COVID will stalk the GOP in 2024

The potential Republican presidential field is already taking very unpopular positions on the pandemic

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Florida's embattled Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis threatened Monday to fine cities and counties that impose vaccination mandates for their employees, merely the latest in a long line of actions that has earned him a reputation as the most objectively pro-COVID governor in the U.S. But DeSantis is hardly alone – the GOP's 2024 hopefuls are adopting hardline and broadly unpopular anti-mask and anti-vaccine mandate positions that are going to get a lot of people killed and could make the party's path back to power more complicated.

Elected Republicans insist that they are pro-vaccine, of course, and have encouraged and even pleaded with people to get their shots. Yet the national vaccination campaign more or less stalled out over the summer at levels far short of what is needed to return to full normalcy. By opposing vaccine mandates, Republicans like DeSantis are essentially throwing up their hands and saying there is nothing they can do other than beg. That is what the Republican base — which now includes millions of hardcore anti-vaxxers — wants. The national majority, however, wants both mitigation measures like masks and vaccine mandates and regards GOP rhetoric about how vaccination is a "personal choice" as one of the causes of our ongoing anguish.

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David Faris

David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. He is a frequent contributor to Informed Comment, and his work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Indy Week.