Jen Psaki just put Marjorie Taylor Greene in her place
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a video this week, falsely claiming President Biden’s administration was seeking to require all Americans who receive vaccinations to be documented, saying, “Is this something like Biden’s mark of the beast because that is really disturbing, and not good.”
President Biden is not behind this, but rather the private sector (led by the travel and entertainment business such as sports groups, hence it’s often referred to as vaccine passports). Greene knows this, of course. She went on to falsely claim it would ruin patients’ HIPAA rights, projecting, in true GQP form, “It’s still fascism, or communism, whatever … but it’s coming from private companies…. I call it corporate communism.”
But Jen Psaki made it clear Monday that there would be no federal mandate for “vaccine credentials” or passports, or vaccines for that matter, and no centralized database, emphasizing that the White House was only “focused on guidelines.” This is not government driven. She provided no timeline for when guidance might be released.
But the GQP is nonetheless trying to turn this into a political culture war. Some GQP have even compared it to Nazi policies (projecting again) to identify the Jews.
Gov. Ron DeSantis recently stated he would take executive action against it. “It’s completely unacceptable for either the government or private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply participate in normal society.”
The nasty rhetoric is aimed at a nascent initiative by Biden’s administration, involving numerous agencies, to provide guidelines to the private sector on this such as privacy and accessibility standards, and fraud protection – just helping to achieve a standard way to voluntarily show proof of vaccination.
Nevertheless, The GQP is building on their base’s distrust of government, continuing the anger and opposition to mask mandates. A recent memo also reveals the GQP is trying to project its long history of being beholden to big business onto Democrats (and big tech in particular), so this fits right in with that.
By all accounts this will be less intrusive than providing proof of your vaccinations to attend school, since there will be no mandate and it is not government driven.
