Consider This from NPR - US Political Divide Reflected in Attitudes And Deaths Related to COVID

Episode Date: December 8, 2021

At least six conservative broadcasters who spread misinformation about COVID-19 and questioned coronavirus vaccines have now died from just this year. Their deaths may mirror a wider trend in the United States: Americans who live in pro-Trump parts of the country are less likely to be vaccinated and more likely to die from COVID-related complications.NPR's Geoff Brumfiel reports on new analysis from NPR showing that counties that voted for Donald Trump had almost three times the death rate of the counties that voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This past June, a Tennessee radio host named Phil Valentine released his own rendition of a famous Beatles song. Let me tell you how it will be. It was a parody of Taxman that Valentine called Vaxman. Cause I'm the Vaxman. Yeah, I'm the Vaxman. Valentine had spent months on air questioning the coronavirus vaccine. This was as the Delta variant was ramping up across the U.S. with hot spots in rural and Republican-led parts of the country. Just days after he posted his song poking fun at the vaccine, he announced on Facebook that he had been diagnosed with COVID-19. Valentine was hospitalized, he got sicker,

and his message shifted completely. Just put all the conspiracies and microchips and all that business aside and go get vaccinated. That's Phil Valentine's brother, Mark Valentine. He spoke to NPR in July on his brother's behalf. Because by that point, Phil was having difficulty breathing. He was in critical condition. He said, you know, I know now that a lot of people didn't get the vaccine

because I didn't get the vaccine, and that is what I would like to correct. And that's my purpose for being here today, is to take the message that he's unable to take, and that is, take politics out of it. It's time for us to get together and fight this thing collectively. Mark said his brother regretted advocating against the vaccine. Phil will be the most pro-vaccine person you've ever seen as soon as he's able to be. But Phil didn't make it. He died about three weeks after his brother spoke to NPR.

And he wasn't the only conservative broadcaster who died from COVID-19 after spreading misinformation. This has become a pattern. Popular right-wing radio host Dick Farrell lost his life to COVID-19. In Florida, conservative talk radio show host Mark Bernier, an outspoken opponent of vaccines to combat COVID-19, died of COVID-19. Controversial Christian television CEO Marcus Lamb has died after his battle with COVID-19. At least six conservative broadcasters who spread misinformation about the coronavirus and vaccines have died this year.

One of the most recent was the case of Christian televangelist Marcus Lamb. His TV network Daystar falsely claimed that COVID vaccines could weaken the immune system with messages like this one. But what happens when the vaccine doesn't stop the infection? What if it's actually killing your immune system and setting you up for health failure? Lamb died last week. There is a growing gap in America between people who believe the message of folks like Marcus Lamb and those who believe public health officials. That gap is shaping the course of this pandemic. Liz Hamel is with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. An unvaccinated person is three times as likely to lean Republican as they are to lean Democrat. Consider this. In the U.S., your politics may determine your health.

As COVID-19 rates sharply increase across the country, we'll look at why the political right and the anti-vaccine movement are growing closer together. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Wednesday, December 8th. This message comes from NPR sponsor, Yogi Tea. Wellness doesn't have to be complicated. In fact, it can be as simple as brewing a delicious cup of yogi tea and taking a moment to let your body and mind unwind. Support your well-being with yogi tea. This message comes from NPR sponsor, VMware. Navigate change faster with technologies that unleash the power of all clouds.

Learn more about VMware cross-cloud services at VMware.com slash welcome. VMware. Welcome change. It's Consider This from NPR. Last Friday, the CDC reported the highest number of coronavirus cases since the Thanksgiving holiday, up about 50% over last month. And public health experts keep repeating the same solution. We know that vaccines certainly work in the sense of certainly preventing severe illness and hospitalization. That's Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the president. Well, one segment of the country is lagging in vaccination rates and leading in COVID-19 deaths. Americans living in pro-Trump counties. A new analysis from NPR finds that counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump

had almost three times the death rate of the counties that went for Joe Biden in last year's presidential election. And Trump's own family members have been prominent in discouraging vaccine mandates. His son Eric spoke to anti-vaccine activists at a conference in October. NPR's Jeff Brumfield reports. Eric Trump delivered his half-hour speech to thousands of people at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tennessee. USA! USA! Some of his biggest applause lines came when he attacked the COVID vaccine mandates. Do you want to get a vaccine? Do you not? Do you want to be left alone or not?

Do you want to own a firearm? So do I. This all sounded really different from what came just hours before. On the same stage, an anti-vaccine activist named Carrie Madej claimed the vaccines contained microscopic technology designed to turn humans into cyborgs. They're trying to put another kind of nervous system inside of you, but an AI kind. These are my hypotheses. I encourage you to do your own research. It's those sort of fringe views that kept political figures away from this conference in the past. But as America heads into an election year, there seems to be a magnetic energy drawing the political far right and the anti-vaccine movement towards each other.

