IF YOU'RE A REPUBLICAN AND GET VACCINATED, WILL THAT BE USED AGAINST YOU IN A PRIMARY?

In my last post, I wrote about right-wing skepticism in response to the news that three ex-presidents -- Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama -- are willing to be vaccinated publicly against COVID-19 in order to promote the vaccine. In a CNN interview yesterday, President-Elect Joe Biden said he's willing to have a public vaccination as well.

I hope a lot of public figures do this. Among politicians, maybe every governor and member of Congress should do it.

But I wonder if some will very publicly refuse to get the vaccine, or at least be coy about whether they're getting it, for fear of offending QAnoners and other vaccine skeptics who'd otherwise accuse them of encouraging the sheeple to get microchipped by Bill Gates, all because of a disease that, in their view, has killed only 9,000 Americans and is no worse than the flu unless you're old.

I think a number of politicians will publicly say they're not getting it. It's easy to imagine Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon-friendly incoming Georgia congresswoman, proclaiming to the world that the vaccine is a sinister plot and she'll have nothing to do with it. I imagine some wingnut semi-celebrities -- Jordan Peterson? Laura Loomer? Alex Berenson? -- will make a great show of not getting the vaccine. I just don't know how far the resistance will extend, or whether acceptance of the vaccine, like acceptance of the 2020 electoral results, will be a black mark against any establishment GOP politician.

I'm encouraged by the fact that Ivanka Trump is offering to get vaccinated publicly.

I applaud these pronouncements to help assure the public that the vaccine is safe and effective.

My offer holds to do the same. https://t.co/CXswL8eaWg

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) December 3, 2020

Of course she's a terrible person. Of course doing this because she's a desperate publicity hound who wants us all to imagine her as a future president. But I hope she does this. I'd be pleased if Joe Biden thanked her for her offer and encouraged her to do it.

We want more people vaccinated. We want the spread of the virus reduced. If a public Ivanka vaccination encourages some Trumpers to ignore their anti-vaxx Facebook friends and get vaccinated themselves, that's good.

But we know that Ivanka isn't really in sync with much of the right. I think there might be a great deal of vaccine resistance in the right-wing rank-and-file, and Republican politicians might feel compelled to endorse that resistance. I hope I'm wrong about this.