When the novel coronavirus hit America’s shores in late January 2020, most Americans were understandably not aware of the deadly pandemic to come. It was not for about three months that the implications of COVID-19 became real for most. On March 13, President Trump declared a national emergency over the coronavirus pandemic and states across the nation began to close public schools. Millions of Americans began to work from home as employers shuttered their offices to avoid massive covid outbreaks.
By April, nearly all Americans were living under stay-at-home orders imposed by state and local governments as the virus was confirmed to have infected more than 200,000 in the U.S. The goal of these orders was to limit the spread of the virus and hamper its ability to infect more people. The problem with state-by-state lockdown orders was that they were enforced unevenly.
Hours after Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis issued a statewide stay-at-home order, he signed another order overriding local restrictions aimed at halting the spread of the virus. Essentially, the governor was preventing counties and cities from imposing stricter policies than the state itself. Not only did Governor DeSantis’s order limit the ability of localities to implement necessary restrictions, but it directly contradicted a longstanding Republican belief in the wisdom of local control.
Within two weeks of Governor DeSantis hampering the ability of his state to fight COVID-19, President Trump tweeted “LIBERATE MINNESOTA,” “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA.” The president was encouraging protesters rallying against covid restrictions in their states and directly contradicting the guidelines laid out by his own coronavirus task force. Not surprisingly, the three states targeted by Trump’s tweet had Democratic governors and would likely play a major role in the upcoming 2020 election. President Trump’s decision to publicly attack the guidelines issued by his own coronavirus traskforce, gave Republican governors across the country permission to do the same.
States with Republican governors delayed imposing indoor mask mandates by an average of 30 days, compared with states with their Democratic counterparts. This postponement in mask mandates despite evidence from the very early days of the pandemic that mask wearing was an effective means of combating the virus. Meanwhile, states with Democratic governors were seven times as likely as those with Republican governors to impose statewide mask mandates. Sadly, the story with regard to the encouraging covid vaccines has also been politically fraught.
19 states, all with Republican governors, have prohibited proof-of-vaccination requirements. By requiring proof of vaccination, or a vaccine passport, to partake in activities where people are close proximity, it is hoped that more Americans will be incentivised to get the vaccine. When more people are vaccinated the virus has less of a chance to spread. Despite the visceral pushback to vaccine passports from the GOP, the Biden Administration has repeatedly said it has no plans for a federal vaccine passport. Further hampering the vaccination process, Republican governors have signed legislation punishing businesses that require proof of vaccination and banned "discrimination" against unvaccinated people.
The net effect of the anti-science approach taken by former President Trump and Republican politicians across America, is that states with Republican governors have worse COVID-19 outcomes. A new study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Medical University of South Carolina shows that states led by Democratic governors had the highest cases and death rates from COVID-19 in the first months of the pandemic, but states with Republican governors surpassed those rates as the pandemic dragged on. The research suggests that this change is the result of covid first hitting Democrat-governed states, but as the virus spread across America, Republican governors were less stringent about safeguards, which ultimately caused higher incidence and death rates.
Amidst a sea of Republican governors not taking covid seriously, there are a few Republican governors who have bucked the trend. Three Republican governors in the Northeast – Phil Scott (R-VT), Larry Hogan (R-MD.) and Charlie Baker (R-MA) – have taken aggressive steps to stop the spread of the virus.
In Vermont, thanks to aggressive messaging from Republican Governor Phil Scott, the Green Mountain State became the first state to partially vaccinate 80% of residents 12 or older in mid-June. In addition, the state has reported fewer cases and deaths per capita than any state but Hawaii.
Vermont’s neighbor to the South, Massachusetts, has also confronted the coronavirus pandemic head on. Massachusetts’ Republican Governor Charlie Baker has garnered praise from the Biden White House for mandating vaccines for nursing home workers. In addition, unlike some Republican governors who have insisted on banning masks, Governor Baker has repeatedly urged those with weakened immune systems and those who have not been vaccinated to wear masks.
Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan has taken a science first approach as well. As a result, Maryland has the seventh lowest cases per capita of any state and 60% of its residents are fully vaccinated - better than 45 other states. Back in April of 2020, Governor Hogan was one of the first governors to issue a mask mandate.
Now moving West to Ohio where Republican Governor Mike DeWine has brought solemnity to dealing with the coronavirus even as his state voted for Trump by eight points in both 2020 and 2016. Before even a single case of COVID-19 was registered in Ohio, DeWine began imposing restrictions to limit the spread of the virus. In March 2020, DeWine was the first governor in the nation to close his state’s public schools and call for colleges to suspend in-person classes.
On March 15, 2020, Governor DeWine took the unprecedented step of ordering that all Ohio bars and restaurants be closed to in-house patrons. The next day, governors in New York, New Jersey and Maryland were issuing similar orders modeled after DeWine’s.
Even as President Trump and other elected Republicans demeaned and attacked mask wearing, Governor DeWine insisted that wearing a mask was a matter of public health and “not about politics.” With the school year starting up again, DeWine has come out in support of masks in schools, but has left the final call on mask mandates up to local jurisdictions.
Governor DeWine’s ahead-of-the-curve response to covid has been praised by public health experts and Democrat politicians who admire the Governor's insistence of following medical experts and his unwillingness to sugarcoat the dangers of the virus.
Since the start of the pandemic, Governor DeWine has insisted that following the science will give businesses the best shot of staying open and ensure that children return to in-person learning as soon as possible.
In June, Governor DeWine again changed the game with respect to addressing the coronavirus when he announced that in an effort to boost covid vaccinations, Ohio would give five people $1 million each for getting vaccinated as part of a weekly lottery.