The promise is more power for both sides, but the cost could be thousands of American lives. To understand what's going on, first you need to understand where the two sides are coming from. The anti-vaccine movement has not always been politically aligned. The truth is, I'm still a registered Democrat. Del Bigtree is a major anti-vaccine activist. He struggled to make his message appeal to liberals, but it seems to tap into something on the political right. He still remembers the first time he noticed. He was invited to speak about a documentary he'd written and produced at a conservative women's group in Texas. They loved it. Clearly, I was shocked as a lifelong liberal

progressive that I was, you know, hugging and hanging out and having a great time with a bunch of extremely conservative mothers and grandmothers. Big Tree has been banned from social media platforms like YouTube for making false claims about the dangers of COVID vaccines. But as the pandemic has dragged on, his conservative audience keeps growing. Often he speaks at conferences alongside people who claim the election was rigged and promoters of QAnon conspiracy theories. Unless there's going to be a white supremacist, you know, on the stage, then, you know, or I find out that there's something that I truly find distasteful, then I see that stage as simply an audience that I want to have hear this message.

It's a numbers game. He wants to grow his movement, and he'll talk to anyone who will listen. Now, on the other side of this alliance are far-right conservatives like Trump's former political advisor, Roger Stone. Most of you know my story. He was convicted of lying to Congress about the Trump campaign's ties to Russia

and later pardoned by Trump. Stone was invited to this conference by anti-vaccine activists Ty and Charlene Bollinger. He sees vaccines as a potent wedge issue that can motivate conservative voters in the upcoming election cycle. Do you think that going forward, the vaccines are going to be something that people are willing to fight over? An enormous amount of public polling, which I think is honest, I mean, legitimate polling shows that it is. So we don't get to decide. We read what the public is saying as a political strategist, and you have to respond accordingly. I think it is highly likely that this will be an issue in the 2022 elections. Vaccine mandates may be a good way to get out the conservative vote. It's a fight about the role of government and personal liberty. But add in the views of anti-vaccine activists,

and that whole fight gets punched up to another level. Just listen to Del Bigtree. I believe that this vaccine approach, this vaccine itself, this brand new technology is so incredibly dangerous that we are actually putting our species at risk. That kind of rhetoric, even though it's false, creates an existential crisis. It's this synergy between real politics and imagined dangers that's bringing these two movements together. But there's a side effect. Many thousands of conservative Americans are dying from COVID, in part because they're being pummeled with a lot of bad

information about the vaccines. Liz Hamel heads public opinion research with the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan healthcare think tank. She says misinformation is now a major barrier to vaccination. We find a huge correlation between belief in misinformation and being unvaccinated. And Republicans are on the receiving end of a lot of that misinformation, which comes to them daily through conservative media channels. Kaiser's polling found that 94% of Republicans think one or more false statements about vaccine safety might be true. Hamill has watched over the past eight months as Republican vaccination rates have fallen further and further behind the rest of America. Today, an unvaccinated person is three times as likely to lean Republican as they are to lean Democrat. To see the impact of this vaccination gap, NPR

checked COVID-19 death rates against 2020 election results. The trend was clear. Since May, when the vaccines became widely available, counties that voted heavily for Trump experienced nearly three times the death rate from COVID-19 compared to those that voted for President Biden. They also had far lower vaccination rates. When asked about Republicans' low vaccination rates, Roger Stone said this. Each person must make their own choice. God bless them. So it doesn't bother you, you're not worried about Republicans potentially getting COVID, getting sick, not having the vaccine? I actually think that taking the vaccination probably enhances your chances of getting the disease. So I guess I'd be more concerned if I were a Democrat.

That last statement is contrary to all the scientific and medical data available. Stone also declined to say whether he was vaccinated. He doesn't care if people are dying and he's spreading, pardon my French, quasi-medical information. They don't care about that. They just care about winning. It's the worst element in American politics today. Annette Meeks is a lifelong Republican. She heads the Freedom Foundation in Minnesota, a conservative think tank. Meeks has seen the data on vaccines, and she's watched people she knows get sick.

She is worried. To see people reject those vaccines based on pseudoscience or worse, lies, and to see lives lost is a tragedy beyond words. But she also says embracing the anti-vaccine movement carries huge political risks for the Republican Party as a whole. That's because elections in states like Minnesota are won and lost in the suburbs, and suburban voters tend to be vaccinated. I believe long-term consequences for the Republican Party will be a lot of those independent suburban voters will look askance at us and say, what is this all about? I got

vaccinated, my whole family got vaccinated, and we're just fine. The risks for the Republican Party in lives and votes may be real, but there is little downside for the other group in this alliance, the anti-vaccine movement. Anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree says he's seeing more people at speaking engagements and getting millions of visitors to his website each week. He's hiring, expanding, and for now his audience is clear. Conservative America. NPR Science Correspondent Jeff Brumfield. You're listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.