Via our good friends who write The New York Times morning email brief:
Once Pfizer delivers its first 100 million vaccine doses to the U.S., the country may not get another batch until June. That’s because the Trump administration passed on a deal last summer to secure more shots, and the European Union bought them.
Pundits are punditing, opinion writers are opining, and Democrats are… doing what Democrats invariably do: wasting time and money on the same failed strategies and messaging that lost them seats in the House and will almost certainly cost them control of the Senate.
But as far as I can tell, precisely no one has plainly stated the reason behind Trump & Co.’s decision to cut off the country’s access to Pfizer’s COVID vaccines at 100 million. Okay, so maaaaaybe the New York Times did? I wouldn’t know; I didn’t click their link because hello, New York Times.
But I will tell you the reason. Don’t you want to know?
During the summer, Donald Trump was 100% sure that 100 million people would vote for him on November 3. Matter of fact, he still is 100% sure of it. These 100 million voters – and only these 100 million voters – would receive the vaccine.
Don’t get me wrong: this gesture would NOT be a reward for his voters. Donald Trump doesn’t do “reward.” (Please.)
What he does do, and by all accounts quite enthusiastically, is vindictive, petty, vicious, punishing, and the intentional infliction of maximal harm to anyone he perceives as his disloyal and treasonous enemies who betray him. In other words, everyone BUT Trump’s 100 million voters.
And so, last summer Donald Trump let the deadline pass for ordering a couple hundred million more COVID vaccines from Pfizer – a U.S.-based company, by the way, headquartered here on NYC’s fabled 42nd Street in midtown Manhattan – in order to deny vaccines to everyone else.
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How do I know this? One part experience, one part Occam’s razor. Perhaps either, or both, will convince you.
First, regarding experience. I am stating here at the outset that I cannot prove this to you, although I may be able to dig up some pretty convincing evidence. Although I have never met Donald Trump personally, I know Donald Trump very, very well. I was raised by Donald Trumps, in an extended family full of Donald Trumps, in a community full of Donald Trumps, in a church chock full of Donald Trumps. In the cubicles of White Shoe law firms in New York, I have worked for countless Donald Trumps. I don’t think I am going out on much of a limb here by saying it would be a rare and fortunate person in the United States who has not met at least one Donald Trump.
I know the bullying. The anti-intellectualism. The authoritarianism. The epic narcissism/fragile ego. The irrational black-&-white thinking. The hypocrisy. The lying – dear Lard the lying, to the point of not even being aware of their own lying. The sexism as a feature, not a bug. Ditto racism. The unprovoked explosions. The stubborn clinging to easily disproven falsehoods. The way things look being much more important than the way things are. The constant underlying threat of violence. The actual violence.
I know how Donald Trump thinks better than Donald Trump does. And hundreds of millions of traitorous Americans going without COVID vaccines is EXACTLY how he thinks. No idea would thrill him more.
Next, let us pay our due respect to 14th century logician, philosopher, and Franciscan friar William of Ockham. Read what I wrote. Is there another explanation, one that requires fewer baseless assumptions, to reach its conclusion? If so, I will happily concede that I am wrong.
If not, FIGHT ME.
It sounds plausible, if impractical. I can imagine that had the Turd won a second term, he would at least try to devise some scheme on how to deliver the vaccine only to his supporters.
It wouldn’t surprise me if this was true. After all, this is an administration that chose to ignore the pandemic early in 2020 at least partly because they wrongly believed that it would mostly affect more liberal states.
I’m not saying you’re wrong in outline: I do believe Trump would want to target the vaccine towards those who support them and make it harder for people who did not support him to get it.
However I will point out that the vaccine works by taking 2 doses a specific amount of time apart. This means that 100 million doses only protects 50 million people.
So… maybe he thought half his supporters would be anti-vaxxers?
He probably owns more stock in Moderna than Pfizer. He was expecting Pfizer to hit the market first, so he had to get some vaccine before the year was out so he could claim he invented it on his watch. Then he’d get the rest of what’s needed from Moderna later.
Second, Pfizer was the one that told him he should order more, and he doesn’t like being told anything by anybody. If he’d thought of it first, it would’ve been a done deal.
Third, he figured only olds needed to get vaccinated, and how many of them could there be? Everyone else would be fine and/or protected by herd mentality.
Sorry, I’ll have to fight you.
My evidence is that the thought process you describe is more than he is capable of. If he was capable of thinking that far ahead, he would have been capable of the following chain of reasoning:
“I want my followers to vote for me in November.
If they die of covid in October, they cannot vote for me in November.
If I don’t want my followers to die in October, I shouldn’t hold large unmasked indoor rallies in September.”
If that chain of reasoning is beyond his mental capacity, then so is the plan you describe.
I’m guessing that it wasn’t Trump’s plan at all.
The explanation I heard on TV news yesterday is that the extra doses weren’t bought because back in March a) Pfizer wouldn’t commit to a delivery date and b) they figured that they could get enough doses anyway because there were several drug makers working on it.
That was in an interview of somebody in the administration, so we might want to take it with a grain of salt, although it does seem reasonable.