HOW DONALD TRUMP COULD SAVE AMERICA WITH A SINGLE TWEET

With a single tweet, former President Trump could provide an enormous service to America, its people, and its future. He could help unite the country and restore science and logic to policymaking. No, this tweet would have nothing to do with January 6 or Joe Biden. The subject would be vaccine mandates.

How could a figure as divisive and polarizing as Trump be a healer and unifier? With a single tweet? Read on.

COVID was a medical emergency. It no longer is. Nearly two years ago, in early 2020 at the start of the COVID pandemic, the United States and the world found itself in the middle of a medical crisis. COVID was an ominous new virus that spread rapidly, even asymptomatically, and while it affected people differently, it was extremely dangerous and lethal for the elderly population. Hospitals quickly filled up. There were no vaccines, no cures, and no natural immunity. It was an emergency situation.

Two years later, we are no longer in a medical emergency, even though cases are at an all-time high. We now have vaccines, cures, and natural immunity. While the COVID virus mutates rapidly, the newest Omicron variant appears to be both more transmissible and less dangerous. That is a positive development.

The overwhelming majority of the scientific evidence suggests that natural immunity conferred by previous infection provides as good or better protection against COVID than vaccines. That is also a positive development, as more people now have both vaccine-derived immunity and natural immunity.

While the vaccines are imperfect, given their (i) limited duration of effectiveness against transmission, (ii) reduced protection against variants, and (iii) significant side effects, the COVID vaccines unambiguously provide substantial protection against hospitalization and death. For the COVID-vulnerable population, the risk/benefit analysis for vaccines and boosters is unambiguous.

For the less vulnerable population, the risk/benefit analysis of vaccination and/or booster doses comes in various shades of gray. For example, a booster shot provides short-term, modest additional protection against infection, transmission, and death for someone who is already vaccinated or has natural immunity. For most previously vaccinated male college students, the medical risk/benefit analysis of a booster shot today is almost certainly unfavorable. The risk of severe illness from COVID is roughly comparable to the risk of myocarditis/pericarditis from a booster shot (even using CDC numbers, let alone other studies that show enhanced risk). Myocarditis is not the only side effect. Normalizing for every hospitalization prevented by administering booster shots to previously vaccinated college males, the unwelcome side effects would include over 750 fevers of greater than 100℉, over 2,000 headaches (including 200 severe headaches), and over 140 bad cases of the chills. That’s roughly six years of headaches in the aggregate in exchange for one hospitalization prevented.

Two years ago, almost no one (except perhaps a few folks in Wuhan) had vaccine-derived immunity or natural immunity against COVID. Today, almost everyone in the US other than small children has some immunity. The level of immunity depends on an individual’s immune system and how recently they have been vaccinated or infected with COVID.

Most people infected with COVID today in the US and Europe have been vaccinated. Interestingly, the infection rates (percentages, not just absolute numbers) for Omicron are higher among the vaccinated than the unvaccinated in Iceland (early January, 2022). Vaccination will not prevent COVID in a population, whether a nation, a company, or a school.

In 2020, COVID was both a pandemic of everyone and a pandemic of the unvaccinated, as virtually everyone was unvaccinated since vaccines were not available. In the first half of 2021 (after vaccines became available), COVID primarily struck people with neither vaccine immunity nor natural immunity. It was widely described as a pandemic of the unvaccinated, but more accurately would be called a “pandemic of the unimmune”. As highly transmissible new strains of COVID emerged in 2021 (e.g., the Delta variant and later the Omicron variant), COVID no longer struck primarily those without immunity, but again became a pandemic of everyone.

More accurately, it is now endemic. As is influenza. We do not mandate flu shots. Mandating COVID vaccines or boosters will not prevent infections in a given population. Most people have some immunity against COVID. We now have ample experience in treating COVID, and a highly effective oral drug for COVID (Paxlovid) was recently approved by FDA.

While COVID is no longer a medical emergency, COVID policies are a crisis tearing at the fabric of America. While not an emergency, COVID is still an enormous medical problem. Given that reality, and given staffing shortages in hospitals, why would we fire nurses who refuse vaccination (and likely have natural immunity at this point), the same nurses who bravely treated patients when no one had immunity?

My wife is an elementary school teacher who has been vaccinated and subsequently infected with COVID. At her school, she swims daily in a cesspool of COVID, as do all the students and staff. Every student in her class has either had COVID (knowingly or unknowingly), or been exposed at great lengths to the virus without being substantially infected. Those students have almost no risk from COVID, less than from influenza (e.g., not a single healthy child between 5 and 17 died from COVID in Germany in the first year of the pandemic before children were vaccinated). Yet California has mandated COVID vaccination in order for children to attend elementary school? Where is the risk/benefit analysis?

