It’s awkward when these things happen.

The political establishment had been gearing up for vaccine mandates only to have the CDC suggest that being vaccinated wasn’t going to stop infections. 

“What If Vaccines Don’t Really Stop the Virus From Spreading?” a New York Magazine article asks.

Conservatives are focusing on the CDC’s latest position (if you don’t like a CDC position, much like a Fauci talking point or mountain weather, just wait a few minutes) by attacking its dubious origins out of opposition to mask mandates. That’s a legitimate point. 

But NYM’s question dismantles the collectivist case for vaccines turning them into a personal health care decision as they should have always been.

If vaccines don’t stop the virus from spreading, there’s not much of an argument left for the collective vaccination impulse because individual decisions no longer affect others. 

At that point the only remaining argument involves health care costs and unlike the Brits, Americans may not be quite as ready to adopt the logic of socialized medicine under which the NHS kills disabled babies and the elderly because everyone’s carrying the cost.

The narrative can change at any minute. And probably will. But a reality in which people make their own decisions and carry their own consequences is a kind of ideal libertarian universe.

Is the same cultural and political system that was rolling out a hate campaign between “vaccinated America” and “unvaccinated America” in the words of some media headline writers really to pull back? 

Don’t count on it.

If you want to understand the poisonous state of race relations in America, a good place to start might be the incredible spectacle of how the Left in less than a year divided the country and pitted us against each other over an issue that didn’t exist two years ago.