My Proposal to Stop This Pandemic

Doom scrolling about the ongoing pandemic is, and you all can say it with me, the worst.

It seems like no matter how many times you hit the refresh page on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or whatever soul-sucking app that we've voluntarily sold our information to, there's no shortage of friends, colleagues, depraved uncles and aunts that are all sucked into a vast web of conspiracy theories about COVID-19, false notions of race wars, and, Heaven forfend! Socialists! In America?! I must refer to all instances of state regulation of the pandemic as Orwell's 1984, or else how will the world know of the impending doom that is known as the Social Justice Warrior Socialist Communist BLM Plague!?!

Speaking of bias, I'll cop up to one now: I'm a(n admittedly American) far leftist that is chomping at the bit for things like universal/single payer health care, complete police reform/abolishment, a full stop, no holds barred approach to climate change, and, last but certainly not least, the abolition of capitalism. That nefarious devil that you heard your Marxist/Post-Marxist/Post Malone-Marxist professor go on and on about, and that, for the most part, your liberal/leftist group of friends mostly agreed on, save for the inconvenient trust-fund kid who can't see past their own class privilege and how dissolving generational wealth would just "hurt kids like him", but, you know, he was a nice enough guy and your friends felt like there was potential to be mined out of that unaware noggin.

You know the one I'm talking about. And if you think you don't, you absolutely do.

If you're like me and you find yourself reading an article here about the complete collapse of trust in the CDC and an article there about the surge in COVID cases that are directly tied to a multitude of super spreader events, you might be (obviously) thinking to yourself, "Wow, this sure is a series of events that could have been absolutely avoided! I'm glad everyone thinks this way!" To which I say:

Have you even heard of the South?

Look, I know plenty of people already have been yucking it up as they have dunked governors like Ron De Santis, or Senators like Ted Cruz, or their racist uncle from Arkansas, and I won't delineate the point much further. So, in short, I'll just leave it at the obvious: the South has a pervasive problem with ideological echo chambers that have cultivated the ripe conditions for this virus to go rampant, yet it's also hypocritical of those on the East and West Coast of the States to just pretend that their handling of the pandemic has been indicative of proper systemic care of those who are most vulnerable because of, and I can't say this enough, late stage capitalism and its insistence that everyone is producing all the time, despite current health issues. Period. Full stop.

With that introduction out of the way, why the fuck are we not doing more to reach out to rural communities?

It's no secret: rural communities and voting blocs in the South that voted Trump in 2016 and 2020 are much less likely to get the vaccine. According to polls conducted by Monmouth University and Quinnipiac University, the national average for Republicans pursuing a vaccine is just under/over 50%, pending on where you live.

50. fucking. percent.

Look to your left.

Look to your right.

If your cousin, parents, uncles, aunts, sister's brother's niece are Republican, chances are that one of them is going to say something to the effect of, "I don't trust this vaccine; they rushed it out and I won't inject poison into my body!" And that is not something you can look away from; it is not something that will be sequestered away into rural communities, because, much like Dr. Anthony Fauci once ominously warned, "You don't make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline," in regards to various states looking to relax social distancing and masking guidelines.

So, we've identified the problem: vaccine hesitancy/refusal among Republicans and conservative-leaning people is worryingly high throughout the South and other parts of the country. The question then: what are we doing about it and what can we do about it?

To answer the first question: not nearly enough.

I'll break the first part of the first question down through as much empirical evidence I can muster. According to a story produced by Blake Farmer of NPR for 90.3 WLPN News, there were no special efforts planned for outreach to the largely white, Trump-voting base of Hartsville, Tennessee, and the consequences of those actions are showing, both in that local area and across the South; Farmer writes that "...the initial demand has tapered to a drip. Currently, the number of rural residents (21%) saying they'll never get the vaccine is twice the number (10%) in urban areas." (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/04/15/987412681/its-not-a-never-thing-white-rural-southerners-are-waiting-to-get-the-vaccine)

Not only that, but it seems as though there's a war being fought on two fronts by health officials in states like Tennessee; health officials have been scrambling more to rebuild a sense of trust with marginalized communities like people of color and other groups that have experienced a far more prejudiced and discriminatory history with the public health industry (for a quick point of reference, just look up the "Tuskegee Public Health Service Study of Syphilis", and you'll get a pretty good idea of the kind of systemic racism that prevailed during this period and for decades after) than they have with rural white conservatives. (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/04/15/987412681/its-not-a-never-thing-white-rural-southerners-are-waiting-to-get-the-vaccine)

Now, take Tennessee's current problem and extrapolate much of the same data averages and apply it to heavily Republican leaning towns, counties and states all across the country.

