County Commissioners from Trump Country: Trust God, not doctors
"You are just going to have to ask God and pray for wisdom. You can't trust the politicians. You can't trust the doctors, you certainly can't trust the CDC or any World Health Organization."
Josephine County Commissioner Darin Fowler, as quoted by Grants Pass' The Daily Courier
Josephine County is Trump country. The county supported Trump 31,800 to 18,500. This week only 57.4% of Josephine County adults are vaccinated for COVID, well behind the statewide average. The Daily Courier, one of the sources for the quotations in this post, did an on-line survey of its readers regarding vaccine mandates. It was cited by the commissioners as justification for opposing vaccination mandates for employees involved in health care. The poll showed 75% of respondents opposed these mandates.
The Josephine County commissioners have lobbied aggressively in opposition to the national and state requirements regarding vaccination and masking. They wrote a letter to Oregon Governor Kate Brown saying, "Your vaccine mandate is extremely unpopular for a reason." They said the mandate would cause "dramatic harm" because many employees will quit their jobs rather than be vaccinated. Commissioner DeYoung said, "We plan on keeping our employees." Because the county jail has a health care clinic and because the county juvenile detention center provides education, almost one third of county employees would be subject to the vaccination mandate.
"People in America still have freedom to choose, Commissioner Fowler said. "I am shocked that people are willing to give that up for the good of society. That sounds very communistic, very socialistic."
Fowler said that "All the status [sic] about whether a person vaccinated died or one that was unvaccinated died, these are all just statistics. Remember the old saying that liars use statistics and statistics are for liars, or something like that." .
Local hospitals' ICU units have been overwhelmed with COVID cases, coming almost exclusively from the non-vaccinated segment of the residents of the two-county region that includes my home in Medford. The Jackson County commissioners have joined Josephine County in letters of protest to Governor Brown. Jackson County commissioner Colleen Roberts expressed doubts that deaths attributed to COVID are really from COVID. Victims were old, overweight, or ill from something else, and their deaths should be attributed to the co-morbidities, not to COVID, she said.
My farm is in "farm county," i.e. a rural part of the Jackson-Josephine County region. My conversations with people here--done outdoors and at a distance of a few feet--make unsurprising these comments by the commissioners. Their words reflect the point of view of a significant segment of the population. I know from experience that County Commissioners hear the public mood directly. Commissioners consider policy and then implement that policy, so they are exposed as the decision-maker. The buck really does stop there.
The people who are most adamant and outspoken about a policy are people in opposition to something. Those discontented people tend to have strong, clear opinions. The people who are generally content lack that intensity. It would misread rural people to think they are selfish and inconsiderate. They are as likely to "love thy neighbor" as people in town. Readers should not take Commissioner Fowler's indignation at being required to do something for the "good of society" as indication that the people who think like him litter, steal library books, cheat on their taxes, or otherwise act any worse to neighbors than does anyone else. The issue got defined by political leadership and conservative media as a matter of freedom, not as patriotism at a time of war. Trump early-on decided to downplay COVID, hope it faded away, and carry on. It was a guess and he guessed incorrectly. Trump's messaging set the tone.
The American public's response to COVID is a vivid example of the power of leadership in defining an issue. Democrats are understood to be tyrants, pushing a burdensome solution to a minor problem. This fits the observation and experience of many Americans. The 700,000 deaths in a country of 320 million people means just one death in 460 people, with those deaths concentrated among people who were elderly and sick. Their deaths are not a surprise.
Some of my readers will consider the comments by commissioners to be astonishingly ignorant and irresponsible. I agree. I am embarrassed for them, and disappointed in them, but I understand their political environment. They aren't apologizing. They are in a large body of people less worried about COVID than about government overreach. They are not out of sync with the loudest and most persistent voices in their communities, and very possibly a majority of the voters.