Despite being a red state, Governor DeWine’s aggressive approach to covid has been working. Ohio has the 11th lowest cases per capita of any state and has fully vaccinated 47% of its residents - better than all but four states that voted for Trump in 2020.
At 74 years old, DeWine has held every high level elected office in Ohio. Born in Springfield and raised in Yellow Springs, DeWine began his political career at the age of 29, when he was elected prosecutor for Greene County. DeWine would go on to serve in the Ohio Senate, the U.S. House Representatives and the U.S. Senate. As an executive, DeWine served as Ohio's lieutenant governor in the early 1990s and in 2018 was elected the 70th Governor of the Buckeye State. DeWine knows the people of Ohio and the people of Ohio know him.
Unlike Governor DeWine, Ohioans do not know J.D. Vance. The self-described hillbilly turned Marine turned Yale law-school graduate turned venture capitalist has decided his next reincarnation is Senate candidate. On July 1, Vance announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the Senate in Ohio. The man who currently occupies the seat, Republican Senator Rob Portman, is retiring after two terms. Vance is backed by billionaire and fellow venture capitalist Peter Thiel who has pledged $10 million towards Vance’s campaign.
Prior to announcing his candidacy for Senate, Vance was nationally known for his best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, that was turned into an Academy Award-nominated film. Hillbilly Elegy tells the story of Vance’s tough and frequently traumatic childhood in Ohio and Kentucky. The book analyzes white working-class Americans and the struggles they face to get by.
While on the promotion circuit for his memoir, Vance was frequently asked about the current political environment and why voters he grew up with are attracted to Donald Trump. Vance explained that Trump tapped into the frustrations of the white working-class by talking about the opioid epidemic, the aloof coastal elites and trade deals that harmed those in appalachia. However, Vance was frank that Trump was not the answer to the problems faced by the working-class and he could never vote for Trump.
"I can't stomach Trump," Vance told NPR in August 2016, “I think that he's noxious and is leading the white working-class to a very dark place.”
In December 2016, following Trump winning the presidency, Vance once again made his frustrations with Trump known. “He used rhetoric that's not in the best interest of the party or country,” Vance told the Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. “And the message of Trump's campaign was obviously not super-appealing to Latino Americans, black Americans and so forth. That really bothered me.”
Recently, Vance has dramatically changed his tune on the now former president and tried to erase his past criticism of Trump. Vance deleted a tweet from October 2016 in which he announced he was voting for Evan McMullin over Trump. In addition, Vance deleted a tweet in which he wrote, “Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, ect. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us.” Finally, in what might be Vance’s most galling attempt to rewrite history, he deleted a tweet from March 2017 in which he wrote, "In 4 years, I hope people remember that it was those of us who empathized with Trump's voters who fought him the most aggressively."
Not only is Vance attempting to expunge his past criticism of Trump, but he is working hard to cultivate the support of the MAGA base. Appearing on Fox News in July, Vance begged viewers to not judge him on his past statements.
“Like a lot of people, I criticized Trump back in 2016,” Vance said. “And I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy. I think he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak.”
So let’s get this straight, before Trump was impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress and before Trump was impeached a second time for inciting an insurrection, Vance thought Trump was “reprehensible.” Now however, after Trump was twice impeached and his supporters attacked the U.S. Capital at Trump’s urging, Vance believes Trump was a “good president” who “made a lot of good decisions.”
A key to Vance’s attempt to whitewash his past denunciation of Trump has been his embrace of the big lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from the former president. In June, Vance appeared at Trump’s first rally following the storming of the Capitol. Returning to the rally stage after a nearly six months absence, Trump repeated the false claim that the 2020 election was rigged and attacked GOP officials for refusing to overturn the election results.
In an interview with Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon on his War Room Podcast in May, Vance attacked mail-in voting as a “bonanza” that must be ended and questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
“I think we’ve got to investigate as much as possible,” Vance said of the election results. “I believe sunshine is the best disinfectant. And we're going to learn a lot about what happened.”
Vance has made the calculation that in order to win the Senate Republican primary in Ohio he must embrace Trump and the culture war nonsense that has infected the modern Republican Party. Since announcing his candidacy for the Senate, Vance has attacked people for wearing masks, blamed America’s woes on ‘the childless left,’ called immigrants “dirty,” and said that critical race theory makes people “ignore” their fellow citizens.
Vance is exemplifying the bigotry of low expectations. As first coined by President George W. Bush, the term broadly means that one does not expect disadvantaged people to meet the same standards or have the same expectations as advantaged people. Applied here, we see that Vance is talking down to Ohioans by perpetuating lies about Trump, the 2020 election, the dangers of covid and Democrats because he does not believe they are smart enough to hear the truth.
While Ohio voted for Trump in 2020 and 2016, the state has a history of electing moderate Republicans like former Governor John Kasich and current Governor Mike DeWine. In addition, the seat Vance would fill, should he be elected to the Senate, is currently held by one of the most moderate Senators, Rob Portman and Ohio’s senior Senator, Sherrod Brown, is consistently ranked as one of the most liberal Senators.
There is no reason Vance has to patronize and lie to the people of Ohio to win a Senate seat. It is despicable that someone as intelligent and learned as Vance does not believe Ohioans are not smart enough to root out phonies and narcissistic liars like himself.
In his Inaugural Address, President Biden said, “There is truth and there are lies. Lies told for power and for profit. And each of us has a duty and responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders...to defend the truth and to defeat the lies.” This statement should not have been necessary, but after four years of falsehood from the previous administration it was a necessary corrective to remind the American people that our Democracy functions on the truth. Vance has proven he is no longer interested in speaking truth to power and the people of Ohio know it and will not buy it.
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