I have one son in college who is subject to a booster mandate. He had a bad cardiac reaction to his first (Moderna) COVID vaccine, likely myocarditis. Against any reasonable medical judgment, including his and mine (as a healthy, twice-vaccinated 20-year old, he has almost no risk from COVID while he demonstrably has an unusually high risk of cardiac issues from the vaccine), he is going to get the booster shot.

He provides three reasons. First, while he would almost certainly be granted a medical exemption given his past medical history, getting one is a hassle (doctor visit and payment, forms to fill out, multiple steps, etc.). Far easier to get the shot. Second, while he has some risk of myocarditis, he views the risk as very small, particularly as he’ll take the Pfizer shot this time (the Moderna vaccine is far more likely to cause myocarditis in young men than the Pfizer vaccine, which it is subject to restrictions in many countries). As someone who eagerly agreed to go skydiving, the slight risk of myocarditis (or COVID for that matter) is just not a big deal for my son. Third and most importantly, he only gets to experience college once, and just wants a normal college life (good luck with that). Universities over the last year have demonstrated a willingness to frantically dial up their restrictive COVID policies when the number of asymptomatic COVID infections rises on campus, and they have often treated unvaccinated people with exemptions differently than their vaccinated brethren. He recognizes this possibility, and does not want to be stuck with restrictions/punishments (e.g., forced mask-wearing, rigorous social distancing, twice-weekly mandatory testing) that might not be required of students who received the booster vaccine.

Those are good reasons, and I can’t argue with them. But there are many other people, faced with similar or far more consequential punishments for not being vaccinated, who have refused to be vaccinated. What proponents of vaccine mandates often don’t understand is the depth of the feelings on the other side.

I was talking to a man the other day who said that he loses a little respect for anyone who supports vaccine mandates. He brought up the slavery analogy: “Wouldn’t you think a little less of someone who supported the institution of slavery?”

Over the course of the pandemic, the moral righteousness has primarily come from the other side. Unvaccinated people have been scapegoated as the “selfish” idiots responsible for the continuation of the pandemic. You’ve heard it from everywhere, including the top levels of the U.S. government and others around the world. The unvaccinated have been stigmatized, and increasingly pushed to the margins of society.

Now these same moralists calling others selfish are taking their third (and soon fourth) vaccine doses while eagerly demanding that others follow suit or else lose their jobs, their ability to go to school, or their right to go to the neighborhood grocery store. As a citizen of the planet, it’s hard to justify allocating a COVID booster dose to a doubly vaccinated, healthy 54-year-old such as myself, let alone to doubly vaccinated 20-year-olds, when so much of the world remains unvaccinated and so many vulnerable people have not had booster shots (e.g., there are vaccine shortages even in wealthy countries such as Germany).

There is also a widely felt belief that these policies are not based on medical reasoning, but instead (or additionally) to capitalize on an opportunity to purge people with differing political and philosophical persuasions. The percentage of Democrats who have been vaccinated has been far higher than Republicans throughout the pandemic. Vaccine mandates have been implemented primarily by left-of-center leaders in universities, states, and the federal government.

People who refuse vaccination on principle, even at the cost of their jobs (or their jobs, careers, and pensions in the case of soldiers nearing twenty years in service), their place in a prestigious university, their ability to live in a city with vaccine mandates to enter stores, or perhaps soon even their ability to get on an airplane, tend to have very strong beliefs. Purging them mid-career from the military, a corporation, or a university, makes it far less likely that they will be in leadership positions in the future.

I am not saying this is Joe Biden’s intent, or that of the generals, CEO, mayors, governors, and university presidents setting these policies. But there are many people who strongly believe that this is their intent, and it would be hard to argue with a straight face that at least some of the staffers and policymakers drafting these policies wouldn’t view this result as, at minimum, a side benefit.

For example, Arne Duncan, who served eight years as Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration, recently tweeted that: “Have you noticed how strikingly similar both the mindsets and actions are between the suicide bombers at Kabul’s airport, and the anti-mask and anti-vax people here? They both blow themselves up, inflict harm on those around them, and are convinced they are fighting for freedom.” Michael Hayden, former Director of the CIA and the NSA, thought a tweet suggesting “Can we send the MAGA wearing unvaxxed to Afghanistan, no use sending that plane back empty”, was a “Good Idea”. Left-leaning journalists can often barely contain their joy when reporting the COVID death of a proudly unvaccinated person.

Is it any wonder that unvaccinated libertarians and conservatives feel that the elites crafting these policies, faced with such openly expressed hostility, believe they are being targeted?

