The Republican Party Isn't Content With Just Prolonging The Pandemic--They're Fundraising Off It, Too

[appalachiablue]

- Michigan Republican Party Chair Ronna McDaniel speaking before Trump in 2016. She enforced Republicanism's dive into fawning Trumpism.
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- Daily Kos, Sept. 29, 2021.

Given that Republicanism's most obsessive motivation is to govern the country according to its own philosophies, you would think that there would be some point at which mass Republican death would be embarrassing enough to force Republican officials to reconsider their "what if we told everyone to get on with their lives" approach. You would be wrong. The Americans dying do not consist of anyone important enough for movement leaders to give two shits about. It's not Ron DeSantis who's having family members die off—Ron DeSantis happily got vaccinated as soon as Ron DeSantis could.

It's the nobodies watching Fox News who are doing most of the dying. And it's those dying American nobodies who are the targets of the Republican Party's newest pandemic call to arms.

Hey! Hey you! We've been doing our best to make sure you and your families are in as much public danger as possible. Don't you think it's time to hand over a bit of cash as our reward? We know you have money. We know you got a pandemic relief check, the one we all tried to stop you from getting. MONEY, PLEASE. Yep. Republicans are now launching waves of fundraising messages to turn outrage over Democratic efforts to end the pandemic into hard cash for Republican war chests. The Daily Beast reports that the Republican National Committee has been flooding their mailing lists with fundraising pleas specifically targeting President Joe Biden's "AUTHORITARIAN VACCINE MANDATE," also known as the federal directive requiring federal workers and employees of large businesses to either get a free COVID-19 vaccine or submit to weekly tests to make sure they're not infecting others.

Rather than encouraging their dying base to get vaccinated, the official Republican National Committee stance is that 700,000 pandemic deaths are nothing compared to the "EVIL" "UN-AMERICAN" "fascist" demand that Americans pitch in to get us to herd immunity.

The reason they need more money from the Republican base is, according to them, so that they can launch lawsuits to block the Occupational Safety and Health Administration from enforcing the workplace safety rules. The COVID-19 pandemic now poses considerably more danger to employee life and limb than getting your arm caught in heavy machinery does, but OSHA is allowed to regulate one but not the other. For now. It's clear that new Republicanism isn't too keen on policing how many people die in heavy machinery either, but that one doesn't have nearly as much fundraising potential.

Again, there might be a case to be made against obligating vaccinations back when federal authorities had not fully approved the vaccine. Now it's been proven safe and effective, and if employees still don't want to get immunized even though most of America was willingly immunized against a laundry list of dangerous diseases because that is one of the things that makes modern civilization possible then those employees can get tested once a week for everyone else's safety. Requiring childhood vaccinations before attending public school is not fascism. Asking people to save water during a drought or turn in scrap metal during a war is not authoritarianism.

Americans are asking other Americans to have a scrap of decency during a worldwide health emergency, and Republicans are bellowing that their whole world is coming to an end...

- More,
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/9/29/2055089/-The-Republican-Party-isn-t-content-with-just-prolonging-the-pandemic-they-re-fundraising-off-it-too

Comments thread winner:

- I'm almost surprised that the GQP isn't sending out helpful estate planning brochures with step-by-step instructions on how good gawd-fearing patriotic 'Muricans can leave the party a nice chunk of change in their will. Certain religious organizations (I'll be nice and not name any names) do this with their members as a matter of course.

[mitch96]

1. It's all about money and power with them.. screw the constituents.. they are just a

source for more and more money and power.. FOLLOW THE MONEY..
m

[BeckyDem]

2. Toxic dysfunction that frightens me. The Republican brand is lethal, literally.

K&R

[NullTuples]

3. One almost gets the feeling they aren't so worried about vote counts in 2022 & '24