How Hard Will The Right's Disinformationists Work To 'Prove' The Presidents' Vaccines Are Fake?
Credit: Rob Carr/Getty Images
December 5, 2020

I'm sure you know that three ex-presidents have stated that they intend to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and are willing to do so publicly:

Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are volunteering to get their Covid-19 vaccines on camera to promote public confidence in the vaccine's safety once the US Food and Drug Administration authorizes one.

Will it surprise you if I say that right-wingers expect any on-air vaccinations to be faked? Here are commenters at Lucianne.com:

The most insulting thing about this is that they think we are that stupid. Do any of you believe they are really going to have the flu shot? It's all for show.

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How do we know they won't be given a placebo.

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placebo

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So TV is involved, huh? Don't worry, these VIPs will be given plain saline solution for their "vaccine" (unlike you, who will get the full-strength "vaccine"...)

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Yeah, and can one really know what is in the syringe?

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Slick Willie did not inhale, and neither will there be any needles in the syringes.

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And who will be there to verify that the actual vaccine is actually be injected?? I seriously doubt it is anything but a publicity stunt.

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What a cozy group of disgusting former Presidents we have. Those pensions and perks are ridiculous and here are the three of them, working against this great country. Oh I agree - they will get a placebo. I do not believe one word the three of them say!

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Only if somebody trustworthy can inspect the vials to make sure they are truly filled with vaccine, not saline solution. Wut? Do I think this would be a huge scam from the Clintons and so on to gull people into taking the vaccine? I certainly do. Especially since Gates is involved, and he never got his own kids vaccinated while he was filling third world kids with his toxic poison.

(As Reuters and AP have noted, the claim that Bill Gates's children were never vaccinated is a lie.)

There's similar skepticism in comment threads at Breitbart and Free Republic.

I think these public vaccinations by the ex-presidents should happen. Pew tells us that 60% of Americans now say they'll "definitely" or "probably" get a vaccine when it's approved; that's up from 51% in September, which is good, but it's still too low to get us to real herd immunity. Anything we can do to persuade Americans to get vaccinated is worth doing.

But if these vaccinations happen on camera, right-wingers won't just speculate that they're fake -- the worst right-wing sites will publish elaborate stories offering "proof" of the fakery. There'll be seemingly painstaking "analysis" of video. There'll be "whistleblower" accounts from truck drivers who'll say they delivered fake syringes or fake vaccine for the presidential photo ops. There'll be million-view "fraud" videos on YouTube and posts endlessly shared on Facebook.

With luck, the current Disinformationist in Chief won't be part of this process. Though he'll be out of office, I'm sure he'll weigh in -- but probably only to grumble about the fact that he's not getting all the credit for the vaccine's existence. I don't think Fox will participate, but Newsmax probably will, and OANN is certain to do so. And let's hope that none of the presidents slip up by getting their actual shots off camera while using the staged event as a reenactment -- if that happens, it will be seized on as proof that the whole thing is a scam.

I hope none of this matters much -- but I fully expect it to happen.

Published with permission of No More Mr. Nice Blog

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