Personally, I believe that our mandatory vaccination policies are morally and medically inappropriate. Whether or not you agree, it is indisputable that these mandatory vaccination policies are furthering the divide between Americans.

How can Trump fix things so easily? How can Donald Trump, the so-called divider-in-chief, fix all of this, and do it with a single tweet? And how is he the only person that could do it quickly and easily?

I think back on a conversation I had with a smart, logical, even-keeled man who told me he could think of nothing Trump did as President that was good. Nothing. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, but apparently Trump never was.

There is a myth about Trump supporters that they blindly support whatever he says. Instead, the Trump supporters I know can rattle off policies and actions that Trump took they that liked, and others that they did not like. Trump’s ardent supporters shared with Trump a passionate distaste for the other side and the leftist elite, and were bound in an enemy of my enemy kind of way. They don’t love Trump; instead, they love that Trump disdains and stands up their common enemy.

In contrast, Trump’s detractors hate Trump.

Before providing Trump’s solution to unifying America, consider first an alternative universe. On Monday, November 9, 2020, six days after Election Day, Pfizer announced that its COVID vaccine was 90% effective.

Imagine if the announcement had come one week previously, (i.e., the day before election day), and the boost from the COVID vaccine announcement turned narrow losses in Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia into narrow victories for President Trump, enough to re-elect him with 275 electoral votes.

If that happened, the worldwide COVID pandemic would still be raging, but it would be raging under Trump’s watch, in spite of the big, beautiful vaccines developed in record time with the strong support of Trump. Remember, those vaccines were derided during the campaign by leading Democrats who said the vaccines couldn’t be trusted, suggesting Trump’s FDA would authorize them on a political basis without proper safety vetting. Imagine what leading Democrats would be saying about the vaccines today: (i) if Trump had been re-elected, at least in part because of a boost provided by a pre-election vaccine efficacy announcement, (ii) given the record numbers of COVID cases currently, and (iii) given the significant side effect profile of the vaccines. Do you imagine they would be supportive? This goes for Supreme Court Justices as well. Would Sonia Sotomayor be so clearly in favor of vaccine mandates, as she was on January 7 in oral arguments about the Biden vaccine mandates, if instead Trump was the one instituting the mandates, and liberal governors and the New York Times were opposed?

Would a left-leaning university president be mandating relatively ineffective booster shots that did more harm than good to young men, or would they resort to “my body my choice” rhetoric? Would college students be tweeting about #vaccinerape? Is there any chance that CNN would be supportive of vaccine mandates from a re-elected President Trump given the current COVID numbers and the side effect profile of the vaccines?

Whether or not you’re willing to admit it, deep down, you know the answers to those questions.

Politics should have absolutely no place in medical policies, particularly policies that violate bodily autonomy. It is maddening and saddening that this is the case. Leading Democrats instituting these policies should look themselves in the mirror and ask if they would still be supportive of mandatory vaccination policies today if Trump had won re-election and was promoting coercive vaccination.

But that’s all hypothetical. What can Trump do now?

It’s quite simple: announce his support for vaccine mandates, preferably on Twitter, which would presumably reinstate his account for a single public service tweet such as the following:

Why this would work. Simply put, Trump’s tweet would change very few opinions among those who support him, and would dramatically change opinions (and eventually policies) among his detractors.

Many of Trump’s supporters have reacted negatively to his suggestions to get vaccinated. They would be apoplectic if he supported vaccine mandates. There is no chance that a U.S. Marine with 15 years service who is willing to give up his job, career, and pension because he refuses a vaccine would abruptly change his mind simply because Trump, who has already recommended vaccinations, now announces his support of vaccine mandates. What would likely change is that Marine’s opinions about Trump.

Opposition to mandatory vaccination policies is held deeply, and the depth of that feeling is increasing. People are not just against mandatory vaccination; they are strongly against it. In contrast, support for mandatory vaccination is generally not held as deeply, and perhaps more reluctantly, particularly now given that people are vaccinated, boosted, able to get oral treatments as necessary, and cognizant that they can catch COVID from anyone, irrespective of vaccination status.

For many lukewarm supporters of mandatory vaccination policies, hatred for Trump is held deeply. Opposition to Trump is reflexive among many of them.

During Trump’s presidency, such people often seemed to take certain positions simply to be in opposition to Trump. When Trump chose to abandon Syria, his detractors said we should stay there and show American resolve. When Trump bombed the Iranian general Soleimani, his detractors said it was an unacceptable provocation. When Trump moved the embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, or when Trump raised tariffs on China, or when Trump restricted travel from China early in the pandemic, or when Trump was perceived as too soft on Russia, or when Trump put in place strong sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, or when Trump provided lethal aid to Ukraine, his detractors took the opposite positions.