Meanwhile, the main targeted ad campaigns that have been orchestrated by the likes of the Academy of Country Music and even the White House have tapped the talent and prestige of country music stars like Eric Church, in an attempt to put their readers at some kind of ease.

The problem though: how can we actually gauge these are the kinds of people that rural conservatives and Southerners actually trust to tell them to get a vaccine?

This is where I'll get a little more personal and offer less of a data-driven, hard number crunching account of the events, conversations, and other hilariously terrifying shit that I, an Arkansan native, have witnessed, so, if you are either a proper MLA/English/academic whatever-the-fuck you call it kind of scholar, looking for a greater scope of the picture here, you are about to be sorely disappointed.

To recap: the empirical answer to the first question was "not nearly enough."

Now, the personal answer: HOLY SHIT, WE ARE IN DANGEROUS TERRITORY AND ON TRACK TO MAKE THIS AWFUL, HEINOUS PERIOD OF HEALTH NEGLIGENCE GO ON FOR WAAAAY TOO LONG!!!!

Ok, yeah, not super upbeat, but I really need to explain.

I have friends that live all over; New York, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, California, and other "supposed" bastions of "True Guardians of Public Health and Morally Righteous Liberal Ideology", and they just cannot wrap their heads around the idea that there is a whole swath of this country where not only governors and elected officials are hardly doing anything to provide accurate COVID-19 messaging, they can't wrap their heads around the idea that... normal people around here just did not change their behavior.

Like, hardly at all.

I saw neighbors still have house parties lined with cars running all the way up to the block, people ambling in and out like a disease ridden thread running through a disgusting needle; I saw businesses with mask ordinances posted to their front doors, yet almost every employee would either wear the mask like a chin napkin, or, even better, just not do it at all. I saw cook outs, mini concerts, and church services still clamoring people together, smugly defying explicit guidelines and ordinances that mandated this kind of behavior as being potentially dangerous. Hell, even college basketball, football, soccer matches, and tennis matches weren't exempt from these lapses in comprehension of basic reality. Coaches everywhere decided to play this really fun game of feeling as though that the mask just somehow rendered their voices completely mute, so, as a solution to the clearly pressing problem of their players not hearing them despite, you know, masks not actually inhibiting their speech, would just pull their mask down, shout, and pull it back up over their noses like nothing ever happened; a clean slate and good appearance for the CDC sanctioned and approved event known as collegiate and professional athletics! So much fun to be had during a pandemic, right?!

Of course, I could bombard you with article after article about how this disinformation has been diffused by those at the top; I could show you the infamous clip where Kenneth Copeland went on his own national broadcast to look at down the barrel of a camera lens and told his millions of followers that he would "blow the wind of God", and that spiritual healing is what we actually need, not the deliverance of a vaccine.

I could also talk about how Gene Bailey of the infamous prophecy-centered talk show Victory Channel warned his viewers of impending government control, and that the government will "use bayonets and prisons to force a needle into your arm", and give you the same exact, obvious analysis that this is a grave example of misinformation.

Instead, I want to ask you a different question.

Have you ever noticed what might be lacking in these distinctive social cliques?

There isn't somebody actually challenging their conceptions in their immediate vicinity.

And no, I don't mean a Facebook friend here to message them and have a wonderfully illuminating conversation over Messenger that just ends in both parties deciding, "Well, I guess we just have different opinions", and moving on. I mean someone who actually lives with them or is such an active part of their life that would not only be a voice of reason not drowned out by the same COVID skeptical friend or cousin; someone who is there in the room to say, "What do you mean by that?", in a somewhat inoffensive and non-combative tone, but also clearly not backing down from the truth that getting vaccinated is the only way that we can move on from the pandemic. Someone who speaks their language, lives in their respective political tribe, willing to beat the drum for science's sake while also still attending the local potluck at the First Baptist church just down yonder, you know the one, Sheryl.

