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Left-wing media outlets broadcasted the findings, which ran in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association. “Republican deaths in Florida, Ohio linked to COVID vaccine politics,” axios wrote. chris hayes of MSNBs claimed the study showed that “a bunch of people with big platforms tried to get their audiences killed."

But the facts suggest that the apparent connection between party affiliation and death may result from hidden epidemiological factors. At the least, it undoes any effort to suggest that young or middle-aged Republicans suffered from being unvaccinated.

To conduct the study, the researchers matched death records with party registrations or voting records in Florida and Ohio. They looked at deaths during Covid before and after May 1, 2021, when vaccines were widely available to anyone who wanted them. Before then, Republicans and democrats in the 2 states died at roughly equal rates, they found. But afterwards, Republicans died significantly more frequently in Ohio (though the gap was much smaller in Florida, a puzzling finding though not the truly problematic issue).

Halfway through the Results section, are these stunning sentences: "The analyses stratified by age showed that Republican voters had significantly higher excess death rates compared with Democratic voters for 2 of the 4 age groups in the study, the differences for the age group 25 to 64 years were not significant. democratic voters had significantly higher excess death rates compared with Republican voters for the age group 65 to 74 years."

 Yes, you read that right. The extra Republican deaths only occurred in people over 75. For those under 75, the authors actually found Republicans were less likely to die of Covid than democrats. And the largest party gap of all - the gap that drove most of the overall study’s finding - came from the most elderly people, those 85 and over. If old old Republicans died, how come younger old Republicans didn’t? If the vaccine was protecting the democrats who got it but the Republicans who did not, why were younger Republicans not at high risk too? This question is especially pertinent since people over 85 are less likely to have significant choice in whether they are vaccinated or to refuse the vaccine for political reasons. The gap by party affiliation should have been larger, not smaller, in younger people.

Deep in the paper’s appendix is another puzzling finding. The graph below shows excess deaths by party affiliation in Ohio - the state which did have a gap. Look closely, and you will see that the difference really only becomes notable in August 2021, and then continues to widen through the winter. But the original two-shot regimen had its peak effectiveness for the elderly people who received it first from January through July - when there is no notable difference in deaths by party. The timing is striking, by demonizing younger Republicans who did NOT need the Covid jab at all, Biden may have discouraged more elderly Republicans who might, temporarily at best, have benefited from a 3rd shot.

The left-wing had faith in the Covid vaccines, and the process that led to their emergency authorization.  They didn’t entirely understand it, but they believed in it. They believed they could trust drug companies to tell the truth about them. They believed the Food & Drug Administration and the CDC would provide a meaningful check on the companies, too.

And they did NOT want to hear anyone say otherwise, especially if those objections were grounded in data. They didn’t mind hearing bizarre, conspiratorial theories like the one that mRNAs make people magnetic, because they liked believing that anyone who had questions must be a fool. For a while they were content to rely on mockery and social ostracism to shut the nonbelievers up. But when those measures failed, and push came to shove in the summer of 2021, the left-wing media, academic, and political elites made clear that they didn’t give a damn about the 1st Amendment right to speak. They still don’t. They haven’t even acknowledged black-and-white evidence presented of the White House’s censorship efforts.

At this point the left-wing would rather forget about the mRNAs. Everyone knows the vaccines didn’t work. They didn’t stop Covid, and they probably didn’t even make a meaningful difference to its trajectory. It mutated to become more transmissible and less virulent, as viruses do, and everyone wound up getting it anyway.