Mary Renkl's beat at the New York Times is politics and culture in the South, so she has been dealing with some severely demented characters lately, whether it's the attempts to overturn the election from Texas to Georgia, to the latest insanity of COVID vaccine resistance. As a result of that resistance, largely in states that were Trump strongholds, unvaccinated people are causing a wave of new hospitalizations and deaths (see the excerpt in "Morning Reading" from Will Bunch). In Tennessee, the efforts of a heroic icon seem to have been squandered by the frightened, sociopathic little men and women of the Tennessee Republican / Trumpist cult, as she writes today:
"When Dolly Parton received her first dose of the Moderna vaccine at Vanderbilt University, where her million-dollar donation helped to fund the research, she sang an updated version of her iconic song 'Jolene.' The tongue-in-cheek lyrics were meant to inspire people to get vaccinated:
Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine
I’m begging of you, please don’t hesitate
Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine
’Cause once you’re dead, then that’s a bit too late
She gave it a good try, a heroic try, but somehow the bonehead politicians running this state managed to overcome even the good will generated by its favorite daughter."
While the cult's politicians get the vaccine in private, they follow the cues of Fox, other right-wing media and their Dear Leader in trying to sabotage the Biden Administration's efforts to stop the spread of COVID and it's dangerous Delta variant. The state's pathetic Governor Bill Lee after getting vaccinated privately has caved to the state's right-wing rubes in rejecting the push for vaccinations. Dr. Michelle Fiscus, Tennessee's immunization and vaccine head at the state Department of Health, resigned in protest when she met resistance from Rethuglican politicos to the vaccination program, writing in her resignation letter:
"I was told that I should have been more 'politically aware' and that I 'poked the bear' when I sent a memo to medical providers clarifying a 34 year old Tennessee Supreme Court ruling. I am not a political operative, I am a physician who was, until today, charged with protecting the people of Tennessee, including its children, against preventable diseases like COVID-19. I have been terminated for doing my job because some of our politicians have bought into the anti-vaccine misinformation campaign rather than taking the time to speak with the medical experts." (our emphasis)
The infuriating part is that these Trumpist politicians will be the first to cynically salute our first responders as hospitals (and morgues) fill up with Delta variant victims, while they cater to the most sinister and unpatriotic elements in their following causing the surge.
(photo: Parton receiving one of her Moderna vaccines. Reuters)
