In the hours immediately after the conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed in front of a large crowd of students at a Utah university on Wednesday, there was no word on who had actually done it and no explanation for why it had happened. But in Washington, those who profess certainty no longer need much in the way of facts: partisans come equipped with preëxisting truths, and events are slotted into narratives that existed long before the events occurred. Even before Kirk’s death had been confirmed, Nancy Mace, a Republican congresswoman from South Carolina, spoke to reporters outside the Capitol. “Democrats own what happened today,” she told them. When Ryan Nobles, the chief Capitol Hill correspondent for NBC News, asked her if, by that logic, Republicans would own the shooting this summer of two Minnesota Democratic lawmakers, she replied, “Are you kidding me? . . . Some raging leftist lunatic put a bullet through his neck and you want to talk about Republicans right now? No. . . . Democrats own this a hundred per cent
The exchange is revealing because it suggests that Kennedy is quite willing to play ball with Big Agriculture, even at the risk of angering his grass-roots Make America Healthy Again supporters. Many of his MAHA faithful were already disappointed in Kennedy’s capitulation on the environment.
While the criticism of Kennedy slowly grows from different sides, I fear it’s too little, too late. Considerable damage has already been done to Americans’ trust in vaccines under false pretenses. A veterinarian recently told NBC News about people expressing their concerns to her about giving their pets vaccines out of fear that they will harm their pets, causing autism or other cognitive issues. When people are afraid of dog autism, it’s going to take a lot more than some harsh words at a little-watched Senate hearing to get us back on track.
Despite his assurances in January, Mr. Kennedy is not simply trying to ensure that the best science is used to guide the nation’s health policies or demanding greater transparency into health policy decision making or insisting that disenfranchised groups be heard out. He is trying to fully dismantle the nation’s vaccination apparatus, regardless of what science says or what most people want. And less than a year into his tenure as health secretary, he is succeeding brilliantly.