Very few people want to hear from the former first daughter.
By Bess Levin
Last month, former first daughter Ivanka Trump interrupted her social media hiatus to tweet that she’d received her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine—whether it was Moderna or Pfizer, she didn‘t say—while encouraging others to get their shots as well. “Today, I got the shot!!! I hope that you do too!” she wrote, adding, “Thank you Nurse Torres!!!” alongside a blue heart emoji. Presumably, she figured she was doing a public service by urging her followers to get the lifesaving vaccine, though unfortunately, things didn’t go exactly as planned. Instead, many people expressed justifiable anger that Trump hadn’t done more to promote important public health measures back when she was a senior adviser to the president of the United States, a.k.a. her dad, Donald Trump, noting that it would have been nice if she’d told people the virus wasn’t a “hoax,” as the 45h president claimed, or suggested that super-spreader rallies amidst a global pandemic weren’t the best idea. More concerning, though, was the reaction from Trump supporters who were beside themselves over the idea that Ivanka got the vaccine at all, i.e. the people we have to thank in part for the fact that the U.S. may never achieve herd immunity. And several weeks later, it doesn‘t appear that they’ve changed their minds.
“Being a test subject is not my idea of wisdom…. Sad that you and others would even condone this…. Can’t wait for Americans to wake up!” wrote one Twitter user in response to Ivanka’s second dose. “Sad and regrettable that you promotes an EXPERIMENTAL substance disguised as a ‘vaccine’ that does not ‘Vaccinate’,” said another. Other responses included “Love your family but this is a huge NO for me & my family. Will be praying you do not get any of the horrible side affects”; “Grateful until you get [sick face emoji] from it”; and “You are crazy. Vaccine is poison.”
Of course, despite the rank hypocrisy of waiting until months after the vaccines were available to urge people to get them, not to mention apparently having little issue with her father lying to the country about the virus (while her husband bragged about cutting health professionals out of the response to a public health crisis), it’s actually extremely important that Ivanka and others on the right attempt to appeal to the vaccine hesitant. According to a Monmouth University poll conducted in mid-April, 43% of Republicans say they’ll never get the coronavirus vaccine, while a Quinnipiac University poll found 45% of Republicans saying they “don’t plan” on getting the shot. On Thursday, CBS News reported that 25 states recently turned down doses of the vaccine that they’d been allocated due to falling demand. In Georgia, for example, Dr. Zachary Taylor said his team could vaccinate 2,000 people a day and is averaging less than half of that. “We have the vaccine available. We have the facilities,” he said. “We’re just not getting as many people coming.” Speaking to CBS, a man from Homer, Georgia, declared, “Your choice is your choice. And my choice is that I’m not gonna get it and I don’t want it.”
And why might that be? Probably in part because Donald Trump has done the bare minimum to encourage people to get their shot, after insisting that they needn’t worry about the virus in the first place. Also because of people like Tucker Carlson, who regularly spends his show telling viewers how dangerous the vaccines are, even though they’re not.
Originally published at Vanity Fair