Colin Powell, storied general and political naïf, died Monday, October 18, 2021. Accolades poured in, but people also remember how he swallowed the George W. Bush administration’s lies about Iraqi WMDs that never existed, which permanently damaged his reputation. And now, in death, he’s once again being exploited by Republicans to promote their lies — this time about live-saving vaccines.
As CNN reported (here), Fox hosts and other conservative media figures “dishonestly used” Powell’s death “to cast doubt on the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccines.” What they emphasized is that Powell was fully vaccinated, but died anyway. What they intentionally omitted is he was 84 years old and had a cancer that suppresses the immune system. The vaccines work by mounting an immune response. They work less well in people with compromised and poorly functioned immune systems.
Doctors and medical experts haven’t hidden this fact. They’ve publicized it. That’s why seniors, who have weaker immune systems, were given early priority for vaccinations when vaccines were still in short supply. That explains why they’re more vulnerable.
It’s a mystery why Republicans are out to kill Americans, but they are. Spreading vaccine disinformation and fighting common-sense safety measures like masks is needlessly taking lives. Yet they’ve done that throughout the pandemic. Now, with nearly all Covid-19 deaths occurring among the unvaccinated, their own supporters have become the primary victims of their campaign of vaccine and mask resistance, lies and disinformation, false conspiracy theories, and ineffective quack cures.
There’s nothing new about this. It’s just one lie after another. Just a few weeks ago, I posted an article on this blog about, “Why do Republicans lie so much?’, and shared some thoughts on what’s driving it (read it here). That time, they falsely portrayed President Biden as snubbing Afghanistan casualties. You’re familiar with their birther lies about Obama, of which Trump was a principal promoter.
Last year, The Nation, a liberal commentary magazine, went into much greater detail about Republican lying in their article titled, “The Modern GOP Is Built On Lies” (read it here). In 2018, Atlantic magazine asked, “Why has the Republican Party become so thoroughly corrupt?” (read their article here). In 2014, well before Trump began to dominate the party and turned it into an insurrectionist camp, PoliticsUSA ran an article titled, “The Republican Party Has Institutionalized Dishonesty” (read it here).
I’m not suggesting that Democrats are perfect angels. Character failings are found in human beings of all stripes and persuasions. But on any relative scale, Republicans are much more dishonest. More importantly, their dishonest is systematic, premeditated, and calculated. In the GOP, lying is an adopted strategy. And frankly, it’s repulsive.
We all know the difference between honesty and dishonesty. The classic cliché is, “Would you buy a used car from this man?” The stereotype of the dishonest used car salesman is an icon of American culture. For most of us, the reaction to dishonesty is avoidance: no, you wouldn’t buy a car from a crook.
So why, then, do so many Americans, smart in other ways, buy into Republicans’ lies and vote for them? To the point of losing their lives? I could offer some answers, but in a nutshell, it involves complicated psychology. Selfishness is a core mindset of this group. That’s why you can’t sell them on getting vaccinated as a social obligation. Being an unpopular minority party, and usually wrong, makes them defensive. That’s why you can’t have a reasonable discussion with them. People also internalize the culture they’re a part of; if you’re a member of a Republican family, in a Republican community, you’ll probably be a Republican, too.
R.I.P., Colin Powell. One of his last acts as a public figure, accomplished only months before his death, was to declare “he is no longer a Republican.” His specific grievance, the one he talked about, was “putting political interests ahead of the interests of Americans.” He was reacting to, among other things, the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. (See story here.) He probably didn’t foresee, but probably should have, that when he died they would exploit his death and lie about what caused it. That’s the way they are.
It isn’t on the death certificate, but having been a lifelong Republican up until then, it seems entirely possible that he really died of a broken heart.