I believe that I have a national solution for this ongoing crisis in our country.

We need to create a Nationalized Karens for Vaccination Program.

Hear me out.

Imagine, for a moment, you compound all the Karens that have the same amount of vitriolic energy for retail workers, fast food employees, and, well, anyone that doesn't immediately satisfy their every single need and wanton desire in public, but then direct that energy towards something like ensuring stores actually follow through on COVID vaccine passports? Or mask policies? Imagine that, for every time an interaction between one of these-let's call them "Customer Service Enthusiasts" for now-"Customer Service Enthusiasts" and disgruntled, 20 something year old Walmart apparel employee devolved into a screaming match between said "Customer Service Enthusiast" and a now even more disgruntled manager, instead this energy was converted into something far more valuable and worth the time and effort.

Now, of course, you might be saying, "But Ben, this just sounds like you're advocating for people to just...you know, be better?" And while that's a solid way to surmise my advocacy, we both know that's not a realistic ask here. My question from earlier still persists: have you heard of the South?

Another question that might come from those of adept understanding of the vast, nebulous mechanisms that dictate our nation's economy and investments: how would we pay for said Nationalized Karen for Vaccinations Program?

This has a multi-tiered answer.

First, we structure this program in the same fashion as a Mary Kay-esque "multi marketing company" (really note these air quotes here), in which advocates of the program are incentivized to drive up vaccinations of their friends and neighbors by being their own boss. I mean, think about it, the public health messaging here is all wrong: you can't just assume that people are going to do this out of the interest of the common good, right?

This is America: the words "public sector" are as about as charming to most people in power here as the phrase, "How about we don't completely derail the normal functionings of government over one culture war issue that inevitably has nothing to do with funding public roads, hospitals, libraries, or other essential services necessary for our society to flourish?"

Specific, I know.

So, the first part of step 1: make a Mary Kay program for vaccination drives. Now, what do you actually incentivize them with? What's the carrot at the end of the stick? I'm so glad you asked, Reader Who Isn't Actually Asking These Questions Aloud!

Of course, you hit them with what everybody else is saying about the restoration of normal freedoms that vaccines will bring: concerts, picnics, evenings where you can get sloshed at that trashy country bar with Brenda, Louise, or whatever other friends that your neighborhood Karen has. That much is a given. But here's what they won't expect:

Make the vaccine not just Christian as fuck, but make it an Uber anti-Hollywood, demon slaying, pedophile quashing, Clinton/Obama/Biden bashing symbol of Big Government that no rural, truck loving, gun toting, MAGA adoring denizen should go without.

Here's the general premise of this subversion of cultural belief: instead of the vaccine being a foreign, toxic invasion of the body, why not make it a righteous shield from God that will protect said Karen/Brenda/Louise from the encroaching hand of government that continuously tells them to stay inside and away from kids, nieces, nephews and GASP! GRANDKIDS?! NOT IN THIS KAREN'S HOUSE! Tell them, "This vaccine is essentially injecting liquid doses of the 2nd Amendment into your arm so that Joseph Stalin Communist ANTIFA Biden can't come over here and tell you to not go on vacation, or see the kids and grandkids, or enjoy the almost fireworks and flag porn on the 4th of July!!! Think about it: if we do this, then he loses!"

Let me re-iterate that last point: "If we do this, Joe Biden loses."

It's so much more simple than trying to be as nuanced and scientifically accurate as possible: Americans don't care about the objective reality that we all share with another in the Age of Disinformation. They care about who's winning: Red Team, Blue Team, Patriots fans against Eagles fans, these fans against those fans, and THE U.S.A AGAINST THE REST OF THE WORLD, BABY! They care about the triumphs of an Absolute Good against an even more Absolute Evil, not about the layers of subtlety and complexity that exist in between said conflicts. So, why treat this vaccine any differently? Why treat as though it's this well-reasoned thought process that requires people to set aside pre-conceived notions of previous medical breakthroughs or research; why not use the exact same tactics that the far-right and general conservative establishment have been using throughout the culture wars for the better part of the past several decades now?

The tagline then: "Take the Vaccine, and Tell Sleepy Joe to GO HOME!"

Next line item: funds. Where is the money for all of this coming from? How do you mobilize enough of these Karens all across the country for this particular task? What sort of infrastructure will be put into place to ensure the call to arms actually takes place?