One can argue for and against any of these actions, or for or against many other Trump actions, but that is beside the point. The point is that if you were against all of them, particularly given that many of these positions were consistent with consensus Democrat views expressed either before or after the Trump administrations, then the only conclusion is that you’re less objective, and more influenced by Trump, than you think. In four years as president, how many of Trump’s actions were openly and vocally supported by CNN and MSNBC? To a person who thought Trump did not do a single good thing as president and currently supported vaccine mandates, wouldn’t Trump’s support of vaccine mandates cause at least some slight hesitation?

I’m not saying that all supporters of vaccine mandates would change their minds because Trump jumped on board. Far from it. But some would change their minds, or subtly shift their stance, and a seed of hesitation or doubt would be planted in the minds of many others. Trump doesn’t have to change many minds, but instead just needs to serve a catalyst that changes a few minds, who in turn can convince others or provide political cover for silent opponents of vaccine mandates to become vocal opponents.

It does not take much to swing the lever of public opinion. As an example, consider how John Stewart’s very public endorsement of the likelihood of the lab leak theory changed public opinion among Democrats. Almost overnight, discussion of the lab leak theory in liberal circles changed from being labeled a conspiracy theory for Far-Right zealots to being accepted as a reasonable (and perhaps most likely) theory about the origin of COVID.

One of the great obstacles to eliminating vaccine mandates (which quite evidently have not worked to achieve their stated goals of stopping the spread of COVID in populations subject to the mandate) is that doing so seems to entail an admission of error. No one likes to admit they are wrong, particularly not publicly, and particularly when their errors negatively impacted so many people.

Fortunately, this does not have to be the case. Eliminating coercive vaccination policies, or choosing not to implement mandatory boosters, does not require any admission of prior wrongdoing. It can be framed as a continuation of policies which carefully and thoughtfully balanced the safety of the community with individual liberties. It can even be claimed as “following the science”, which has evolved. Undoubtedly, the tenuous case for vaccine mandates was much stronger nine months ago (when the vaccines looked phenomenally effective, breakthrough cases were almost non-existent, Delta and Omicron had not yet emerged, and there were no orally available, highly effective, at-home treatments approved by FDA for treatment of COVID) than it is now.

Quite simply, the emerging facts suggest that the medical (let alone moral) basis for implementing mandatory vaccination/booster policies has clouded. Moreover, policymakers can present themselves as concerned and selfless citizens of the world, forsaking booster vaccines among the already vaccinated and requesting that this supply goes instead to those in need around the world.

For example, here is what a university president could announce: “Over the course of the pandemic, we have made policy decisions with an emphasis on keeping our community safe, while trying to balance quality of life issues. In light of the continuing worldwide disparity in access to COVID vaccines, the approval of the oral treatment Paxlovid, the disparate vaccine side effect profile in younger males, the limited duration of vaccine effectiveness against infection for current variants, the establishment of widespread natural immunity, the extraordinary surge in Omicron COVID infection rates among the vaccinated population, and the strong protection among the vaccinated population against serious illness, the conditions that supported mandatory vaccination policies are no longer compelling, and there is insufficient justification at this time for mandatory booster doses.”

There is no need to mention the fact that students were never at much risk for COVID, or that mandatory vaccination policies are morally questionable and almost certainly contribute to stress, depression, and other medical issues. Instead, just mention the unassailable medical facts above, claim to be right in both the past and present, and stake a claim to the moral high ground by noting the global disparity in vaccine access.

Similar tailored statements work for corporations, cities, school districts, and the federal government.

Why should Trump send this tweet? Doesn’t Donald Trump, already arguably the most hated man on the planet in spite of his many admirers, have a lot to lose by sending a tweet (no matter how well-intentioned) in support of vaccine mandates that would alienate so many of his core supporters?

There’s an easy solution that allows him to do the good deed and take credit afterward. He can simply record a video of himself as he sends out the tweet, then release the time-stamped video several months later - after the vaccine mandates have ended and there is a slight whiff of moral repugnance associated with support of vaccine mandates:

In the video, a triumphant Trump can say: “I am sending this bogus tweet supporting vaccine mandates. I am doing this only because the Fake News media is against whatever I support. If I’m for it, they’re against it. Reverse psychology works better on CNN anchors than it does on a 4-year old. Vaccine mandates are as dumb as Joe Biden. I would never support vaccine mandates, but I am sending this tweet knowing that it will cause Democrats to rethink vaccine mandates (and unlike most of my tweets, Twitter won’t ban this one). If you’re seeing this video, then you know my plan worked. I have unified the country. Made America Great Again.”

It’s worth a try!