Initially, there was professed bipartisan opposition to Covid vaccine mandates. “No, I don’t think [the shot] should be mandatory, I wouldn’t demand it be mandatory,” President-elect Biden told the press in December 2020. Dr. Fauci agreed. “You don’t want to mandate and try and force anyone to take a vaccine. We’ve never done that,” he explained. “It would be unenforceable and inappropriate.”
A few months later, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi echoed their sentiment. “We cannot require someone to be vaccinated,” she told reporters. “That is just not what we can do. It is a matter of privacy to know who is or who isn’t.” In July 2021, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said mandates were “not the role of the federal government.” She continued, “that is the role that institutions, private-sector entities, and others may take.”
At first, the experimental shots remained voluntary. Despite pressure campaigns, government-sponsored propaganda, and relentless false advertising, many Americans declined the “vaccines” without becoming second-class citizens.
That changed on September 9, 2021, when President Biden announced a dramatic policy shift to compulsory vaccination. “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin,” he told Americans as he announced mandates that applied to nearly 100 million men and women.
He demanded all federal workers and contractors be vaccinated. Additionally, he announced an “emergency rule” that would require private employers with 100 workers or more to require vaccinations or implement weekly testing protocols. Dr. Fauci suddenly announced he supported “many, many more mandates.” He appeared at a conference of LGBT journalists to detail his shift in opinion. Compulsion was necessary, he explained. “You’d like to have [citizens] do it on a totally voluntary basis, but if that doesn’t work, you’ve got to go to the alternatives.” The alternative, of course, was an involuntary basis. The vaccine was optional only if people agreed to take it; then, he would reveal its true nature as a mandate.
The Covid regime got in line with the new messaging, and suddenly, former opponents of mandates like Pelosi described anti-mandate views as “alarming” and “fanning the flames of dangerous disinformation.” Mayor Bill de Blasio told New Yorkers, “We’ve got to shake people at this point and say, ‘Come on now.’ We tried voluntary. We could not have more kind and compassionate…No more. Get vaccinated, or you can’t work in New York City.”
DNC Chair Jaime Harrison went on MSNBC to decry Republicans’ “crazy” “meltdown” in response to President Biden’s mandates, insisting his party was “moving forward with protecting the American people.” The Democratic Party unequivocally endorsed vaccine requirements, criticizing “breathless and irresponsible talking points from Republican leaders.”
In January 2022, a poll showed that 59% of Democrats favored requiring unvaccinated citizens to remain confined to their homes, 55% of Democrats supported fines for the unvaccinated, 47% of Democrats favored a government tracking system for the unvaccinated, and 45% of Democrats supported internment camps for the unvaccinated.
The 180-degree change in opinion created obvious questions. Were Biden and Fauci right when they opposed mandates, or had their concerns been “breathless and irresponsible talking points?” Could states force children to receive Covid vaccines? Were these policies merely inadvisable, or were they overreaches of government authority?
Hellbound and Down 