That’s a cunning way to defund education and kill a lot of children


Trump has a new campaign promise: he’s going to defund all schools that have a vaccine mandate.

You know, they all have vaccine requirements. Here in Minnesota, kids are required to be immunized against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (DTaP), polio, measles, mumps, rubella (MMR), hepatitis B (Hep B), and varicella (chickenpox) before kindergarten. I’m not enthused about the return of polio! Or all those other diseases! It’s a strange political ploy to promise to rewind that childhood mortality curve all the way back to 1800, but that’s what the Republican party wants.

Comments

  1. says

    Trump doesn’t seem to care much about anybody but himself. So any policy that panders to his base is fine, even if it is objectively harmful.

    To all the US citizens out there: make sure that he suffers an even worse defeat than in 2020. The world can do without this asshole.

  2. birgerjohansson says

    There is already a polio outbreak in Gaza, so we get a test of what the future of USA will be like.

  3. John Morales says

    Israel is sending vaccines to Gaza due to polio (“The World Health Organization is “extremely worried” about the possibility of an outbreak of the highly infectious polio virus in Gaza after traces were found in wastewater.” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crgrxjn9rkpo ).

    Even genocidal killers understand they don’t want the disease to spread (biological warfare is fraught) and so the vaccines.

    I do find it most remarkable that such a large proportion of the USA’s population disbelieve in the efficacy of vaccines.
    Next stage: denying the germ theory of disease.
    Some MAGA types are probably already there.

  4. John Morales says

    In other news: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jul/28/four-million-vaccine-doses-for-children-and-pregnant-women-flown-to-north-korea

    “The return of essential vaccines marks a significant milestone towards safeguarding children’s health and survival in this country,” Roland Kupka, Unicef’s acting representative for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, said in a statement.

    The vaccines include those against hepatitis B, polio, measles and tetanus, and were provided by Unicef, the World Health Organization and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Organisers say they are intended for 600,000 children and pregnant women who have missed out on vaccines since the Covid-19 pandemic. They are to be administered as part of a catch-up campaign in September by the North Korean ministry of public health.

    Even murderous authoritarian paranoid dictatorships understand the value of vaccines.

  5. Rich Woods says

    Don’t worry. When Trump is elevated to President-For-Life, epidemiologists and other medical professionals will be amongst the first up against the metaphorical wall for daring to contradict the Glorious Leader’s ‘my-uncle-went-to-MIT’-fuelled medical pronouncements. And once that little administrative scheme is complete, no subsequent scientific paper containing a graph will be published unless the diagram has been subjected to the presidential sharpie.

  6. robro says

    I was in first grade when mandatory polio vaccination came out. No telling how many of my friends’ lives were saved. no

  7. says

    Yeah, I could definitely see MAGA types, and others, denying the germ theory of disease.
    I’ve been down the flat earth rabbit hole in recent weeks, which for me is watching videos of people reviewing, criticizing, and debunking the flat earthers. There are people who look at the water in their bathtubs, which looks flat, or hold rulers up to the horizon and think that proves something. There are people who deny the existence of gravity and/or think the water should fall off the bottom of the world. It’s not a stretch to think they would refuse to believe in something too small to see. They don’t feel the earth moving, and when they jump up in the air, they don’t land 20 feet way, and sea level is the same height above sea level everywhere you look on Google Earth, therefore the world is flat.
    I’m sure everyone will do their own research on germs, though, right?
    I think I’m losing hope here.

  8. raven says

    That is not his only cuckoo promise.
    Xposted from this morning. OT but related.

    Trump tells Christians they ‘won’t have to’ vote again after election as ex-president slams FBI: Live updates
    Independent.com 7/28/2024

    Trump was speaking on Friday night at The Believers’ Summit 2024 at a Turning Point Action event in West Palm Beach, Florida.

    “You won’t have to do it anymore, four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore,” Trump said. “You’ve got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”

    In an announcement so far not mentioned on FTBs, Trump has said that he will end democracy in the USA and set up a xian theocracy.
    Xians won’t have to vote any more because they will be in charge and the USA will be a theocracy.

    I believe he will try this.
    It’s in Project 2025.
    It might even work.

    What will happen is the USA will split into several parts. The West coast and the NE aren’t going to go for a fundie theocracy. The midwest and south might.
    There will be a “population exchange” similar to when India was partitioned into India and Pakistan, as people flee to their preferred regime.

    There will be a massive fight over who gets the 5,000 nuclear weapons in the USA.
    We know from what happened to the old USSR and then Ukraine, that when you have nuclear weapons, you don’t give them up to someone who wants you dead.

  9. raven says

    FWIW, there are multiple things wrong with Trump’s empty but cuckoo promise.

    .1. He doesn’t have that power!!!
    Education is reserved by the US constitution to the states.

    Early in our nation’s history, lawmakers passed the 10th Amendment to the Constitution. This is the basis for making education a function of the states. Each school district is administered and financed by the local community.

