Take THAT, liberals!

Vaccine rates are ticking up.  At least some Republican thought leaders have started encouraging followers to get vaccinated.  Has the delta variant finally scared some sense into people, and if no, what else is happening?

The report from the Republican side is that of course Republicans care about the ongoing outbreak in Missouri/Arkansas/ Louisiana, etc.  After all, it is affecting their people.  To which people on my side are inclined to say, if Republican leaders care so much about their people, why did they encourage hostility to vaccines?  The usual Republican answer is that they thought we could reach herd immunity without hard core Trumpsters being vaccinated and didn't take the delta variant into account.  Which is another way of saying Republican leaders were encouraging their followers to be what conservatives profess to hate -- free riders.  

On my side of the aisle -- well we can get terribly cynical.  Some commenters have suggested it started when the stock market fell and Republican donors started to feel the pinch. That seems unlikely to me.  A falling stock market is just another way to make Joe Biden look bad and ride the results back to Washington.  A more likely explanation is that some internal polls and focus groups revealed that if there is a major outbreak or unpopular restrictions, the people urging their followers not to get vaccinated will be blamed.  One person even suggested that the margin of victory in certain swing states was so narrow that Republican leaders began to fear that disproportionate mortality among their supporters might affect the outcome. 

I am inclined to think that Republicans leadings are acting mostly out of fear of a backlash.