House Republicans complain Biden's door-to-door vaccine outreach is 'about power'

House Republicans are livid over Biden administration measures aimed at helping Americans get COVID vaccines and are suggesting they amount to tyranny.

On Tuesday, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene made headlines for suggesting that the administration’s use of door-to-door outreach to encourage people to voluntarily get immunized against the coronavirus was comparable to Nazi “brownshirts.”

“People have a choice, they don’t need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations,” she tweeted. “You can’t force people to be part of the human experiment.” She also claimed she was qualified to offer health advice, tweeting:

As a former gym owner, I’ve helped countless people lose weight, gain strength, and be healthy again. The number 1 risk factor for death from #COVID19 is OBESITY, at nearly 80%! … So when Biden’s vaccine police show up at your door to ask you medical questions that invade your HIPAA rights and try to force you take a NON-FDA approved vaccine say this: I’m taking advice from MTG! I’m meal prepping and working out to protect my health from covid.

But it is not just Greene likening a public health campaign to dangerous government oppression.

“Big red flags anytime the federal government is ‘going door to door,'” warned Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX).

“Wait a minute. So the Trump administration can’t even ask who is a US citizen – while doing the census – but the Biden administration can go door to door to know who isn’t vaccinated? This might just be about power to some people…” tweeted Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH).

“Right. Door-to-door by feds only really contemplated in Constitution for the census… and to protect our rights, eg 3rd & 4th Amendments…” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who also shared an image of the Texas “Come and take it” banner, redesigned with a picture of a hypodermic needle and the defiant phrase “Come and inject it.”

“How about don’t knock on my door. You’re not my parents. You’re the government,” scolded Texas Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw. “Make the vaccine available, and let people be free to choose. Why is that concept so hard for the left?”

“Door to door to vaccinate Americans this year… door to door to confiscate guns next year?” tweeted Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), adding, “The government now wants to go door-to-door to convince you to get an ‘optional’ vaccine.”

“It’s NONE of the governments business knowing who has or hasn’t been vaccinated,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ). He also tweeted, “In 2021, the nine most terrifying words in the English language: ‘I’m from the government, have you been vaccinated yet?'”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) tweeted, “A lot of people have big government antibodies. Don’t knock on those doors.”

Biden has never suggested any effort to coerce people to get vaccinated against their will. In remarks on Tuesday, he said, “We are continuing to wind down the mass vaccination sites that did so much in the spring to rapidly vaccinate those eager to get their first shot — and their second shot, for that matter, if they needed a second.

“Now we need to go to community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, and oftentimes, door to door — literally knocking on doors — to get help to the remaining people protected from the virus. Look, equity, equality — it remains at the heart of our responsibility of ensuring that communities that are the hardest hit by the virus have the information and the access to get vaccinated.”

Contrary to GOP lawmakers’ accusations, this is nothing sinister or new.

Since May, the administration has been utilizing what the Department of Health and Human Services calls its COVID-19 “community corps” to provide vaccination options for Americans. In cities such as Detroit, New Orleans, and Philadelphia, these teams have knocked on doors to explain how the shots work, help people arrange to get them, and even sometimes vaccinate people at home.

The latest attacks on the program come as some Republicans in Congress have been discouraging people from getting vaccinated at all.

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin hosted a news conference on June 28 to warn against side effects of the coronavirus vaccines. Massie tweeted on Saturday, “I’ve been contacted by members of our voluntary military who say they will quit if the COVID vaccine is mandated. I introduced HR 3860 to prohibit any mandatory requirement that a member of the Armed Forces receive a vaccination against COVID-19. It now has 24 sponsors.”

Many have downplayed the severity of the threat of the pandemic. Greene tweeted on Monday, “No one cares about the Delta Variant or any other variant. They are over covid & there is no amount of fear based screaming from the media that will ever force Americans to shut down again.”

As the Delta variant is becoming dominant across the country, GOP-leaning areas, where far fewer people are opting to get vaccinated, are seeing a spike in new coronavirus cases. Democratic-leaning areas with high vaccination rates are seeing much lower numbers of new infections.

According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Wednesday, 93% of Democrats say they have already been vaccinated against COVID-19 or plan to be, while just 49% of Republicans do.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.