Again, in line with the previously uttered rhetoric as before: remarkably, in all-American fashion, simple. Our Mary Kay pro-vaccine Karens will be armed with this fundamental truth that they will pass out in their trademarked Little Red, White, and Blue Book, perhaps in much the same fashion as a certain Little Red Book that...I can't seem to remember who penned it? I think I have a design lying around somewhere. Here, let me see...

Essentially, a lot like this one. It seems as though Carol Pogash already had the genius idea.

Anyway, so, we arm them with this then altered book to where it is now designated as a Little Red, White, and Blue handbook, in which one of the paramount maxims decrees,

"The appropriated funds for this bold new national front to vaccinate the public will not be summoned from greater taxes on You, the Lower and Middle Class, but rather money taken from those Hollywood Elites, the Undesirables who Work Not with Their Hands, but money that is moved around for the sake of money. These individuals have not labored as much as You, the Managers of the Local Hardware Store, or You, the Landscaper Who Toils in the sun, making people's homes livable; You are not Communists, but rather Southerners, willing to rush to the cause of protecting Dixie from the foreign invaders known as the Coronavirus and all of it's known affiliates. These Coronaviruses will steal your daughters, steal your wives, steal your husbands, and steal. Your. Freedom. Stand with the Nationalized Karens for Vaccination, and we can secure that freedom.

Karens of the world, unite!"

Now, you might say, "This just sounds like a well-disguised form of democratic socialism that Bernie Sanders advocated for," to which I say, WRONG! WE WILL NOT ACCEPT SOCIALISM *wink* OF ANY FORM *wink wink*, NOR WILL WE ACCEPT ANY GODDAMNED ECONOMIC MODEL THAT WILL STRIP ME OF MY PROPERTY *big wink, big nudge*! I JUST HATE THAT BILL GATES SO MUCH, I WANT TO TAKE ALL OF HIS MONEY THAT HE EXPLOITATIVELY TOOK FROM HIS WORKERS WAGES BECAUSE I HATE THAT SMUG LIBERAL LOOK ON HIS FACE *bigger Socialist wink, bigger Socialist nudge*!!!

Once those funds are procured, we lay the foundations: call centers, tote bags, perfume lines, posters, ad campaigns, and, then, finally, a giant, socially distanced Toby Keith performance that would make any good, bootlicking Southerner froth at the mouth for a vaccine.

Now, finally, the big, conservative-leaning question: how much will this bad boy cost?

This is where things may take a turn into territory us Americans are generally highly adverse: the "it's complicated" territory. After all, this would be a piece of legislation/social service so gargantuan that, for all intensive purposes to avoid that ever-loathed moniker of being Socialist (REMINDER, IT IS NOT SOCIALIST *wink wink*), it would be like swerving out of the road to hit a deer carcass on a nondescript road in, well, anywhere in the South. You can't go around the issue, you can't plow through it, so, what to do?

Simple: you jump the mother fucking shark. Or, in this case, jump the deer carcass.

We go back to that same Team rhetoric from earlier: we just would have to spend more than that Loser Joe in the White House! "Think about the headlines", our professionally trained Karens would say, "Sleepy Joe loses in Spending Race against Good, Hard-working Americans like ourselves! Don't you want that?" Now, the Us vs. Them approach is two-fold; not only is it protection against the Specter of Joe, it is now an offensive move against said Specter of Joe. Now, we avoid altogether the absolute political tar-pit of reasonably discussing and weighing the cost-benefit analysis of a piece of legislation and instead move right into "Let's Just Beat This Particular Group of People That We Have No Logical Reason to Hate Yet We Will Continuously Reshape Our Problematic Rhetoric to Avoid Being Called Sexist/Racist/Homophobic" territory, except now, we aren't actually discriminating against or belittling any minorities this time! It's just Joe Biden we're berating! And, I mean, c'mon, who doesn't want to do that?

In short, I whole heartedly believe that Karens for Vaccinations will be what save this country. I believe that compromise on the most basic premise of public health will have to be a driving force that quells this pandemic, rather than states looking at each other and shrugging massive death tolls because of the reigning political dogma, "Well they won't listen to me, so why should I listen to them?"

I believe these Karens must help save this country. Because if they don't, they will certainly be apart of what kills it.