time to experience this wonderful earthly journey — prickly thorns notwithstanding; and young folks who haven’t yet tasted life that brings joy and fulfillment beyond anything they have ever known.
I have, goodness knows, had all that.
Now, I am not giving up the ghost. But, neither will I selfishly lay claim to a space that should be occupied by someone who offers more promise than this old fart. My family, and all whose lives are closely linked to mine, my faith teaches, will remain with me forever.
My day has come . . . and will fade away.
In the meantime, I’ll keep practicing social distancing, and wearing a mask, including the overpriced Polo knockoff that I purchased in an emergency from a vendor in Columbia Heights in order to enter the DC USA shopping center on 14th Street NW. If nothing else, a free-market economy is thriving in my ’hood.
Besides, I also need to stick around to join in the fight against another uncontained, spreading virus: the toxic strain of lying, fear, meanness and race-based hostility transmitted by the White House across America.
As I scan Trump’s tweets, speeches and public ruminations, the thought occurs to me that this must be what it would have been like had former Alabama governor George Corley Wallace Jr. won the presidency in 1968.
Read Wallace’s rhetorical choices during the ’68 campaign and you will quickly learn that Trump has been channeling him.
Wallace sought the presidency at a tumultuous time of protest, civic unrest over deeply rooted racism and the Vietnam War. With his “Stand Up for America” slogan, he played to the growing white backlash against the marches and acts of civil disobedience. Backlash is also the heart and soul of Trump’s campaign war against “anarchists” and the press.
Hear Wallace in a 1968 Toledo speech, captured in an essay by Marianne Worthington of Cumberland College: “I want to say that anarchists — and I am talking about newsmen sometimes — I want to say — I want to make that announcement to you because we regard that the people of this country are sick and tired of, and they are gonna get rid of you — anarchists.”
Hear Trump in May in Florida as he cast blame for urban protests on “radical-left anarchists,” and charged that the media “is doing everything within their power to foment hatred and anarchy.”
Wallace in a Tennessee speech: “You elect me the president, and I go to California or I come to Tennessee, and if a group of anarchists lay down in front of my automobile, it’s gonna be the last one they ever gonna want to lay down in front of!”
And Trump calling “GREAT PATRIOTS” those driving through downtown Portland, Ore., firing paintball and pellet guns at protesters.
See Wallace, making his stand for segregation in a schoolhouse door. See Trump, standing outside St. John’s Church, holding up a Bible and pretending to be a protector of the faith — even as he left America unprotected against the coronavirus.
Purveyors of lies and a mean-spirited “us-against-them” virus for which, sadly, there is no vaccine.
I’ll work to my last breath to find one.
Read more from Colbert King’s archive.
Read more: Catherine Rampell: Growing public skepticism on vaccines is an indictment of Trump’s record Erin N. Marcus: Why the CDC’s Nov. 1 vaccine rush is likely to backfire Erik Wemple: Let Woodward be Woodward David Ignatius: Bob Woodward gave Trump every chance to prove himself Marc A. Thiessen: If Trump lied, so did Fauci
