On Politics: How Republican vaccine opposition got to this point

Nearly half of Republicans say they aren't likely to get vaccinated, one recent poll found.

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story July 17, 2021 By Lisa Lerer National Political Correspondent Hi. Welcome to On Politics, your wrap-up of the week in national politics. I'm Lisa Lerer, your host. Covid vaccines were administered at Miami International Airport last month.Saul Martinez for The New York Times After Sherri Tenpenny, a Cleveland-area doctor, falsely suggested during a hearing last month in the Ohio House of Representatives that Covid vaccines leave people "magnetized" and can "interface" with 5G cellular towers, Republican lawmakers thanked her for her "enlightening" testimony. In Congress, Republicans who once praised the Trump administration for its work facilitating the swift development of the vaccines now wage campaigns of vaccine misinformation, sowing doubts about safety and effectiveness from the Capitol. And this week, Republican state lawmakers in Tennessee successfully pressured health officials to stop outreach to children for all vaccines. The guidance prohibits sending reminders about the second dose of a Covid vaccine to adolescents who had received one shot and communicating about routine inoculations, like the flu shot. A wave of opposition to Covid vaccines has risen within the Republican Party, as conservative news outlets produce a steady diet of misinformation about vaccines and some G.O.P. lawmakers invite anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists to testify in statehouses and Congress. With very little resistance from party leaders, these Republican efforts have elevated falsehoods and doubts about vaccinations from the fringes of American life to the center of our political conversation. It's a pattern that was seen throughout the Trump administration: Rather than rebuke conspiratorial thinking and inaccuracies when they begin spreading among their party's base, many Republicans tolerate extremist misinformation. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT Some conservatives promulgate the falsehoods as a way to rally their political base, embracing ideas like a stolen election, rampant voter fraud and revisionist history about the deadly siege at the Capitol. Many others say very little at all, preferring to dodge questions from the news media. Those who do speak up remain reluctant to specifically name colleagues who have given voice to misinformation, or to call out media personalities who have done so, like Tucker Carlson of Fox News. "We don't control conservative media figures so far as I know — at least I don't," Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, told The New York Times recently. "That being said, I think it's an enormous error for anyone to suggest that we shouldn't be taking vaccines." Anti-vaccination sentiment isn't new to Republican voters. During the 2016 Republican presidential primary race, a number of candidates, including Donald Trump, repeated debunked theories that vaccines caused autism in children. Around that time, Republican state legislators began opposing laws that would tighten vaccine requirements for children. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT But over the past few months, the shift within the party has accelerated, as some supporters of Trump embrace the belief that the national effort to promote Covid vaccinations is harmful, unconstitutional or perhaps even a sign of a nefarious government plot. "Think about what those mechanisms could be used for," Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina said of the Biden administration's plan to go door-to-door to reach millions of unvaccinated Americans, going on to claim without evidence: "They could then go door-to-door to take your guns. They could go door-to-door to take your Bibles." In a report this month, the Kaiser Family Foundation found a growing vaccination divide between Republican and Democratic areas, with nearly 47 percent of people in counties won by President Biden fully vaccinated, compared with 35 percent of people in Trump counties. In a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 47 percent of Republicans said they weren't likely to get vaccinated, compared with just 6 percent of Democrats. As Covid cases across the country rise, nearly all recent hospitalizations and deaths have occurred among unvaccinated people, White House officials have said. While the national outlook remains much better than during previous upticks, Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, this week issued his first advisory of the Biden administration, warning of the "urgent threat" of health misinformation. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT There's a tendency among Republican leaders to quietly — and sometimes not-so-quietly — attribute the support for fringe beliefs and figures to Trump. But when it comes to vaccinations, it's difficult to pin the blame on the former president. Trump has eagerly taken credit for the accelerated development process of the vaccines, and has urged Americans to get vaccinated. (He did, however, quietly receive a vaccine in private before he left office, rather than hold a public event for the shot that might have encouraged his supporters to follow his lead.) In an interview with Fox News last month, the former president expressed some concern about vaccinating "very young people" but said he remained a "big believer in what we did with the vaccine." "it's incredible what we did," he said. "You see the results." Other Republicans have not remained quite as steadfast in their echoing of Trump's message on vaccines. Last year, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin praised Trump's "brilliant" Operation Warp Speed. This year, he has made a number of dubious claims about adverse reactions and deaths linked to the vaccines. In March, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia praised Trump for saving lives with the vaccines. This month, she urged Americans to "just say no" to the vaccine, using Nazi-era imagery to criticize the Biden administration's effort to reach unvaccinated people. "People have a choice, they don't need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations," she tweeted. "You can't force people to be part of the human experiment." Less than a week later, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, encouraged Americans to get vaccinated, citing his experience as a childhood survivor of polio. "We have not one, not two, but three highly effective vaccines, so I'm perplexed by the difficulty we have finishing the job," he said. Yet when asked by a reporter whether some of the challenge could stem from the words of members of his own party, McConnell demurred. "I've already answered the question about how I feel about this," he said. "I can only speak for myself, and I just did a few minutes ago." Drop us a line! We want to hear from our readers. Have a question? We'll try to answer it. Have a comment? We're all ears. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com or message me on Twitter at @llerer. By the numbers: $15 billion … That's roughly the amount of money deposited in American bank accounts this week for the nearly 60 million children eligible for the expanded monthly child tax credit. Subscribe Today We hope you've enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times with this special offer. WHAT TO READ THIS WEEKEND Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman, via Associated Press In Texas, Top Two Republicans Steer Ship of State Hard to the Right Different in style and background, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have come together, for different reasons, to push an uncompromising conservative agenda. By Reid J. Epstein Michael Conroy/Associated Press A Pause in Federal Executions, but Uncertainty About What's Next President Biden's Justice Department has ordered a moratorium on carrying out federal death sentences after a surge in executions under the Trump administration. By Hailey Fuchs … Seriously "I am kind of a sentimental man, don't get me wrong," Roland Mesnier, a former White House pastry chef, said in a recent interview. "They were my babies." The Great Junk Purge sweeps America. Were you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox. Thanks for reading. On Politics is your guide to the political news cycle, delivering clarity from the chaos. Is there anything you think we're missing? Anything you want to see more of? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. Continue reading the main story Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for On Politics With Lisa Lerer from The New York Times. To stop receiving these emails, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences. 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In Her Words: ‘Show that you’re there’

