One of the many self-destructive, policy-free, culture war talking points of the conservative movement these days is the pigheaded belief that vaccinations are unsafe, COVID-19 isn’t a public health problem, and as such, people shouldn’t get vaccinated. The talking point is hidden behind a false ambivalence of whether or not people should get vaccinated. Many GOP officials have been vaccinated, and there are likely many more who pretend they have not, by being cagey about it, in order to align themselves with a base whose sense of reality seems to orbit further and further away from the real world every day. The settling point is that unlike a women’s right to choose what to do with her own body in regards to medical treatment, Americans writ large should … have the right to … choose what to do with their own bodies medically.

With a more communicable delta variant of COVID-19 taking hold around the world, and growing exponentially in areas of our country with lower vaccination rates, President Biden announced on Tuesday that “his administration would send people door to door, set up clinics at workplaces and urge employers to offer paid time off as part of a renewed push to reach tens of millions of unvaccinated Americans.” This has given the right-wing-o-sphere of the country enough to begin screeching that President Biden wanted shock troops to break down your front door and begin stabbing everyone inside with needles filled with liquid communism—created by notorious communists Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci.*

*Fill in your own GIF of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx laughing/crying.

Right-wing dunderheads like Rep. Lauren Boebert—who has yet to have charges brought against her for threatening to carry (and possibly carrying) firearms into the House chambers—are equating public health pushes for more Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19 with Nazi Germany, and also Communist China: “Biden has deployed his Needle Nazis to Mesa County…Did I wake up in Communist China?”

That’s Boebert early Thursday morning. As anyone who knows their history well can tell you, Nazis and communists are super best buds, since like forever. Of course, people like Boebert are exactly the swampy con artists they pretend to rail against, and their opinions on government and power are almost identical to the fascists they have a fetish for invoking constantly.

When asked about Republican “lawmaker” attacks in Biden’s push for educating the public (in quotes because they don’t seem to like making laws except the ones that don’t allow schools to teach facts and people to vote), Psaki reminded everyone that the push to get Americans vaccinated has been going on for some time now, with a push for “local trusted messengers: doctors, faith leaders, community leaders.” Press secretary Psaki went on to explain that Biden’s statement was made in the hopes of adding support for the empowerment of these community leaders in educating the public about the importance of getting vaccinated.

”These are grassroots voices across the country, they are not members of the government. They are not federal government employees. They are volunteers, they are clergy, they are trusted voices in communities that are playing this role and door knocking.” And Psaki reiterated that this isn’t a new initiative. It has been going on for months, and while it has not been nearly as effective as one might hope, it has had some effect in areas. Considering that the right wing of our country’s plan to deal with our public health crisis is to pretend that it isn’t happening and to also take the moral stance that most of the people dying or ill from COVID-19 are somehow weak and unworthy of protection, it’s hard to argue what has been more effective: trying to stem the spread of COVID or lying about the science of COVID and vaccines, while also pretending we haven’t been in a pandemic since last March.

Psaki wound up this answer by explaining that it is disheartening when criticism of “tactics” like trying to inform people about the health benefits of free and readily available vaccinations seems to only serve the purpose of disrespecting frontline workers, and people trying to help the people in their communities—regardless of their political leanings. Psaki ended her response by making it simple: “This is about saving lives.” 

The conversation about vaccine education begins at the 1:16:36 mark, or -26:00 mark—depending on how your screen reads the timecode. 

YouTube Video