It seems like forever that Democrats have been on defense when it comes to matters of national defense, despite the fact that the greatest military blunders of our century have been committed by a Republican president, with the disastrous and fruitless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Past Democratic presidents have even made a point of nominating Republicans as Secretary of Defense, as if to highlight GOP slander that Democrats are “weak on defense”; needless to say, Republican presidents have declined to return the favor. As far as defense spending goes, the Democrats have largely chosen to shovel obscene amounts of money into the maw of the Pentagon over the decades, despite levels of corruption and waste that seem incompatible with actual patriotism and actual national security. In a way, all this spending has been an act of superstition and propitiation against allegations of Democratic weakness.
Last week brought the latest episode in the Democrats’ absurd retreat from asserting themselves more strongly and sensibly in matters of military spending and strategy. To pass a new defense budget, the Republican Party not only insisted on billions more in spending than the Biden administration requested — so that the budget is now a staggering $858 billion, an amount which, mysteriously, inflation hawks on the right appear to have no problem with — but also succeeded in including a repeal of the covid vaccine mandate for American service members (the bill has been passed by Congress, and now awaits President Biden’s expected signature). This repeal, of course, comes while covid is still one of the leading killers of Americans and appears to have left millions of sufferers with long-term symptoms — but which can be slowed and minimized by miraculous vaccines.
The reason for this repeal is the same reason that the country has suffered hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths from covid, a pointless toll that continues to this current day: because, for perceived reasons of political advantage, the GOP has from the start of the pandemic downplayed the severity, risk, and impact of covid. This began with President Trump, who despite top-notch scientific advice declared covid to be no threat to the United States, a mere annoyance that would go away in a month, and who steadfastly downplayed the danger of the virus out of fear that the measures necessary to combat it would derail his re-election campaign. Trump-friendly GOP politicians took up the cause, transforming a downplaying of the virus into a political litmus test, with GOP governors and others racing each other to eliminate mask mandates, abandon social distancing mandates, and, most incredibly and damningly, cast doubts on life-saving vaccines. In doing so, the party condemned thousands of Americans to painful, unnecessary deaths — a political and moral crime with which the country has still to reckon.
One major reason the country has still not held the GOP to account for its covid insanity is that, at some point, the Democrats more or less gave up the quest for such accountability. For a mix of reasons — fear of further politicizing the pandemic and a distaste for conflict being prime ones — the Democrats let slide an issue that could have proved a powerful weapon in making the case for the Republican Party’s unfitness for power: that it backed covid policies that were immoral, illogical, and, most unforgivably, literally murderous.
Apart from the shortcomings of this approach, as measured in lives lost, economic damage inflicted, and political advantage unscrupulously gained by GOP politicians (including the sustained damage to the American economy as the spread of covid continued — and continues — to be enabled by such Republican efforts as vaccine skepticism), this Democratic reluctance has also resulted in the GOP being emboldened to continue its insane crusade on behalf of the pandemic. GOP politicians’ success in eliminating the covid vaccine mandate for the military is the latest example, and an ominous one it is.
With this move, GOP antivax madness has now been allowed to harm national security. The rescinding of the vaccine mandate means more members of the military will sicken and die, which means fewer members of the military available to do their essential jobs of defending the United States. Remember — service members have long been required to receive a host of vaccines; The New York Times notes that, “Starting in basic training, recruits receive shots protecting them from hepatitis A and B; the flu; measles, mumps and rubella; meningococcal disease; polio; tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis; and chickenpox in addition to Covid-19.” Against this long-established health regime, the GOP has now introduced the mendacious notion that covid vaccines are somehow different. This rebellion against service member safety will lead not only to inevitable death and disease among American troops, but will also strengthen the GOP base’s antagonism to covid vaccines while adding fuel to broader anti-vax efforts among party members and others.
But that’s not all. This Democratic retreat has now, predictably, opened the door for further sabotage of common sense health measures. The Times reports that, “Republicans highlighted the provision as a victory, but said they intended to press the issue even further when they took control of the House in January by looking for ways to reinstate or provide back pay for service members who were dismissed for refusing to take the vaccine.” In other words, the GOP intends to paint as martyrs service members who misguidedly and selfishly chose the lies of anti-vaxxers and Republican politicos over loyalty to country. This GOP initiative will publicize the notion that there must be something wrong with covid vaccines, to the great detriment of public health. Ironically, the very politicization that the Democrats feared has now been enabled by the Democrats’ weakness in the face of the GOP’s shamelessness. (Not incidentally, reinstatement of service members for previous covid defiance would serve the GOP’s politics of grievance, painting a group that very likely consists of Republican-leaning voters as victims of overbearing Democratic governance.)
The alternative faced by the Biden administration has not been a great one — vetoing the defense bill — but the vaccination mandate for military members is a stand worth taking. Do the Democrats really think that they couldn’t win a public fight where they could demonstrate the GOP places anti-vax zealotry and pro-pandemic policies over the literal defense of the nation? Sadly, the Democrats’ long-internalized defensiveness on national defense has opened up the country, and the party, to needless damage and danger, with more surely to come from an emboldened and extremist Republican Party.