To police officers who refuse to be vaccinated, we say: Good riddance.

To police officers who refuse to be vaccinated, we say: Good riddance.

Opinion by Paul Waldman

Columnist

Today at 12:58 p.m. EDT

In one city after another, police officers are loudly refusing to get vaccinated for covid-19, even quitting their jobs rather than comply with vaccine requirements. They’re probably showing up in your Facebook or Twitter feeds, and they’re being lionized as heroes in conservative media.

There are a few critical things to understand about this development. First, just as we’ve seen in one company and organization after another, it’s likely that the initial wave of high-profile refusers will be followed by the less-noticed news that almost everyone got vaccinated in the end, and only a small number followed up on threats to quit.

Second, this is the product of a propaganda machine, in which elite conservatives with something to gain — votes for the politicians, ratings and money for the media figures — cynically use refusers to drive a narrative meant to sow division, keep their supporters and audiences angry, and extend the pandemic as long as possible.

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Third, as for those cops saying they’ll quit if they have to get vaccinated? The people who live in the places where they’re currently employed should have one message for them: Good riddance.

The police refusers are getting extensive media attention, whether it’s in Chicago or Seattle or New York. And when they do, they’re guaranteed to be held up on Fox News and other conservative media outlets as courageous and principled, when what they actually are is reckless, selfish, and so irresponsible that their very refusal should be proof of their unfitness to serve.

For all the efforts to put police above criticism because they “put their lives on the line every day,” since the pandemic began five times as many police have died from covid-19 as from gunfire.

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In some cases, we’re seeing extremely performative acts of refusal, in which a cop posts a video proclaiming that he won’t get vaccinated, or when a small group of police and firefighters walk up the steps of city hall to turn in their boots. They’re both products of the Fox News propaganda that convinced them to do it, and participants in that propaganda’s ongoing production. They know — or at least they hope — that their act of defiance will turn them into right-wing media stars.

I strongly suspect that lots of them will quickly find jobs with other police forces in towns and cities that don’t have mandates. But if you want to feel sorry for them, you can remember that they’re dupes, pawns of conservative media and political elites who have convinced them that if they aren’t granted the privilege to infect as many people as they want to then they’re oppressed victims.

And let’s be honest, privilege is something cops know a lot about. Though it would be very difficult to prove statistically, I strongly suspect that the officers quitting over vaccine mandates are much more likely than their vaccinated peers to embody everything that’s wrong with American policing.

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I’ll bet they’re the ones with the strongest sense of entitlement, the loudest demands that we pay tribute to them, and the most vehement insistence that they never face accountability for misdeeds. They’re the ones hoisting those vile “thin blue line” flags, and the ones who are all in on fascistic “warrior cop” ideology.

This isn’t complicated: There are lots of jobs with special requirements that are dictated by the nature of the work, including being a police officer (most police departments require you to meet physical fitness standards, for instance). If you’re interacting with the public during a deadly pandemic and there are safe, effective vaccines available, you have to get vaccinated. If you can’t accept that, find another profession.

We’re always told that police misconduct is just a matter of a few “bad apples.” Well here’s a good way to identify at least some of the ones with no concern for the well-being of the people they’re supposed to be protecting.

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It’s not just cops, of course. Some people in the military have been convinced that despite the battery of vaccines they must get to begin their service, this vaccine is somehow different and they should disobey the order to take it.

How is it different? Well, they didn’t watch a hundred Fox News segments about how The Libs want to force you to get vaccinated against tetanus and measles, so those must be fine.

Keep this in mind: The elites who are convincing refuser cops and millions of rank-and-file Republicans that vaccines are a liberal plot in preparation for some kind of communist takeover are completely insulated from the consequences of their poisonous propaganda campaign.

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Fox News, to take just one example, has a strict covid protocol that mandates vaccines or daily testing for its employees — including those like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham who do everything in their power to convince their audiences not to get vaccinated. They’re not stupid — even if their entire business model is built on the assumption that their audiences are dumb and easily manipulated.

So far, that assumption has served them well, even as it does incalculable damage to the country. But if nothing else, perhaps we’ll come out of this with fewer cops who should never have been on the job in the first place.