    The Roles of Federal and State Governments in Education

    FindLaw https://www.findlaw.com › education › the-roles-of-fed

    .2. Antivaxxers are a small minority in the USA. Really, the number of people who want to get measles and die or be seriously permanently disabled aren’t all that many.

    81% of the US population has been vaccinated against Covid-19 virus.

    Large majority of Americans continue to say benefits of MMR vaccines outweigh risks
    The Center survey finds 88% of Americans say the benefits of childhood vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) outweigh the risks, compared with just 10% who say the risks outweigh the benefits.

    The hardcore antivaxxers might be 10% of the population.

  10. John Morales says

    Trump is certainly going gangbusters.

    Trump courts crypto industry votes and campaign donations

    […]

    The Republican presidential candidate used the event to court voters and encourage campaign donations from the tech community.

    Cryptocurrency has emerged as a political battleground for Republicans, with Trump claiming the Democratic Party and Vice-President Kamala Harris were “against crypto”.

    The audience was at its most animated when Trump declared “on day one I will fire Gary Gensler”, the SEC chair nominated by current President Joe Biden. The crowd cheered loudly and started to chant “Trump” at this declaration.

    Mr Gensler led a crackdown on the crypto industry, and has previously said the sector is rife with “hucksters”.

    Speaking for about 45 minutes, Trump outlined some of his ideas for the sector if he were to win November’s election. He said he would make the US the cryptocurrency capital of the world. His support for the industry is a 180 turn from his comments in 2021, when he told Fox Business he saw Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar.

    […]

    The former president also said he would “immediately appoint a Bitcoin and crypto presidential advisory council”.

    He talked about the power needed to mine cryptocurrency. “You need tremendous amounts of electricity” he said, adding he would build powerplants “to get that done” and would be “using fossil fuels”.

    [thought about posting this in the endless tread or the recent AI tech thread, but here it is]

  11. John Morales says

    raven,

    The hardcore antivaxxers might be 10% of the population.

    34.2 million people.

    (A rather chunky special-interest bloc)

  12. says

    This is gonna conflict with his party’s corporate interests by cutting into the healthy child-labor force they’ve been asking for (and getting) recently. What’s the point of bringing back child labor if all those new slaves just come in sick and infect each other and maybe even get their bosses sick?!

  13. Rich Woods says

    @Raging Bee #13:

    The bosses will easily be able to afford to drive down to Tijuana or up to Vancouver every year or two, get the family vaccinated there, then return to the USA, bribing a tank commander to quietly let them back across the border.

  14. Larry says

    birgerjohansson@8

    I guess not many households owns a microscope…

    Probably not, but, they all do their own research.

  15. Larry says

    Raging Bee@13

    What’s the point of bringing back child labor if all those new slaves just come in sick and infect each other and maybe even get their bosses sick?!

    Why do you think they want to outlaw both abortion and birth control. They want the women pumping out babies to keep factories and mills stocked with children. To misquote Cal ‘Cal’ Coolidge, “The business of America is child exploitation.”

  16. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Did Trump Really Vow to Defund Schools With Vaccine Mandates?

    the line—sometimes phrased as “I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or mask mandate, from kindergarten through college”—has actually appeared in numerous Trump speeches for at least a year.
    […]
    The Trump campaign said this line refers solely to COVID-vaccination mandates for students, not older immunization requirements for diseases like polio, measles, and diphtheria.
    […]
    Trump did not say the word COVID while discussing his education plans on Saturday, or in previous versions of his stump speech that featured similar phrasing. […] Many people were unclear on whether Trump was referring to COVID-vaccine mandates or all vaccine mandates.
    […]
    it’s an empty threat. […] the few states that had COVID-vaccine mandates for students have dropped them, while 21 states still have laws specifically banning schools from requiring COVID shots. Also, the president doesn’t have the power to unilaterally withhold federal funding from school districts (Trump is reportedly looking to resurrect the president’s ability to block certain congressionally appropriated funds, but that would draw legal challenges).

     
    RFK Jr apologises after leaked phone call

    Trump […] can be heard speaking about […] supposed dangers of vaccinations. […] In his call with Kennedy, Trump says: “I agree with you, man. Something’s wrong with that whole system. […] I said, ‘I want to do small doses.’ Small doses.”
    […]
    “When you feed a baby […] like 38 different vaccines, and it looks like it’s meant for a horse, not a, you know, 10lb or 20lb baby […] then you see the baby all of a sudden starting to change radically. I’ve seen it too many times. […]”

    That’s more than Covid.

  17. says

    Israel is sending vaccines to Gaza due to polio…

    So does that mean Trump is gonna promise not to give any more money to Israel anymore?

  18. Bekenstein Bound says

    Wouldn’t it be a hoot if Trump kept much of his 2024 campaign funding in crypto and then got rug-pulled?

