If you listen to business stockholder meeting reports and commentary, one of the factors in deciding whether to keep or sell a stock that is suffering is whether the company is blaming everyone and everything but themselves for poor performance. Sure, COVID, sure, supply chain, sure, global this or that, but ultimately a strong company like a strong leader must have a plan for a successful company in spite of challenges. This is where Biden's successful superficial campaigning became a downright fail for his presidency. Biden risked everything on demonizing President Trump and his "followers" as racist anti-vaxxers and promising his administration would eradicate the incorrectly identified "threat."
Primed for scapegoating, democrats followed the lead…All anti-vaxxers are Trump supporters who are racist extremists looking to destroy you, the golden opposite presumably of tolerant well-meaning utopian visionaries. If you still believe any of these lies, just look at the progressive scapegoating cycle.
So, the first problem for people is the mischaracterization of the "cause" of a problem that slows down at best and with legislation can completely annihilate the ability to solve a problem. For heaven's sake, this strategy is a repeat of the Obama Administration's despicable, deceptive, damaging reasoning concerning the health crisis in the US. They glommed onto the crisis as a health INSURANCE crisis and therefore decided that forcing people to have health insurance was the obvious solution. And so, the 47 million "uninsured" were to blame for the health crisis in the US.
Same with Biden, by identifying the unvaxed as the problem, the solution was simple, forcing people to get vaccinated was the obvious solution. No longer was COVID the threat, but those who didn't take whatever prescribed number of vaccines were the threat, the unvaxed. To this day the Internet pushes this view, weeding out any critique of the vaccine and the process used for its approval to justifying mandates, to invoking Trump and his followers as the anti-vaxers.
Just like with Obamacare that ignored people WITH insurance who were still going bankrupt, were still being denied coverage, were still unable to afford needed medical services and treatments for disease and accident, Biden has basically ignored that the vaccinated not only still can get but can still transmit COVID.
I don't object to people cutting people out of their lives who they've defined as dangerous to their welfare, that's their choice. For many thinking people who are not pro mandate, hanging with those who blame the unvaxed for everything from COVID to supply chain are very dangerous, so it's a divorce made in heaven, I'm worried about you and pity you and your views and vice versa.
With Obamacare, the false identification of the cause, "the uninsured," took on a life of its own as the stakeholders of insurance company, government, lobbyists and providers carved out benefits for their own interests and powers and financial benefits by supposedly addressing the "cause." Similarly, the false identification of the cause, the unvaxed, took on a life of its own as the stakeholders of insurance company, government, lobbyists, providers and big pharma carved out benefits for their own interests and power by supposedly addressing the "cause."
But scapegoating in both instances went further. For Obamacare critics, they were pegged as anti-health simply because they pointed out the myriad of shortcoming in a law founded on falsehood. For Biden, critics must be anti-vax, anti-health, racist Trump supporters who threaten their lives by having hesitancy about the COVID vaccines.
For those with a memory, the Obamacare strategy, which scapegoated the phony number of the allegedly 47 million uninsured (a number that was adjusted downwards by the government itself under Obama) as the reason for unaffordable and therefore inaccessible healthcare that prevented improved American citizen health became the false reasoning that brought us Obamacare, a partnership between government and insurance companies to fulfill their own agenda…Tally up the number of those who had any kind of insurance while saving both government and insurance companies money by addressing the finite costs of checkups (a finite cost that is not an insurance interest which is supposed to exchange the payment of premiums by consumers for the "promise" that IF, a contingency, something goes wrong with your health you will have coverage that provides you both access and coverage for addressing that illness or injury) at the expense of improving insurance coverage for real disease, injury and pharma needs.
Using the same successful though shameful Obamacare scapegoat playbook, Biden decided to do the same with COVID…Identify the unvaccinated as the problem and create a partnership with business, insurers, big pharma to get those unvaxed vaccinated by any means necessary ignoring the inadequacy of the vaccines regarding COVID and its variants. Unfortunately, shifting "the problem" from COVID-19 to "the unvaxed" is merely a scapegoating strategy.
Under Obamacare while you may be one of the around 11 million who have profited from your "free" health insurance under an Obama plan that has cost the rest of us double-digit increases in our out-of-pocket health insurance expenses, including premiums, copays, coinsurance and deductible costs, even you must know that we still have millions of uninsured, we still have medical bills causing millions of bankruptcies, we still have unaffordable medical services and pharma treatments, we still have people using ERs for non-emergency medical care.
Similarly with Biden, we still have COVID running its course. Whether you believe that the vaccines have changed everything or that natural immunity, virus life cycle, or any other strategy is what moved us from the deadlier COVID-19 to the variants we have today, pretty much everyone must acknowledge that there remain millions of people who are not vaccinated from citizens to illegal immigrants to those effectively "exempted" from vaccination requirements who are NOT the reason for variants, who are NOT even responsible for the spread of variants.
Like Obamacare's scam playbook that identified the "uninsured" as the problem rather than the cost and failed promises of the super-expensive health insurance and medical treatments in our society, the Biden scam playbook continues to harp on the "unvaxed," rather than COVID as the problem. They do this in typical scapegoating fashion, ignoring, denying or quashing any information that does not support their theory which sadly has the same result as all scapegoating, it delays or prevents real solutions to real problems.