How to remain visible if you're working from home

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story July 15, 2021 Libby VanderPloeg By Sarah Kessler Senior Staff Editor, DealBook "You have to show that you're there and you have to show that you care." — Ioana Cristea, the co-author of a 2019 study that examined the strategies remote workers use to remain visible Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT Last month, In Her Words and DealBook invited readers to share their questions about returning to the office. Over the next few weeks we'll be putting those questions to experts and publishing the responses. A reader from Dublin writes: In a virtual or hybrid scenario, how do we ensure that people working from home are not overlooked for promotion and selection for choice projects? How do we mitigate against "out of sight, out of mind?" Worries that working remotely will hurt your chances of getting promoted are warranted. In one 2015 study that randomly assigned a group of workers at a large Chinese travel agency to work for nine months mostly at home or full-time at the office, the at-home workers were about half as likely as their office counterparts to get a promotion. This was true even though the remote workers were 13 percent more productive, making more calls per minute and taking fewer breaks and sick days. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT "They can get forgotten about," said Nicholas Bloom, a professor of economics at Stanford University and one of the study's authors. The other possible reason for the disparity, he said, is that workers in the office are able to more easily develop relationships and knowledge of culture that is useful for higher-level positions. Dr. Bloom suggests bias against remote workers can be reduced by examining data about who is being promoted and training managers to spot favoritism toward in-office employees. But, Mr. Bloom said, managers can head off favoritism in the first place by simply sticking to a schedule that has all team members working in-office and out-of-office on the same days. Another study published in 2019 by researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, examined the strategies that employees working outside of the office used to remain visible: Among them, sending many emails throughout the day instead of one long email at the end of the day, responding to messages quickly and turning on video during meetings. They also made themselves available outside of normal business hours and took on extra work. The study's authors, Ioana Cristea and Paul Leonardi, found the strategies were successful at making remote workers more visible. But they resulted in remote employees feeling burned out. Eventually many of these employees just stopped trying to get better work assignments. Dr. Cristea says companies can support remote workers by setting up regular informal meetings with teammates and management that allow remote workers virtual face time, hosting demo events in which employees can show off their contributions, and being conscious of time zone differences when scheduling meetings. At the end of the day, she says, the burden falls on remote workers: "You have to show that you're there and you have to show that you care, but you also have to find your own balancing act so you do not really die trying and sacrifice your personal life," she said. What questions do you have about getting back to the office? Let us know here. Subscribe Today We hope you've enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times with this special offer. What else is happening Here are three articles from The Times you may have missed. Laurie Colwin in 1974.Miranda Knickerbocker Historical Collection, via Shutterstock "Happy All the Time." The sneaky subversiveness of the beloved food and fiction writer Laurie Colwin. [Read the story] "It can't help but feel different." In a first, an M.L.B. game will be called entirely by women. [Read the story] "Who told you?" No matter which church I attended, or which pastor preached, the message was always the same: Men are prone to lust; women are prone to gossip, Kelsey McKinney writes in Opinion. [Read the essay] In Her Words is edited by Francesca Donner. Our art director is Catherine Gilmore-Barnes, and our photo editor is Maura Foley. Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here to get future installments. Write to us at inherwords@nytimes.com. Follow us on Instagram at @nytgender. Continue reading the main story Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for In Her Words from The New York Times. To stop receiving these emails, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences. Subscribe to The TimesGet The New York Times app Connect with us on: Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018