Biden’s path out of the pandemic meets a Republican blockade

CNN — The entrenched Republican opposition to public health measures like vaccine and mask mandates has become one of the most difficult challenges facing President Joe Biden as he tries to fulfill his campaign promise to shut down the Covid-19 pandemic. Summing up what has become a central talking point for GOP candidates as they head into the 2022 midterm primaries, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told reporters on Wednesday that his party should “use every tool we have to protect people’s rights, and the vaccine mandates are illegal, they’re abusive and they’re hurting this country.” But Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, warned that forcing a shutdown over a health measure intended to save lives would prove disastrous for the Republican Party: “I certainly hope they don’t shut out the lights of this government some kind of bold display of stupidity,” he said. “That is what they are advocating for.” Partisanship hardens around public health measures The Republican blockade against Biden’s tools to try to halt the pandemic has created an impasse that may only grow worse as political polarization intensifies heading into the elections. While the White House had hoped earlier this year that “trusted messengers” would help it in its quest to get the nation fully vaccinated – particularly in red areas of the country won by former President Donald Trump – that now appears to be an illusion, as political partisanship becomes one of the strongest predictors of whether someone is vaccinated, according to surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation. We could have killed one of our colleagues, and instead they decided to not tell anyone, putting every single one of us at risk,” she told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday on “The Lead.” Unfortunately, the ethos that Trump displayed in those days – treating Covid as a minor inconvenience rather than a deadly risk to public health – continues to pervade his party.