What’s curious about Marjorie Taylor Greene’s repeated comparison of COVID-19 vaccine efforts to the Holocaust[1] is that she blatantly gets it exactly backwards. What’s even more curious is that her illogic, while rightly condemned, is rarely refuted.
In Nazi Germany, Jews, with their gold stars, were herded onto trains destined for concentration camps. Under vaccine mandates, the vaccinated, those who get Greene’s “gold star,”[2] will be permitted to keep their jobs.[3] It would be the absence of that “gold star” that stigmatizes and penalizes.
There certainly are parts of the country where people who accept COVID-19 mitigation measures and vaccines face oprobrium[4] and where they feel pressured to resign due to an official refusal to take COVID-19 seriously.[5] But these are quite clearly not the folks Greene allegedly seeks to protect.
Of course Greene isn’t actually even protecting the people she claims to. The unvaccinated endanger all of us, most directly those who remain susceptible to COVID-19, but also those who face chaos finding hospital beds even for unrelated conditions when medical facilities are overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients.[6]
But in a politicized medical crisis, people are hearing what they want to. Greene regrettably has an audience and cannot be compelled to shut the fuck up.
- [1]Shira Hanau, “Marjorie Taylor Greene blames ‘vaccine Nazis’ for ‘ruining our country’ months after Holocaust museum apology,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 3, 2021, https://www.jta.org/2021/11/03/united-states/marjorie-taylor-greene-blames-vaccine-nazis-for-ruining-our-country-months-after-holocaust-museum-apology; Ron Kampeas, “In latest Nazi analogy, Marjorie Taylor Greene invokes ‘medical brown shirts’ in decrying vaccination outreach,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 7, 2021, https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/in-latest-nazi-analogy-marjorie-taylor-greene-invokes-medical-brown-shirts-in-decrying-vaccination-outreach↩
- [2]Shira Hanau, “Marjorie Taylor Greene blames ‘vaccine Nazis’ for ‘ruining our country’ months after Holocaust museum apology,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 3, 2021, https://www.jta.org/2021/11/03/united-states/marjorie-taylor-greene-blames-vaccine-nazis-for-ruining-our-country-months-after-holocaust-museum-apology; Ron Kampeas, “In latest Nazi analogy, Marjorie Taylor Greene invokes ‘medical brown shirts’ in decrying vaccination outreach,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 7, 2021, https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/in-latest-nazi-analogy-marjorie-taylor-greene-invokes-medical-brown-shirts-in-decrying-vaccination-outreach↩
- [3]Fola Akinnibi, “NYC, other big cities confront police-union blowback on vaccine mandates,” Sacramento Bee, October 20, 2021, https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article255158627.html; Robert Barnes, “Supreme Court won’t block vaccine mandate for Maine health-care workers with religious objections,” Washington Post, October 29, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-vaccine-mandate-maine/2021/10/29/0ad60158-3903-11ec-91dc-551d44733e2d_story.html; Eric Berger, “Police departments face a shortage as unions enable officers to refuse vaccines,” Guardian, October 18, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/17/police-shortage-vaccine-mandate-unions-seattle-chicago; Mark Berman, “As coronavirus cases mount and vaccine mandates spread, holdouts plague police and fire departments,” Washington Post, October 2, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10/02/police-firefighters-resist-vaccination/; Howard Blume, “They stuck to their anti-vax beliefs. Now these teachers and school workers are out of jobs,” Los Angeles Times, October 29, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-10-29/the-unvaccinated-few-in-l-a-unified; Michael Brice-Saddler and Jasmine Hilton, “Thousands of D.C. health care workers remain unvaccinated amid flurry of religious exemption requests,” Washington Post, October 2, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/10/02/dc-fire-religious-exemptions-covid-vaccine/; John Byrne, “Chicago police union official compares vaccine standoff with mayor to ‘Hunger Games,’” Sacramento Bee, October 20, 2021, https://www.sacbee.com/article255157522.html; Katie Camero, “UCLA doctor ‘willing to lose everything’ escorted from work for refusing COVID vaccine,” Sacramento Bee, October 7, 2021, https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article254829122.html; Zak Cheney-Rice, “The