I do know I simply wrote a column about Jared Polis and his harmful endorsement of Robert Kennedy Jr. — the nation’s most outstanding anti-vaxxer and in addition a outstanding conspiracy theorist, to not point out an notorious dead-bear dumper — as secretary of Well being and Human Companies.
However since my column — and I’m not taking this personally — Polis has tripled down on his help for Kennedy.
I’m unsure if that is naïveté, stubbornness, willful ignorance — I imply, all the opposite cool children assume a Kennedy appointment could be a catastrophe — or, most definitely, a perception that this is able to one way or the other assist him politically.
However no matter Polis’ reasoning, I get angrier each time I give it some thought.
Ezra Klein’s post-endorsement New York Occasions column on Polis — which began out to be a take a look at why Colorado stayed so blue within the presidential race and what position Polis might need performed in that — ended up with this headline: “Jared Polis Needs to Win Again the Hippies.”
That isn’t fairly proper. I don’t assume hippies play an enormous position in Colorado politics, and no matter crunchy position they do play, it in all probability isn’t in praising Polis for supporting an unqualified kook to — in Trump’s phrases — “go wild” as the pinnacle of HHS. And apart from, what Polis desires to be is president, and I’m unsure the hippie vote would put him excessive.
Politically, in addition to medically, this looks as if a big blunder for Polis. Democrats are livid. And I doubt he thinks this is able to win him any MAGA votes, significantly in a Democratic main for one job or one other. You’d assume he’d cease speaking about it, however he’s on the market praising Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ, for saying he would have an “open thoughts” on Kennedy’s nomination.
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There are a number of questions I’d prefer to see Polis reply, beginning with: Why does he assume Trump is nominating Kennedy?
How does he assume the Kennedy nomination is any completely different, in Trump’s view, from his different finger-in-the-eye nominations like Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth? Polis should understand that Trump isn’t trying to make anybody extra wholesome or authorities any higher with these picks. These are all anti-government, anti-institution, anti-security, anti-science, pro-retribution alternatives — made, largely, to pressure the Republican Senate to bend to his will.
And Polis is “excited” about that?
Is Polis, the self-described balding homosexual Jew, actually excited to help somebody who thinks chemical compounds within the water make children homosexual or who thinks that the COVID virus was engineered to spare Chinese language folks and Ashkenazi Jews?
Extra importantly, does Polis actually assume Trump desires to go after Huge Pharma and Huge Ag — two massive monetary supporters of Trump and of the GOP?
Does he actually assume Trump desires the FDA to place the brakes on Huge Pharma? Did he not see the place Vivek Ramaswamy, who together with Elon Musk has been appointed official Trump whisperer, has tweeted that his drawback with the FDA is that it erects too many limitations to, uh, innovation. It’s not a coincidence that Ramaswamy made his cash as a biotech investor.
I ponder if Polis noticed the tweet from Donald Trump Jr., exhibiting a bunch of Trumpists, together with Kennedy and the Huge Orange One himself, consuming a Huge Mac and fries on the Trump aircraft. I’d guess this was Trump hazing Kennedy, who didn’t appear pleased posing along with his pleased meal, as a beginner Trumpist. Trump Jr. wrote: “Make America Wholesome Once more begins TOMORROW.”
Humorous? After all, Make America Wholesome Once more (MAHA) is the Kennedy slogan. And, after all, placing a number one anti-vaxxer in command of the nation’s well being is just not precisely one of the simplest ways to make America something however sicker once more.
In equity, Polis does agree that Kennedy has some wacky theories and is obvious improper on lots of his more strange beliefs — together with that childhood vaccines trigger autism or that the COVID vaccine is the deadliest vaccine ever made or that fluoridation is unhealthy — however apparently he doesn’t fear that Kennedy would deliver his fringe concepts into the mainstream.
What does he assume would occur if RFK Jr. does get the job?
The very first thing we’d see is HHS consultants in medical care quitting in giant numbers and the second factor could be Kennedy appointing anti-science, pro-conspiracy folks to take their place.
Kennedy has already mentioned he wouldn’t dispose of vaccines, however that he would “ensure that scientific security research and efficacy are on the market, and other people could make particular person assessments about whether or not that product goes to be good for them.”
In different phrases, he would choose which research to share with the general public.
In different phrases, he would discourage the usage of COVID vaccines, which an amazing majority of Individuals already not take.
In different phrases, he would discourage any college mandate on childhood MMR and DTaP vaccines, that are already dangerously low. For these vaccines to succeed in herd immunity, they require 95% compliance. They’re each already beneath that mark and falling. After all, the libertarian-minded Polis has already made clear his opposition to vaccine mandates.
In different phrases, whereas Kennedy says he wouldn’t take vaccines off the market, he might very properly decelerate, and even cease in some instances, new vaccines from being accepted.
In different phrases, he might add to the rising skepticism about vaccines, which could be an existential concern come the subsequent pandemic. Which could lead, as Polis tweeted final summer time, to a measles or polio outbreak.
Polis says he’s enthusiastic about Kennedy due to his stances for more healthy meals requirements and towards pesticides and for decreasing, and in some instances capping, drug costs.
I don’t know if Kennedy would be capable to do any of these issues that may, in reality, enhance the well being of Individuals.
However I worry what he would possibly do. And I don’t perceive how Polis wouldn’t worry that, too. Any pondering particular person would.
A video was just lately uncovered exhibiting Kennedy, in a 2020 speech in Germany, saying that he was open to the concept of the conspiracy concept that the pandemic was a “plandemic,” which means that the U.S. authorities deliberate the COVID pandemic that killed greater than one million Individuals.
And, he went on to say, that the trouble to fight the pandemic was “a pharmaceutical-driven, bio-security agenda that can enslave your entire human race and plunge us right into a dystopian nightmare.”
That’s Polis’ man. And I’m not enthusiastic about it in any respect.
Simply plain dumbfounded.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too a few years to rely. He has lined Dr. J, 4 presidential inaugurations, six nationwide conventions and numerous brain-numbing speeches within the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Join Mike’s e-newsletter.
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