Rantz: In bizarre rant, Gov. Inslee calls Trump voters ‘bioreactor facility’ spreading COVID in Washington

Governor Jay Inslee unloaded on Trump supporters in a bizarre, angry, and somewhat incomprehensible rant, calling them a “bioreactor facility.” He blamed them for spreading COVID in Washington state.

The comments made at a Thursday press conference came from a question over how many health care workers are vaccinated. Rather than answer the question, Inslee pivoted to a partisan attack.

The vaccine-shaming comes as Washington has exceeded a 70% vaccine initiation rate among those eligible.

In a bizarre and angry rant, Gov. Jay Inslee baselessly calls Trump supporters a "bioreactor facility" for spreading COVID because they are not getting vaccinated.

Over 70% of the state is vaccinated; Trump voters represent about 40% of state so… they're getting vaccinated. pic.twitter.com/gx261ZaJ5f

— (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) July 15, 2021

Inslee’s bizarre rant

At the press conference, a reporter noted the high number of health care workers who initially refused to get vaccinated. He asked what the number is today.

Neither Inslee nor Deputy Secretary of Health Lacy Fehrenbach were interested in spending much time answering that question. Instead, they both pivoted to the importance of communities getting vaccinated.

Inslee first implied you don’t have an individual right to get vaccinated, arguing that the decision puts others at risk.

“I’ve talked to folks who say, ‘this is an individual right if I want to run the risk of dying on an innervator [sic] after being sick for a month …,'” Inslee said, stumbling through a conversation he never really had, confusing an “innervator” for an “incubator” (I presume). “… The problem with that is you’re making a risk for everybody around you when you don’t get vaccinated.”

This is a disingenuous interpretation of the risk, of course. If the people around you are vaccinated, there’s a statistically insignificant risk of infection. And if you’re not vaccinated because you had COVID and currently have antibodies, you’re not a meaningful risk either.

But then he went off the deep end.

“Because you are a bioreactor facility generating virus and spreading it around, including to kids who can’t get vaccinated. I want to reiterate that. If you’re a 50-year-old man who, you know, voted for Donald Trump and didn’t think COVID was a problem and you don’t get vaccinated right now, you’re a risk to every kid in your city because you could be spreading the virus to a 10-year-old who can’t get eligible for the vaccine right now,” Inslee said. “Now some of us think that’s not responsible, and if that’s judgmental, so be it.”

It’s not so much that Inslee is being too harsh in his judgment. It’s that his comments do the exact opposite of what they are supposed to do.

Inslee’s toxic, partisan messaging is odious

Inslee doesn’t know that it is Trump voters who are not getting vaccinated. But his office defends the insipid comments anyway.

“We can be open to suggestions for additional metaphors related to how the virus damages the human body, which is what the governor was saying,” spokesperson Mike Faulk emailed the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “The governor has not said that everyone who isn’t vaccinated is a Trump supporter. He has said a disproportionate number of Trump supporters are not getting vaccinated, and that is clearly true.”

That’s not quite what he said, but the governor’s office points to counties with low vaccination rates that had a high turnout for Trump as proof.

As Inslee’s office knows, that’s not really proof. If that’s the case, maybe Inslee should call out the 40% of 18-34-year-olds unvaccinated in blue King County. Inslee doesn’t offer his judgmental scorn to the 26-year-old Joe Biden supporter.

Perhaps Inslee could look in the mirror and see if he played a role in vaccine hesitancy. After Biden and Kamala Harris indicated the vaccine could be unsafe because Trump was involved, Inslee announced a group of “independent” doctors to review the vaccine data. Inslee and other Democrats politicized the vaccine.

Inslee chooses to frame his criticism to attack Trump and conservatives when he could have just as easily called out liberals. Or, perhaps, not call people out based on ideology at all. But partisan hacks tend to dive into the dumpster with this odious strategy. The only time Inslee can feel morally superior is when he’s attacking the people he thinks are low-IQ rubes because they support Trump. Given Inslee can barely get through a press conference without misspeaking two dozen times, perhaps he shouldn’t think so highly of himself.

Shaming won’t work

I think people who want the vaccine should get it in consultation with their doctors. That’s what I did. I think teens and young adults should be more cautious given the serious side effects that are possible, given how low a risk there is for that demographic. Still, consult a doctor.

What doesn’t work in the goal of getting more shots in arms? Targeting people for who they voted for. If you believe the data suggests that Trump voters are vaccine-hesitant, perhaps you shouldn’t call them a “bioreactor facility?” Maybe you shouldn’t claim they’re selfish and killing people?

Perhaps you should address their valid concerns. After all, when then-candidates Biden and Harris implied the vaccine was dangerous because Trump was involved, partisans like Inslee set up “independent” committees to review the data to see if they were safe. They made this political while complaining that COVID mitigation shouldn’t be.

Rotten messaging

Too many Democrat politicians and public health officials downplayed the risks of the vaccines. They exist, and they are serious. They are also rare. But pretending they don’t exist and attacking people who discuss the risks as responsible people should only make folks more hesitant and suspicious. Conservatives, generally speaking, are more hesitant to accept government control of our lives.

While censoring content, pretending it’s “misinformation” to discuss risks accurately, Inslee and others claimed they’d never mandate the vaccine. But then they mandated the vaccine — both literally when it comes to public colleges and effectively when putting the onus on businesses to check vaccine passports.

Inslee refuses to consider why a small percentage of people aren’t getting vaccinated and shaping a message that reaches them. He’s too busy pretending he’s morally superior to Trump voters. Only, if he believes not getting vaccinated will kill people, then he’s the one responsible for the deaths, not the vaccine-hesitant Washingtonians he refuses to speak respectfully to.

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