Police’s Farcical War on Vaccine Mandates,” New York, October 22, 2021, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/the-polices-farcical-war-on-vaccine-mandates.html; Alex Horton, “Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops have not yet complied with vaccine mandate as deadlines near,” Washington Post, October 10, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2021/10/10/military-vaccine-mandate/; Annie Linskey et al., “Biden announces sweeping new vaccine mandates for businesses, federal workers,” Washington Post, September 9, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/vaccine-mandate-federal-employees/2021/09/09/1c1ce9dc-116b-11ec-882f-2dd15a067dc4_story.html; Eli Rosenberg, “White House vaccine rule would require companies and workers to comply by Jan. 4,” Washington Post, November 4, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/11/04/white-house-vaccine-mandate/; Priscella Vega, “Sheriff warns vaccine mandate causing ‘mass exodus’ among personnel,” Los Angeles Times, October 31, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-10-31/despite-sheriffs-warning-of-a-mass-exodus-county-officials-holding-firm-on-vaccine-requirement; Richard Winton, “All California prison guards, staff must get COVID-19 vaccine, federal judge rules,” Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-27/california-prison-employees-covid-19-vaccine-judge↩
- [4]Marion Renault, “Red America’s Compassion Fatigue: A Report From Mobile, Alabama,” New Republic, October 21, 2021, https://newrepublic.com/article/163919/mobile-alabama-covid-vaccination-red-america-compassion-fatigue↩
- [5]Lizette Alvarez, “Florida teachers are quitting their jobs in droves — and who can blame them?” Washington Post, October 11, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/11/florida-teachers-covid-quitting-desantis/↩
- [6]Timothy Bella, “Alabama man dies after being turned away from 43 hospitals as covid packs ICUs, family says,” Washington Post, September 12, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/12/alabama-ray-demonia-hospitals-icu/; Rebecca Boone, “COVID-19 surge forces health care rationing in parts of West,” ABC News, September 16, 2021, https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/idaho-rations-health-care-statewide-covid-surge-continues-80056295; Hailey Branson-Potts, “Mortuaries fill, hospitals clog in rural California towns with low vaccination rates,“ Los Angeles Times, August 28, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-28/la-me-rural-california-covid-surge-vaccinations-lag; Jenny Deam, “A Boy Went to a COVID-Swamped ER. He Waited for Hours. Then His Appendix Burst,” ProPublica, September 15, 2021, https://www.propublica.org/article/a-boy-went-to-a-covid-swamped-er-he-waited-for-hours-then-his-appendix-burst; Marisa Fernandez, “As hospitals fill, more ambulances forced to wait,” Axios, August 27, 2021, https://www.axios.com/local-ems-covid-surge-wait-times-611657fc-8ddf-4b32-a6dc-c7f2eb799487.html; Emma Goldberg and Emily Anthes, “Hospitalizations for children sharply increase as Delta surges, C.D.C. studies find,” New York Times, September 3, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/health/delta-children-hospitalization-rates.html; Michael Hiltzik, “‘Death panels’ arrive — in COVID-stricken Republican Idaho,” Los Angeles Times, September 17, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-09-17/death-panels-republican-covid-stricken-idaho; Michael McGough, “Sacramento hospitals ‘at capacity’ and COVID deaths at 6-month high as delta spreads,” Sacramento Bee, August 26, 2021, https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article253761928.html; Luke Money, “ICU beds filling up in San Joaquin Valley, triggering hospital surge order,” Los Angeles Times, September 3, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-03/icu-bed-filling-up-in-san-joaquin-valley-triggering-hospital-surge-order; Betsy Phillips, “I was supposed to have life-saving surgery. Tennessee’s covid-19 surge cost me a hospital bed,” Washington Post, September 14, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/14/tennessee-covid-19-surge-hospital-beds-surgery/; Lena H. Sun and Joel Achenbach, “Unvaccinated people were 11 times more likely to die of covid-19, CDC report finds,” Washington Post, September 10, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/10/moderna-most-effective-covid-vaccine-studies/; Sudhin Thanawala and Jay Reeves, “Virus surge breaks hospital records amid rising toll on kids,” Sacramento Bee, August 26, 2021, https://www.sacbee.com/news/article253764343.html↩