  19. gedjcj says

    @John Morales #3 – A couple of years ago as I was going into my local grocery store (Western Washington state) wearing a mask, I was approached by a middle-aged guy who politely informed me that masks were useless and I should google “Andrew Kaufman” and “terrain theory”. I did so while waiting in line at the pharmacy. I kept my mask on.

    I don’t know how widespread germ theory denialism is, but it certainly exists in the U.S.

  20. VolcanoMan says

    @14

    Why would they want/need to bribe a tank commander? That is a confusing statement all around. A few mildly-probing questions by a disinterested border security agent are the biggest barrier to returning to the USA.

  21. devnll says

    @10 “The hardcore antivaxxers might be 10% of the population.”
    The problem is, half of antivaxxers are lunatic far rightwing, but the other half are lunatic far LEFT. And they tend to be lunatic enough about the issue to be single-issue voters. If those people would have voted Democratic, or some nonviable third party, or not voted cuz the gummint is out ta get em, and they now vote Tbag? In a race that will probably be decided by a few thousand votes? We’re screwed.

    The hope is that Republicans who’ve been grimacing and bearing Trump are finally turned away by the desire to not murder their children, in sufficient numbers to offset any antivax vote. But honestly, from anyone who is still backing Trump at this point? Your guess is as good as mine.

  22. raven says

    KFF.org

    Unvaccinated Adults are Now More Than Three Times as Likely to Lean Republican than Democratic
    Analysis Finds Partisanship Matters More than Age, Race, Education or Insurance Status in Predicting Whether Someone Received a COVID-19 Vaccine
    Nov 16, 2021

    The antivaxxers have shifted from the far left to the far right.

    There are 3 times as many GOP antivaxxers as Democratic party antivaxxers.

    AFAICT, a lot of of the left looked at who the vocal antivaxxers were lately, which is right wingnuts, and decided that maybe vaccines weren’t so bad after all.

    I checked with a few Wicca organizations and none of them were antivaxxers.

    Reddit Wicca:

    If she’s claiming to be Wiccan then no, it’s not a faith-based choice. There is nothing in Wicca that is anti-vax and it would be a lie for someone to issue a letter claiming that there is.
    delete
    As an example: Circle Sanctuary, which runs the leading pagan-based civil rights organization, Lady Liberty League, requires any members and visitors to the sanctuary to provide proof of vaccination.

  23. raven says

    More on Wiccans and vaccines.

    wildhunt.org

    Covenant of the Goddess
    National Public Information Officer of Covenant of the Goddess (COG), Janine Nelson, said that on the national level, “COG does not have an official position on Covid vaccinations or other vaccinations. Our members follow their own conscience.”

    She said that most members report that they have been vaccinated. Nelson said, “COG has received a few requests from others in the Wiccan Community for vaccination exemptions, but we do not provide those exemptions.”

    Nelson reiterated the Wiccan Rede: “Harm none, do as you will.”

    The Troth
    Lauren Crow, Communications Officer and High Rede Member of The Troth, spoke about the Troth’s response.

    She said, “The Troth has strongly supported public health recommendations, including vaccinations, to prevent the spread of all diseases, including COVID 19. We have seen firsthand the devastation that this disease has brought to our world and encourage everyone to do their part to bring an end to this pandemic.”

    Crow stressed that the Troth has “encouraged our members to follow the recommendations of their local public health officials. All official Troth events have been within these guidelines.”

  24. kitcarm says

    @24. The reverse can be said though. There’s plenty of conservative-leaning people out there that respect the science and doctors (some may even be healthcare professionals themselves) and anti-vaxxer BS from Trump and his ilk can and will drive them away. This isn’t even counting the centrist and independent voters, people the GOP scared away in droves back in 2022 due to abortion, etc. I doubt they will look fondly at the anti-vaccine rhetoric as well. Also what raven said at @25. Most (not even half) of anti-vaxxers aren’t even left-wing anymore so it’s hard to claim that these imagined leftists will come to Trump’s side as they simply don’t really exist. I think your concern comes from a fortunately misplaced belief and truthfully, Trump is actually doing himself a huge disservice with his BS for the reasons I outlined.

  25. says

    I grew Up,among kids who were afflicted with polio and remember the palpable fear of mass vaccination campaigns during polio epidemics in the 1950s. I was recently hospitalized with whooping cough. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Trump on the other hand.

  26. devnll says

    @25 Thanks for the source raven; thats certainly good to hear. 1/4 of them could still be enough though, unless there are enough conservative voters turned off by this approach to counteract it. Remember, the 1/4 that lean left aren’t offset by the 3/4 on the right; those guys were voting for Trump already. I would like to believe that this will chase away plenty of middle-ground conservatives whose parents and grandparents lived through Polio, but I don’t really know what to believe about anyone who would willingly vote for Trump at this point. Or even willingly support a party that would put him forth as their candidate.