So what does scapegoating miss? First, like under Obamacare, many people CHOSE not to purchase the consumer product of health insurance because it didn't work…it didn't prevent bankruptcy or inaccessibility to needed medical services and care because the product was flawed. This is the ignoring of the underinsured, the term used for people who do not have enough insurance to protect them from health and financial ruin in the event they become sick. While Obamacare mandates the purchase of the flawed product, it doesn't change this truth, the product is flawed. Oftentimes the very good citizens who have paid for health insurance find themselves in a deep health and financial crisis in the event of illness, when they need that product to do what it's supposed to do.
Same with the vaccine mandates, it's about the product. Many people CHOSE not to get the vaccine because they don't trust the product. Ignoring its newness, ignoring side effects, and deliberately quashing any doubts about its effectiveness have only worsened this problem. Vaccine mandates have not stopped COVID and as we play around with more and more "boosters," that is a fact. We're told that hospitalizations are reduced by having more people vaccinated, that's what we're told, believe it or not.
We don't know a lot. Many people have CHOSEN vaccines in the past but are not sure about the COVID vaccine, so it's not an anti-vax problem it's an early adopter problem. Just like with Obamacare, many people chose not to purchase health insurance because of the inadequacy of the PRODUCT, many people CHOSE and CHOOSE to avoid the vaccine because of the inadequacy of the PRODUCT. Mandates don't change this, they worsen the problem.
Similarly, denying the validity of criticism to sustain scapegoating is destructive. Have you read about the nocebo effect asserting that up to two-thirds of those who suffer side effects of the vaccine are imagining them? Yeah, everyone who disagrees with you is nuts, that's scapegoating not science.
Instituting mandates and denying problems with the product in terms of solving a real problem whether it's inadequate insurance or the spread of COVID is only a temporary fix. Government flexes its power and forces people to follow their flawed reasoning through mandates. With Obamacare from year one, there are problems with the flawed law. If you're unfamiliar with it, Obamacare has tiers of plans using the metal descriptors of bronze, silver, gold.
Purchasing any of these plans would satisfy the Obamacare mandate.
But people aren't stupid forever, and we immediately saw that the younger, healthier individuals opted for the cheapest plan they could get to remain within the law. This led to insurance companies complaining that they were actually getting people who needed to use their health insurance for the more expensive plans and that was costing them money.
Instead of adjusting its approach based on knowledge and reality, the government tried a few strategies and dug its heels in. One strategy was to make the bronze plans less of a "good deal" than the more expensive plans in terms of coverage and cost, the next was to raise the amount of premium assistance and cost-sharing available under more expensive plans as opposed to the cheaper plan, and then there was the change in the law regarding short-term insurance plans, disqualifying many of them for eligibility for satisfying the mandate. The proof is in the pudding…Obamacare today boasts the same anemic enrollment it has for its many years, insured people still face health treatment inaccessibility and bankruptcy when they NEED insurance, etc.
Still trying to accommodate their partners, the insurance companies, we see Biden EXPANDING those eligible for Obamacare plans and even trying to make illegal immigrants eligible as new "customers" for the insurance companies, still never addressing the costs of obtaining needed medical services and care that have bankrupted even those with insurance as they face disease or accident injuries or needs for medication.
Sadly, it's the same with COVID. Instead of acknowledging side effects, ineffectiveness of vaccines, lack of knowledge about long-term effects, the Biden Administration has dug its heels in insisting it is the unvaccinated have prevented the end of COVID. As we're told more and more Americans are "vaccinated," yet still we have COVID, the government has merely dug its heels in, expanding the definition of the "unvaccinated," to include those who haven't had second shots, boosters and anything else they can require. This maintains their false claim…it's the unvaccinated's fault and if we all just keep taking vaccines, COVID will be gone. Not even the pseudo scientists should be listening to this.
As stated, people aren't stupid forever and everything from second vaccine to booster uptake is not nearly as good as first-jab numbers. Of course, instead of addressing the real issues with the vaccine an suspending mandates until there is improved data, Fauci and his ilk have gone full-force pro booster. That's right, make the mandate worse.
Lying is the essential hallmark of scapegoating: One of the sure signs of scapegoating is the number of lies necessary to maintain the scapegoat's status as the "problem." Obamacare utilized these lies immediately, including inflating Obamacare numbers by including those who opted into expanded Medicaid (essentially free insurance paid for by the federal government) as part of the "enrollees" in Obamacare which are plans only for the employed who meet certain guidelines. Myriads of other lies surfaced all explaining the continued failures of Obamacare.
Biden's Administration is doing the same. We read of the almost 100 percent effectiveness of vaccines…whoops, not so much. We were told that the boosters would keep us in our super-powerful immune status…whoops not true. We were told that masks work…whoops, not true, only certain masks seem to have efficacy. We were told that all side effects are "minor," hmm, decide for yourself. We were also told that side effects weren't being reported as per law by OSHA because they didn't want to discourage anyone from getting the vaccine…Outrageous and thankfully the Supreme Court finally followed law and said, "No," to the OSHA mandates.
Biden said he was disappointed and encouraged companies to defy the Court and institute their own mandates. Whoops, sort of sounds like encouraging people to knock down statues and burn stores and protest violently against the "racism" they see with a government nod of approval. We're told that the unvaxed workers are the problem, not the unvaxed illegals, members of government or other effectively "exempted" groups.
So be clear, your fear does not legitimize your scapegoating nor does excusing your fearful scapegoating as justification for your bad behavior whether it's deeming the scapegoated as "less than," "undeserving of," or any other irrational solution to your irrational description of the problem as the unvaxed rather than COVID. Scapegoating is always an irrational you problem not a "them" problem.
